Ricarda Motschilnig is the new Policy Officer of EAEA. Aura Vuorenrinne takes care of EAEA´s communication.

EAEA has a new team (from left to right): Francesca Operti (Project Assistant), Aura Vuorenrinne (Information Officer, Helsinki), Gina Ebner (Secretary-General), Ricarda Motschilnig (Policy Officer) and Valentina Chanina (Office Manager).

Ricarda Motschilnig - Policy Officer

Ricarda´s study background is in Educational Science that she studied in her home country Austria. During her studies, Ricarda also did research in Ireland.

After studies Ricarda had the opportunity to get to know EAEA as a trainee in the Brussels office a couple of years ago.
- After my traineeship at EAEA, I was glad to have the chance to stay for some time longer as Project Assistant. I was mainly working on the DOLCETA project, she explains.

After a while Ricarda moved to the Netherlands to continue her studies in the field of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Free University of Amsterdam.
- I also spent some research months in Zambia as well as conducted a study on the wider benefits of adult education, Ricarda tells.

Ricarda then worked with DVV-International in Germany, the European Association for University Lifelong Learning (EUCEN) in Spain and the Carinthian folk high schools in Austria as project coordinator in the field of adult literacy and basic education.

After her interesting experiences in various countries, Ricarda is very happy to return to EAEA main office in Brussels as a Policy Officer. Her duties include monitoring the policy making of European institutions as well as writing papers on a range of topic on Adult learning and project coordination.

Aura Vuorenrinne - Information Officer

Aura´s has a strong background in communication. She has a Bachelor Degree in graphic design, gained in Kymenlaakso Univeristy of Applied Arts in her home country Finland. She has worked in page design teams in newspapers, in an advertising agency in Helsinki and seven years as a graphic design freelancer.

After working with design she went back to study:
- I felt that I still wanted to study something theoretical, Aura tells.

Alongside her second Bachelor and Master studies of sociology and communication, she was working mainly in the field of communication. She worked in the University of Turku with web communication, after which she moved to Denmark for six months in 2009.
- I worked as a Communication Assistant in the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), she tells.

In the beginning of the current year Aura returned Copenhagen to work with Internal Communication at World Health Organization (WHO). Last March new duties called in Brussels where she worked in the Legislative Coordination unit of European Parliament´s Directorate-General Internal Policies.
- The experience at the Parliament was very useful. I learned a lot about European decision making system, Aura says.

Aura has now returned home to Finland from Brussels and started to work as EAEA´s new Information Officer. Her duties include communication tasks from practical work, like maintaining the website, to long-term strategic development of EAEA´s communication. EAEA´s communication office is placed in the Finnish Lifelong Learning Foundation (KVS) in Helsinki.