Access Info Team

Access Info's is governed by an Executive Board, or Junta Directiva in Spanish, which is constituted in accordance with Spanish law. It consists of the persons who founded Access Info in 2006 and continue to dedicate their time pro bono to overseeing its functioning. The substantive and strategic guidance comes from the Advisory Board, composed of experts in access to information and related issues from across Europe.

The team working on projects day-to-day consists of the staff, our much-appreciated volunteers as well as certain regular service providers.

Here you can see who's who and if you click on the names you get a fuller bio of each person.

Executive Board

President: Daniel Bezares Susín. Daniel is an economist specialising in Corporate Social Responsibility, Human Rights, NGO management, transparency and the right of access to information. He works as a consultant on these themes with the organization Sustentia, and is a member of the Board of the Spanish Humnan Rights Association (APDHE). A lecturer in Corporate Social Responsibility for Spain's Open University (UNED), Daniel has a degree in Economics, Business, International Trade and Development from Madrid's Complutense University and an MBA from Madrid's Instituto de Empresa.

Vice-president: Helen Darbishire
Secretary: Juan José Cordero Sanz
Treasurer: Carlos Cordero Sanz

International Advisory Board

The following persons helped create Access Info by giving advice, guidance and moral support and continue as members of the international advisory board:

David Goldberg, Academic and activist working on issues of freedom of expression and freedom of information
Gergana Jouleva, Executive Director, Access to Information Programme, Bulgaria
Maeve McDonagh, Professor of Law, University College Cork, Ireland.
Ulf Öberg, Öberg & Associés AB & Lecturer Faculty of Law, Stockholm University.
Ivan Szekely, Counsellor of Open Society Archives, Hungary.

Access Info Team

Access Info's multi-disciplinary, multi-lingual team comprises full and part-time staff members, consultants, service providers, and volunteers.

Helen Darbishire, Executive Director

Lydia Medland, Researcher & Project Coordinator

Victoria Anderica Cafferena, Project Coordinator

David Pardo Gutierrez, Project Coordinator

Pamela Bartlett Quintanilla, Research Assistant

Consultants

Sebastian Flores, Web Designer

Jan Jaeger, Software Developer

Ylber Mehmedaliu, Designer

Mentor Paracada, Web Designer

Sandrine Ananie, English-French Specialist Translator

Volunteers

Access Info volunteers are professionals working or studying in fields related to access to information, they give their time and we are grateful for their assistance. Access Info has a in-house seminar programme which it offers to volunteers to give them an on-the-job learning experience. For more information on becoming a volunteer click here.

Ainhoa Alzola, Economist, Volunteer Researcher, and avid sumbitter of information requests

Leila Bouchet, Development Cooperation Specialist, Volunteer Researcher in Aid Transparency

Olga Berrios, Journalist and Volunteer Campaigner for the Coalición pro Acceso

Peter Thomas, Politics and International Studies Student, Volunteer Researcher

Xela Avello Ares, Economist and Volunteer Researcher on Budget Transparency

Zara Rahman, Student of French, Spanish and Arabic, Volunteer researcher and translator

STAFF BIOS

Helen Darbishire, Executive Director

Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe, is a human rights professional specializing in access to information, freedom of expression and media freedom. Helen has extensive experience of working to promote the right to information globally, including by assisting drafting and promoting implementation of access to information laws in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. She is a founder and current chair of the Freedom of Information Advocates Network.

Helen's human rights experience spans 20 years. She has worked with Article 19 (London and Paris, 1989-1998) and the Open Society Institute (Budapest and New York, 1999-2005) and as a consultant with inter-governmental organizations (including UNESCO, Council of Europe, OSCE, and World Bank). She has published and lectured widely on freedom of expression, access to information, human rights and democratization. She holds a degree in History and Philosophy of Science (Psychology and Philosophy) from the University of Durham, UK. She speaks English, French and Spanish. Helen is based in Madrid, Spain.

Lydia Medland - Researcher & Project Coordinator

Lydia Medland has been with Access Info Europe since September 2008. She works as a researcher and coordinates the Freedom of Information Advocates Network. With Access Info she has researched and published two reports, on aid transparency and the Police; Not Available! Not Accesible! and, The Right to Know: Europe and the Police. Lydia has been involved in Access Info's work with the Coalición pro Acceso, the campaign for an Access to Information law in Spain. She has also developed campaign and outreach strategies for several of Access Info's projects such as Access Info's project for journalists and our work on civil liberties. In 2010 Lydia is continuing to work on these projects which use access to information to defend other human rights. This year she is also coordinating Access Info’s collaborative project in the Western Balkans, Turn On The Light, which uses Access to Information as a tool for anti-corruption.

Based in Madrid, Lydia has also worked on other civil society campaigns. She coordinated the Spanish premiere of the hit film about climate change, The Age of Stupid, an event that took place in 69 countries worldwide. Lydia has a first class degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex in the UK, and speaks a basic level of Japanese having studied at ICU University in Japan for 3 months. Lydia works in English and Spanish.

Victoria Anderica, Project Coordinator

Victoria Anderica joined Access info Europe (based in Madrid) in January 2010. She coordinates two global transparency monitoring projects, a monitoring on budget transparency ‘The 6 Question Campaign’ and a monitoring on anti corruption “The Tell Us What You’ve Done Initiative”. Victoria has conducted analysis of the legal framework for the right of access to information in a number of European countries as part of Access Info’s work on the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents. Victoria also works on the Open Government Data Project under which Access Info is investigating the legal and practical dimensions of new initiatives to publish and re-use government information.

Vicky has Law degree from the Carlos III University (Madrid) where she specialised in European Law and an MA in Euroculture from the Deusto University (San Sebastian) and Georg-August University (Göttingen, Germany). During the MA she spent time studying in Germany, Mexico, Poland and Spain. Vicky speaks Spanish, English, French and some German.

David Pardo Gutiérrez, Project Coordinator

David Pardo Gutiérrez joined the Access Info Europe team in February 2010. Based in Madrid, David is currently coordinating the Open Cyprus Coalition, an EU-funded project to promote the right of access to information and public participation in Cyprus island-wide. This project was developed in partnership with the Cyprus EU Association (KAB) and the Socio-Political Studies Institute (IKME). David is responsible for providing comparative research on the right to access information. David brings to the project expertise on intercultural strategies of communication and conflict resolution. He will be responsible for comparative research on the right of access to information and on public participation in decision-making. David is also involved in the Access for Rights Project, a collaboration between Access Info Europe and Statewatch. This initiative will monitor the negative effects that counter-terrorism measures are having on human rights and civil liberties across Europe.

David studied Environmental Sciences in Spain and has a Bachelor of Arts in Globalization & Development from the University of Wales as well as a Masters in Political Sciences from the the University of Manchester, specializing in political theory. He has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. While living in the UK he has was involved as a campaign coordinator with Amnesty International in Wales. He works in English and Spanish.

Pam Bartlett Quintanilla, Research Assistant

Pam Bartlett Quintanilla joined the Access Info team in February 2010 as a part-time intern, whilst she was finishing her postgraduate degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) in Inequality, Cooperation and Development (Desigualdad, Cooperación y Desarrollo). Now part of the Access Info staff, Pam is currently working on the promotion of an access to information law in Spain by coordinating the 100 Question Campaign, and also works on EU Transparency, filing access to information requests and analysing the subsequent behaviour of EU Member States and Institutions.

Pam holds a degree in Politics and Sociology (MA Hons) from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland (UK), and spent a year studying in Grenoble, France. She then came to Madrid to study her postgraduate degree, where she is now based. Pam works in English, Spanish and French and is working on learning Arabic.

Sebastian Flores, Web Designer

Sebastian Flores is a graphic designer and web designer who runs his own web design company based in Madrid (www.sebastianflores.com). Sebastian works with Access Info on its main website and also built and maintains the Freedom of Information Advocates website, www.foiadvocates.net. Sebastian also does graphic design and layout and

Originally from Ecuador, Sebastian's work includes development of the website www.embajadawiki.com with the company Just Landed which provides advice for foreigners who move to new countries.

Ylber Mehmedaliu, Graphic Designer

Ylber Mehmedaliu is a graphic designer and film director from Prishtina, Kosova. He graduated from the Art Academy of the University of Prishtina and also studied History of Art in Norway (Oslo University). He works as a documentary film director, focusing on social, political and human rights issues and his work include the award-winning documnetary "Shuffle: Politics, Bullshit and Rock'n'Roll". He also directed the collection of short fiction films "Grace". He has travelled across Europe and to America, China, Mongolia, and Russia, collecting film material. Ylber has worked in human rights organizations since 1997. Ylber speaks Albanian, English, and Serbo-Croatian.

Ylber designed the Access Info website, as well as the Recognise My Right, Aid Transparency, and FOI Advocates websites. He has designed all our logos (Access Info, FOIAnet, Right2INFO, Toolkits) and other visual and graphic materials. Ylber is based in Prishtina and Madrid.

Mentor Paçarada, Web Designer

Mentor Paçarada is a web designer and is founder and Creative Director of Frakton (www.frakton.com), an interactive technology firm based in Prishtina. Mentor works to use the power of technology to produce useful solutions for everyday problems. Mentor built the Recognise My Right website for Access Info.

Mentor has won numerous awards for his web design work, including Plastic Pilot Awards, Pixel Eye Germany , Design Firm and Canadian Web Awards.

Sandrine Ananie, English-French Specialist Translator

Sandrine is a translator from English to French. Working with Access Info she has specialised in translations related to access to information, international law, cooperation and development, and related fields.