TEAM
OceanLove is being built by an international group of young, enthusiastic volunteers. We would like to tell you more about our founder, the core team members, and the non-profit foundation behind OceanLove.
Our Founder Ilco van der Linde
Ilco has been the initiator of successful international social events and campaigns. In his native Netherlands, he set up the Liberation Festivals, which involve one million people every year in human rights and freedom. Internationally, he is co-founder of dance4life, which involves hundreds of thousands of young people in thirty countries in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and of MasterPeace, which involves young people in peace-building works in 45 countries.
Mathematics researcher and Freediver
Raghda Ezzeldin Aly 
Project Manager
Media and Website design
Mahmoud El Wakil
Core team member and lead digital strategist
Social Media & Research
Raquel Cayuela 
Communications officer
Olivier van Diepen 
Designer & Web administrator
Donja Hoorn
Marketing Consultant
Student activist
Hana Ajam 
Communications officer
Charles Sylvanus Boye 
OceanLove West Africa
Video Editor
Jokūbas Bliujus 
Energy Transition Optimist
Erwin
Social Media and Content Creator
Caroline 
Guiding team of judges for OceanLove Innovation Award
Pippa
Our Foundation – The Board
OceanLove is officially an initiative run by the Dutch non-profit foundation “Stichting Mandelahuisje” (the Mandela House Foundation). This foundation aims to fuel and promote Nelson Mandela’s Ubuntu philosophy, about respect, unity and interconnectedness. The board of the foundation controls budget, progress and the important non-profit principle: nobody is making any money with this initiative, only the oceans gain ‘benefits’.
OceanLove founder Ilco van der Linde is chair of the foundation and currently there are three other board members:
Han Kempers
Treasurer
Mpanzu Bamenga
Secretary
Tamara Richards
Board Member
Treasurer Han Kempers has been an HR expert for more than twenty years, contributing to the Reconciliation Chamber at the Mandela House and as treasurer at Bevrijdingspop festival in Haarlem.
Secretary Mpanzu Bamenga is a Member of Parliament for the Dutch centrist party D66 and actively involved in Incleaders, an initiative by the German Marshall Fund focused on social sustainability.
Tamara Richards joined the board in May 2023, focusing on OceanLove. She is an international expert in sustainability and biodiversity, organizing conferences and consulting organizations to strengthen policies on these themes.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry