Who we are
Joshua Kimani
Joshua Kimani serves as the General Secretary of the Orthodox Christian Youth Association of Kenya (OCYAK), where he plays a pivotal role in empowering Orthodox Christian youth in Kenya through spiritual, educational, and social development initiatives. Joshua is also at the forefront of IMPACT-ing East Africa which aims to develop IMPACT Clubs across East Africa and eventually Africa. Joshua is a strong Gender Equality advocate. On a daily basis he fights for women and young girls from Early marriages, FGM and Human Rights Violations.
He is a Lawyer by profession and proud Kenyan.
James Mwaura
James Mwaura is the President of the Orthodox Christian Youth Association of Kenya (OCYAK) a Trained Theologian and the Youth representative in the Inter Faith-Ecumenical relations, He is the Communications officer of YISOG (Young Innocent Souls of God) Kenya and a Volunteer at the Empiron Rescue Center for Children.
He is passionate about Children, Youth and Advocacy against Harmful Cultural Practices.
Dana Bates, PhD
Dana moved to an impoverished coal mining region in Romania in 1999. He developed Romania’s first adventure education and ropes course summer camp called Viata (“the Life” in Romanian), which has given around 700 youth a transformative summer camp experience every year and introduced them to the Orthodox Way of life. As a follow-up to the summer camp, Dana developed a service-learning model called IMPACT that, besides teaching all sorts of life-skills, introduces youth to Orthodoxy by living the “liturgy after the Liturgy” which means becoming change-agents in their communities. IMPACT has gone on to become a global best practice and is used in over fifty countries through organizations like World Vision. Dana has worked closely with the Romanian Orthodox Church and plans to share these experiential learning models throughout the world through www.ocmc.org and her partners. Dana converted to Orthodoxy in 2003, and went on to get his PhD at Oxford Centre for Missions Studies on Orthodox theology in dialogue with development studies (causes of poverty and well-being). Dana has two children, Briana Jelsa and Gabriel Matei. Their passions are hiking, mountain-biking, and spending time outdoors.
Maria Neagu Butyka; M.A.
IMPACT was created by Dana in 2002; In 2004 Maria joined the New Horizons team full time to develop and improve IMPACT–and has given the better part of her professional life to IMPACT. She is a tremendous trainer, curriculum writer, grant-writer, and more. IMPACT would not be what, or where, it is without Maria’s astounding leadership.
Andreea Baltaretu
Andreea joined NHF in 2006 and has never looked back. Andreea has worked closely with IMPACT in the context of the Romanian Orthodox Church. She also is a gifted trainer, administrator, and more. She has a degree with the Social Work at the Orthodox Theology Faculty.
Ilie Popescu, M.A.
Ilie has worked with NHF since 2001. He directs and manages all aspects of the Viata adventure camp, and much more.
He is an expert in all aspects of adventure education and experiential learning in general.
