Mustafa Tülü

Facilitator and Tech Support

Besides facilitating, I do the technical side of the Compassion Course, such as the website, preparation and delivery of e-mails.

I come from a technical background. Since 1986, I have been analyzing people's business needs and implementing software/systems that could meet these needs. Meanwhile, I worked with information, both humans and computers. I still earn my daily life with this knowledge. Besides my computer engineering degree, I am also a PMP certified project manager. (So many titles...) While I was working at a university, I taught project management courses at the undergraduate level, I volunteered at PMI Turkey, and most recently I was the president of the association in 2019.

At every stage of my life, understanding people and myself has been a prerequisite for doing my job.

I met nonviolent communication in 2015, received an introductory training in 2017 and annual training in 2017-2018. We were paired with Nihal as empathy buddies in that training. We had a friendship that deepened over time. We witnessed each other's various forms.

I received trainings from various trainers (to the best of my time and financial means). I had the distinct chance to learn from late  Robert Gonzales in his  EURO LIFE program and online sessions throughout COVID pandemic. Nowadays I am following Yoram Mozenson's "Teaching and Embodying NVC Year Course".

The Compassion Course became a resource that I noticed right after the annual training. I joined immediately, and was very impressed by its content and setting. Nihal and I had a longing to deepen in non-violent communication, and we decided to work on Tarabya Practice Evenings, inspired by the course. Since then we have gone through the course once by ourselves, and have been repeating and sharing the course for the last two years.

Nihal Artar

Facilitator and Translator

I studied Communication Sciences at university. After working for TRT television for a while, I retired from the logistics industry. I am interested in all aspects of communication, be it symbolic, behavioral, verbal and cognitive. My vulnerability and pursuit of my needs for acceptance, belonging and integrity introduced me to Nonviolent Communication. In addition to Nonviolent Communication, Astrology, Family Constellation, Empathic Coaching are among my works.

My interest in Nonviolent Communication started by participating in circles opened by my friends between 2015-17. In 2017, I received annual training under the leadership of Vivet Alevi. Afterwards, I attended the trainings and circles of many of my friends who were interested in nonviolent communication, became trainer and progressed towards being a trainer. I submitted a few circles by myself. In 2017-18, after a 2-day workshop given by Yoram Mozenson in Turkey, with the excitement of following him, I participated in his annual program titled "Embodying and Teaching Nonviolent Communication on the Road to Become a Trainer" opened in the Netherlands. I attended the workshops of Liv Larsson, Sarah Peyton and Stephan Seibert taken place in Turkey.

During our yearly training, we were paired with Mustafa Tülü as empathy buddies. Since then, we have been doing joint projects from time to time, attending some retreats in the same areas despite NVC. Compassion Course is our most basic and continuous project in the field of Nonviolent Communication. Introducing the Compassion Course into our lives started with our desire practice the course together. This desire led us to meet Thom Bond. They responded to our offer to share our Turkish translations with them free of charge, by making us the organizer of the Turkish Compassion Course. Our cooperation has grown with mutual heartfelt exchange. I continue walking through this path that opens before me with connection, trusting in life and self-expression created by Nonviolent Communication. I am grateful to Nonviolent Communication for such an opportunity to bring this language of peace, which develops on the basis of positive thinking, into my life. It continues to enlarge and empower my way day by day.

I attended the Compassion Course 3 times. In addition to organizing the course in Turkish with Mustafa, we also organize Compassion Course Practice meetings as an appendix to the course. We cascade the exercises of the Compassion Course and do it together with the group. Our Compassion Course learning community is growing day by day with course and practice meetups. This year, we will open the 3rd one for Turkish-speaking people around the world.

Leticia Penteado

Born in 1981 and Graduated in Law and Education, with a postgraduate degree in Transpersonal Psychology. Since 2010, Leticia has been facilitating conversations — within individuals, between individuals or between individuals and the collectivities to which they belong — using what she has learned from her own life experience as a non-monogamous, pansexual cisgender woman of asian descent and mother of two, as well as what she gathered from her extensive training in translation, Nonviolent Communication, Mediation, Restorative Justice, Transpersonal Therapy, Systemic Constellations and Sociocracy, among other paths to connection and deeper consciousness. She is also an anarchist, a feminist and a writer. Co-founder of Conexão Empática, Festival da Empatia and Comunidade Colar (a community for the practice of empathy and NVC) and co-author of the Applied NVC method. Leticia has been enthusiastically following the Compassion Course since 2016 - first as a student, then as a group facilitator and, finally, as part of the Portuguese team, mainly as lead translator - rejoicing in the opportunity of extending the access to this beautiful resource to Portuguese speakers. She’s also internationally known for her chocolate candy and her very snug hugs.

Contact info: conexaoempatica@gmail.com

Diana de Hollanda

Author of the poetry book Dois que não amor (7 Letras, 2007), and the novel O Homem dos Patos (7 Letras, 2013; awarded a grant by the Petrobras Cultural program). Certified Meditation, Compassion and Mindfulness Teacher by the MMTCP (University of California, Berkeley), as well as by the Neurocognitive model by BMT (Mindfulness Centre of Excellence, London). Since 2010 she has been researching and practicing Mindfulness and Insight Meditation as writing, which was the subject of her master thesis Por uma literatura da plena atenção, in 2012, as well as her doctorate thesis Escrita da atenção plena: Escrita do Insight, in 2019. She lived in meditative self-retreat, isolated in the mountains, undergoing distance training by the german monk Bhante Pyiadhammo, in the Flow program, for 11 months (from April/2012 to March/2013). More recently, in 2019, she was in an immersion in the Sumedharama Monastery, in Portugal, during her doctorate in the University of Lisbon, which inspired her to write the novel Diário do Mosteiro. Diana has been following the Compassion Course since the 2017's edition; she is a facilitator and a member of the Portuguese team, mainly proofreading and preparing the texts (she’s the reason the messages in Portuguese look just as good as the ones in English). She is also cofounder of the community Comunidade Enraíza, which combines Mindfulness, Meditation and NVC practices. Widely known in her social media for mixing the mud with the lotus & the lotus with the mud, or promoting the dance between Dharma and the Noir genre.

Contact info: escritadoinsight@gmail.com

Igor Savitsky

Igor Savitsky is a white cisgendered male born in 1982. Father of two, he works as a federal attorney and in sharing what he has learned from Nonviolent Communication, Systemic Constellations and Transpersonal Psychology, as well as his experiences with masculinity, ecovillages, circle processes, conflict resolution and restorative justice. Graduated in Law and Computer Engineering, with a postgraduate degree in Transpersonal Psychology. Passionate about therapies, technology and History, he enjoys swimming and sails whenever he can. Co-founder of Conexão Empática and co-author of the Applied NVC Method. Igor took the Compassion Course for the first time in 2019, an experience which meant a leap in his compassive practices, and collaborating with the Portuguese team as “the tech guy”, among other things, fills his heart with gratitude for the opportunity to spread the gift of compassion to a larger community. Renowned for his wide smile and his lovely lame jokes.

Contact info: conexaoempatica@gmail.com

Agnes Kowalski

Editor and proofreader

She came across Marshall B. Rosenberg’s NVC for the first time when her son was two and was becoming more and more autonomous. Together with his autonomy, their family life was becoming more and more stormy. After she came across M. Rosenberg’s idea, nothing was the same. Relationships which were important to her become more profound and colorful. After eight years this process is still in progress. For her Nonviolent Communication is feeling deep from the heart, being in connection with the source of life. From this connection, comes action, making conscious choices, enriching one’s own life and the surrounding world.

Agnes is very happy that she can contribute to the Polish edition of the course with her editing and proofreading skills. In this way, she can express her gratitude for the guiding she received and participate in dissemination of the idea of Nonviolent Communication in Poland. She is able to connect people who try to understand the other, to look beyond the surface of human actions, who also want to accompany children with an openness, curiosity, acceptance and tenderness.  She hopes that her children will be able to enter adult life as people who have a beautiful interior, they are conscious of what is around them and at the same time they are connected with what is alive in them.

Contact: agnes.kowalski@gmail.com

Adam Kusio

Coordinator of the Polish edition of the Polish Compassion Course

He has 18 years of corporate experience and is in a moment of life turn. He is a trainer, mediator and facilitator of Restorative Circles. He combines all these roles in the spirit of NVC (Nonviolent Communication) created by Marshall Rosenberg.

He facilitates Restorative Circles, practice groups and individual sessions. He supports developing organizations which allow their employees to be engaged and responsible.

A husband and dad of two daughters, he is constantly looking for ways to build constructive relationships based on voluntariness.

Fascinated with the clarity and precision of presenting key notions of the nonviolence and practical character of the course, he organized the Polish edition in 2019.  He led three year-long practice groups around the course material.

Contact: kontakt@praktykawspolczucia.pl

Magdalena Macińska

Translator

She is a translator and interpreter of English and French into Polish. When working on a text, she is very sensitive to the beauty of the Polish language and attentive to the spirit of the original. In 2019, Marie Miyashiro’s book “The Empathy Factor” was published in her translation.

Through Nonviolent Communication she got fascinated with the practice of empathy and deep listening. She completed the NVC mediation immersion training, foundations of dialogue by the Nansen Centre and Empathy Circles facilitation. She dreams of a world where each person can be supported in conflict.

She joined the team translating the course material into Polish, having interpreted the workshop of Dominic Barter in Poland. It has been an experience of rich collaboration.

Currently, she is part of the project, the name of which is inspired by the title of Marshall Rosenberg’s book “What You Say Can Change the World”. The aim is to allow people in Poland to listen to each other around the difficult social topics. The structure of dialogue circles and empathy circles enables the participants to see their humanity amid differences.  

In her free time she travels, writes and tells stories. Wherever she is, she cannot imagine her day without reading a poem.  

Contact: m.macinska@interia.pl

Sara Nuytemans

Translator, trainer, supervisor and coordinator of the Dutch course Mededogen Als Weg.

I remember the moment in 2012 when I red Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and a lot of things fell into place for me. I learned the 'language' that brought and still brings me more awareness and connection with life. In 2016 I participated in Thom Bond's online course that has deepened my practice of the 'language', partly due to the many examples he has put in his course. I wanted to translate this course and share it with the Dutch-speaking world. The online course Mededogen Als Weg is the result. In addition to this online course, I have also give offline basic NVC courses for associations, companies and individuals for several years now. I also help people break patterns with hypnotherapy.