We are our Volunteers

I'm the guy you'll randomly spot in the most remote and unexpected places — gloved up, filthy, scratched all over, smudged with soot, either hauling huge loads of trash or hugging turtles, toads, geckos and any other animal you can imagine. All with a smile that rarely fades, because something I started out of anger has grown into a movement that has changed, above all, me.

I studied Product & Systems Design Engineering (so I know exactly how that plastic bottle I just pulled out of the forest was designed) and worked for years as a Creative Director (so I can see art and vision where others see an illegal dump).

Day to day I coordinate tens of thousands of volunteers across Greece and Cyprus, visit schools and try to convince people that our neighbourhood starts right outside our door. When the alarm goes off for a natural disaster, I switch hats and go into Crisis Mode with the Wildlife Rescue Network: gloves, boots, mask, helmet, 4x4 — racing into burnt land with the team to save whatever still breathes, often as nature's fastest taxi for dozens of animals among the ashes. Because change takes vision, stubbornness, a good dose of madness and... a strong stomach!

I'm the one keeping the administrative "ship" of our neighbourhood on course. I studied Economics (so I can make sense of our budget) and did a Master's in Rhetoric (so I can explain, in fine and persuasive words, why... the budget ran out).

Every day I wrestle with documents, deadlines and keeping the team organised (there's only one Team…). But I'm definitely not strictly an "office person". When I'm not solving administrative puzzles, you'll find me in the field — smiling, or not — lifting 100-litre trash bags almost my own size, proving that administration takes good coordination, good mood and... muscles!

We have a great time here, it shows — and my job is to show it to you!! My extensive studies in cultural management have made me an authority, so I can inform you in a proper, scientific way that in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Viggo Mortensen kicked that helmet and broke two of his toes.

If you catch me in the field, be warned: I'll be acting as your personal paparazzi.

I studied Finance and for more than twenty years worked in a very different professional field, focusing on project management.

Today, as coordinator of the Wildlife Rescue Network, I organise its operations, find the resources it needs to run and build partnerships. Although the work brings me face to face with difficult cases, working with people who share the same purpose, every successful mission and every animal we manage to help give me joy and meaning.

Whether you reach out as a volunteer, partner or supporter, chances are we'll meet!

I'm the one who builds our corporate projects from the first idea to delivery. I studied Sociology (to analyse situations and deeply understand people's needs) and did a Master's in Environmental & Crisis Management (to know how to jump straight into action and handle the unexpected).

I love communication and, being an optimist by nature, I believe that if everyone adds their little stone, we achieve something huge.

In the field my main role is coordination, so everything runs like clockwork. And since my hands are always busy holding the camera I love so much, I always find a moment between the bags and the running to admire the landscape and marvel at nature and all it gives us.