About the Friends of EUROCLIO Foundation

Extending, improving and streamlining EUROCLIO’s complex work is always a key target for everyone involved in the organisation, and we are constantly seeking ways to fund new and exciting projects- and find ways to achieve our important aims.

Following the legal changes and governance shift we went through in 2010, the ‘Friends of EUROCLIO’ foundation has been registered. The Friends Foundation will act as a profile and fundraising group to support the work of the EUROCLIO Association. For legal reasons the Friends Foundation will remain separate and independent from the Association and will not use the Association’s resources. Two of the five person Friend’s board will come from the Association- Vasiliki Sakka, the Association’s President and the recently appointed finance expert- Erwin Capitain (both representing the EUROCLIO Association), as well as two former President’s who know the organization well: Dean Smart, and Elbert Roest. One of their first tasks is to find a President from wider society: someone who will be able to use their connections to reach out and publicise our work to new audiences.

The new body’s aim is support EUROCLIO by fundraising. This will be done by the following means:

• Private donors; we will stimulate the present individual members of the Association to move to the Friends Foundation, and also will target on outside private donors, both historians and other private individuals who sympathize with EUROCLIO;
• Charity Funds and so on, who sympathize with the fundamentals of EUROCLIO;
• Multinational companies who look for partnerships in their social responsibility programs;
• Multinational companies or Funds who are aiming for sponsoring cases being part of EUROCLIO’s education programs.

So, help us spread the word, help us reach a lot of friends of EUROCLIO, and help us carry forward the mission to promote the knowledge and study of history, heritage and citizenship education.

Choose now to support the EUROCLIO Mission, and make a Donation to the Friends of EUROCLIO Foundation. You can decide how much you want to donate (in €) on an annual basis.

Friends of EUROCLIO Foundation Board

Erwin Capitain

Present EUROCLIO Association Member, ErwinCapitain (1957) studied business economics and has made his career in the Financial industry. Until 2008 he was partner at Deloitte, one of the Big Four Auditing Firms. Nowadays he runs his own advisory practice, focusing on governance and strategic issues for mid-sized companies and institutes. He serves at several governance bodies of pension funds. Also he is supervisory board member at a hospital, a homecare institute and a housing cooperative. Last but no least he is business economics lector at the Free University. Erwin, an outsider in history teaching, joined the EUROCLIO Association Board in 2010 for his financial expertise and his experience in supervisory boards. He takes part of the Finances and Governance Workgroup, in which the Executive Director, the Treasurer and representatives of the staff monitor finance related management issues.

Sandra Kalniete

European Parliament Member, Sandra Kalniete was born in Siberia in Russia, where her family was deported from Latvia by the Soviet Administration. She is an art historian by profession and became active in Latvia's independence movement in 1988. She was one of the founders of Latvian Popular Front and after Latvia’s regained independence, she worked as a diplomat, becoming Latvia's ambassador to the UN, France and UNESCO. In 2002 she became Foreign Minister and continued this position until she became the first Latvian Commissioner of the European Union. Since 2009 she is Member of the European Parliament. She wrote several books among them a personal family history With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows. She holds a wide variety of national and international awards and decorations.

Dean Smart

Former EUROCLIO Association President, Dean Smart is teacher trainer at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK. He works with postgraduates training to teach History to 11-18+ year olds. His doctorate (2006) relates to the visual representation of ethnic minorities in English History textbooks, and ethnic diversity and multicultural education are amongst his key interests. His publications relate to support for teachers, classroom practice and materials, and he has written for a range of websites including the QCA (English Qualifications and Curriculum Authority,) British Library, the BBC and England's Past for Everyone. He is Secretary of HTEN (the UK's History Teacher Education Network) and a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of History Learning, Teaching and Research. He has worked with EUROCLIO projects as an advisor in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Macedonia, and currently serves as ChiefEditor of the EUROCLIO journal The Bulletin.

Elbert Roest