I am 42 years old, married, with two kids (15 and 8) and I live with my family in the city of Cluj Napoca, in the heart of Transylvania.
I work in the field of social inclusion for 17 years, first as a representative of a local grassroots feminist NGO fighting for women's and children's rights, then as deputy state secretary of the National Authority for Promotion and Protection of Child's Rights, and finally as the project manager of the Pata-Cluj project which aims at social inclusion of the most deprived Roma community in Romania (http://patacluj.ro/?lang=en). I have a PhD in Sociology with the thesis entitled "The response of the Romanian child protection system to child abuse and neglect". I have had several collaborations with the Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj Napoca as a researcher in field of child protection and well-being.
I like to work with groups, and have degree of assistant in psychodrama. I also have training in restorative practices. My special interest is how to support persons and communities to feel more power over their life.
The biggest challenge faced in my work until now was to create bridges between institutional and communal interests, between minority and majority cultures and to create space for expressions of all these.
I have relevant experience on how to facilitate inter-institutional collaboration and create relevant methodologies to respond to community needs in an adequate way.
The most relevant experience in this regard was to create and implement a participatory social housing methodology with and for a Roma community which face the most severe deprivation and exclusion in the city of Cluj Napoca, Romania. The task was to select 35 families out of a community of 300 families (approx.. 1500 persons) living in deep poverty and exclusion, as a part of a slum elimination program, in a way that does not impact in a negative way the social cohesion and relationships within the community. 

In this work we integrated the rights based approach with the needs based approach and used a participatory methodology.

I am interested in transferring this innovative approach in other context and cultural environment, and I am curious both of the process and the outcome.

I like to work in team, especially in international context, because I think this kind of cross-fertilization brings added value and new perspectives on the table.

I am a certified trainer and offer training for professionals  in the field of child protection and social inclusion.