Lena Bielska 

Lena Bielska is a certified WenDo trainer who works as a human rights educator with a focus on consent, anti-discrimination, and empowerment. As the founder and president of the HerStory foundation, she cooperates with the Women’s Rights Center in Wroclaw, where she conducts individual support processes for women who have faced violence and discrimination. For nearly ten years, she has actively worked in human rights activism, particularly in the field of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. She gave up her academic career to dedicate herself to grassroots work in the fields of (anti-violence) education, empowerment, and therapeutic work. Lena currently works as a coach and provides therapeutic support for people who have experienced trauma, whether it be in the form of violence, minority stress, discrimination, and/ or exclusion. As a DO School Berlin scholarship holder in 2017 and the originator, producer, and host of Dirty Talks Night, Lena has run events that strengthen the voices and media visibility of women and others who are at risk of discrimination. In her work, she develops methods to work with people from post-traumatic stress communities and to support people in activism. She works with public institutions and non-governmental organizations in Poland and abroad. Currently, Lena is based in Wroclaw, Poland, and is studying psychotherapy and Gestalt training. In her free time, she trains in martial arts and plays musical instruments. Lena is a football enthusiast, a vegetarian, and a friend of animals.

Learn more about Lena’s Landecker Democracy Fellowship project here.

Updated June 2021