2025 European Pro Bono Week

Ingrid Bellander Todino is Head of the Fundamental Rights Policy unit of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST). Previously, she was member of the cabinet of Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli, and has held Deputy Head of Unit and team leader roles in the areas of gender equality, procedural criminal law and victims’ rights in DG JUST, as well as programme manager for the Daphne Programme on combatting violence against children, young people and women. Before joining the European Commission in 2004, Ingrid worked as legal counsel for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a UN agency based in Rome, and has also practiced EU law in an international law firm in Brussels. She holds a law degree from Uppsala University in Sweden and a post-graduate Master’s degree in EU law from the Institute of European Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Waltraud Heller leads the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s (FRA) work on civic space and human rights defenders. She joined the Agency’s precursor organisation, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), in 2005 as a communication officer, and later became the Agency’s spokesperson. From 2014 until 2022, she coordinated FRA’s civil society network. Starting in 2016 Waltraud developed FRA’s work on civic space, and since 2022 she focuses on civic space, human rights defenders and rule of law issues.

Prior to joining FRA, Waltraud Heller worked as a communicator, among others for a development cooperation NGO, as speechwriter for a European Commissioner, and for the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Waltraud Heller holds a masters degree in social and economic sciences, and a postgraduate degree in European studies from the College of Europe, Bruges.

Atanas Politov is Dentons’ Europe Director of Positive Impact and Pro Bono, based in the firm’s Budapest office. He joined the firm in September 2016 to coordinate Dentons’ pro bono work across continental Europe. Atanas was also heading the Dentons Europe Diversity & Inclusion Committee and the law firm’s ESG program. Before joining Dentons, Atanas was PILnet’s Director for Programs and was responsible for managing PILnet’s pro bono and access to justice efforts globally. Previously, he developed large-scale anti-discrimination and legal aid reform projects in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans and oversaw the development of PILnet’s pro bono efforts in China, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and Poland. Atanas has a Law degree from Sofia University, Bulgaria, and an LLM’02 from Columbia Law School, NYC.

Gina Romero, a national of Colombia, was appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association and took up her functions in April 2024.
Prior to her appointment, Ms. Romero led several initiatives for the promotion and defense of democracy and the rule of law. She is one of the founders and served for nearly 10 years as Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy(Redlad). In this position, she also served as Secretariat of the Civil Society Pillar of the Community of Democracies. In these capacities, she has had direct relations with multiple stakeholders (including governments, civil society, academic, and private sector representatives) in 19 countries in the American Continent, and at least 35 in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Kerttu Willamo works as a Civic Space Project Officer at the European Civic Forum (ECF), a pan-European network of nearly 100 civil society organisations across Europe working to protect civic space, enable civic participation and build civil dialogue for more equality, solidarity and democracy. Kerttu’s background is in human rights advocacy and activist movements. She is coordinating ECF’s work on civic space monitoring and the protection of civic actors and human rights defenders.