Meet the team

Training Team

Liv Larsson, CNVC Certified Trainer (Sweden)

I have written 23 books in my native language of Swedish, and many of them have also been published in other languages. I also translated many of Marshalls books as well as some other NVC-based books.

Over the last 20 years I have given NVC-training on all continents and with people from all walks of life as well as longer programs in Sweden. My trainings are often focused on inner work on shame, connecting this to communication outwardly. I also run extensive Mediation trainings for anyone wanting to use their NVC skills to connect people.

If you like to do a training with me, be ready to question what you already know, love yourself a bit harder, learn how take a step closer even to your “enemies.” Residing in the north of Sweden, just south of the Arctic Circle, in the land of Northern lights, nature is my biggest source of energy. One of mediator contracts is an ongoing process between the natives of this part of the world, the Sami and the big forest companies as well as mining companies in Sweden and Norway. I have been doing this with FSC – Forest Stewardship Council since 2011. Acting as a bridge between these worlds feels like an important use of NVC skills.

I’m the author of 23 books including:

Mitch Miyagawa, CNVC Certified Trainer (Canada)

Mitch Miyagawa is a multi-faceted community organizer, leader, facilitator, and artist, based on Vancouver Island, on Canada’s pacific coast. His work crosses many areas and fields. He currently works at Vancouver Island University supporting intercultural training, programs, and events. He continues to do community and artistic work through his business, Maji Events. This includes producing community festivals and dance events, facilitating and hosting community gatherings and consultations, and co-creating a dance performance.

Mitch’s work in many areas is rooted in his beliefs in the power of respectful listening/embodied connection, power sharing/exchange, artistic expression/collaboration, the wisdom of the natural world, and the beauty, mystery, and energy of the human spirit. Recently, he has been breaking new ground with his land project, a 2-ha property on a small rural island, where he and his former wife and friend Angela raised their two sons. He and Angela have developed an innovative co-ownership model with a professional team that is creating a model for further co-ownership, in direct response to the local and global crisis in affordable housing and community fragmentation. 

Mitch was mentored into his role as an NVC Trainer 10 years ago by Penny Wassman, who studied with Marshall Rosenberg directly. Part of the post-Rosenberg NVC community, Mitch was a full-time trainer for five years, offering workshops around western Canada and internationally at the New York Intensive and 2018 Texas IIT. Since then, Mitch has applied his NVC skills and approaches to artistic and community work, where he is well-known for his relational, caring, and inspiring leadership style.

Mitch is a loving father of two sons, Tomio and Sam, now living in Nanaimo, BC. He and Angela “consciously uncoupled” two years ago. His father’s family was from Japan, and his family was interned during WWII. More of Mitch’s family story can be seen in the documentary he made in 2013, called A Sorry State, about state racism and government apologies, for which Mitch won the Writers Guild of Canada Documentary Award. Previously, Mitch lived for 15 years in Canada’s North, in Whitehorse, Yukon, where he practiced as a writer and filmmaker.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchmiyagawa/
https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/a-sorry-state
www.maji.events 

Ivana Pejić, CNVC Certified Trainer (Croatia-Bosnia)

I met Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in 2005, and for the next ten years, I studied with coach Verena Jegher. In 2018, I got certified and became a member of the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) community of trainers. Since 2015, I have been conducting training independently, facilitating group processes and doing coaching with clients.

I advocate for the systematic integration of NVC into institutions and organizations in the Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina because I believe that this will contribute to mutual understanding and the building of a society of peace.

In the last year, I have been doing trainings with companies and celebrating my contribution to building better relationships between people — and also my contribution to effectiveness in achieving results related to communication between people. I offer training for trainers and I look forward to the CNVC trainer community increasing with as many people as possible from this region. I am dedicated to that.

Dmitriy Kopina, CNVC Certified Trainer (Slovenia)

I am eager to grasp different knowledge and have been a restless explorer my entire life. Working as a leader, reading full libraries of books, and attending so many classes, training events, and workshops, I have perceived myself as an encyclopedia of various technical and formal kinds of knowledge. I was always keen on sharing this knowledge and was fully dedicated to learning and sharing more, and more, and more – until one day it was really too much and it all stopped as I burned out.

Several years later, after changing my lifestyle completely, learning yoga and martial arts, connecting with nature, and finding my meaning, I met two of the “best friends” I have today: NVC – Nonviolent Communication, and CI – Contact Improvisation. Attending a similar, multi-day retreat changed my life completely, beyond words to describe, meeting Life on another level. I still attend lots of training sessions and have facilitated hundreds of my own workshops, individual coaching sessions, and therapy sessions. I enjoy changing and supporting changes and transitions in the lives of others. To this day, these several-day retreats are still my favorite events.

My life mission and purpose, working as a trainer, adviser, manager, father, and teacher, involves activities that support individuals in finding their authenticity, the fullness of life, and awareness; connecting people together; building “power with” communities based on the equality of all needs; and using forms of communication and full embodiment to support connecting individuals and groups to their essence, consciousness, and spirituality.
https://sayit.si/
https://rei.nvc.si/

https://dobrobit.si/

Organizing team

Sanjica Ćaćić, (Croatia)

Based in Zagreb, Croatia, I work as a communication expert with thirty years of experience in working with people. Currently pursuing certification as a nonviolent communication trainer, I educate leading Croatian companies in communication skills.


As president of the Alphabet of Parenting association, which implements structural and EU projects to support families, I organize conferences and events. To empower teachers, parents, and children in the education system, I advocate for the introduction of free education.

My calling is to connect people, and I believe that mastering communication skills is essential to prevent conflicts. Proudly building an NVC community through the Center for Nonviolent Communication Croatia, where I serve as vice president.
sonja kersten

Sonja Kersten, (Croatia)

My first encounter with NVC took place during 1998. at a three-month training for peace
activists. Even then, the concept of nonviolent communication naturally fit into my view of
the world because years earlier I had encountered mediation and various great people who had come to support us in our peace efforts after the war. However, it was only when I met the great team Nada Ignjatović-Savić and Katharina Sander in Lebensgarten in 2007, where we were taught, by completely different women in temperament and character, to introduce NNK in schools for 5 days, that I became aware of the true power of NVC and from then on mediation and non-violent communication have been inseparably intertwined for me and formed the basis for numerous activities and projects of building peace and community in which I participated through volunteering and work at the Center for Peace Osijek until 2011, when I started, together with three colleagues, a mediation centre.

Currently I invest most of my energy and time in school and peer mediation. As I was
aware of the crucial importance of nonviolent communication for mediation, in 2006. I
translated Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication – The Language of Life into Croatian. Since then every person who participates in mediation training receives the basics and the book as a gift.
Since 2021, I have been a co-founder, with five other peace activists, of the Politics of
Nonviolence – an institution for peace education and action through which we strive to develop the capacities of local communities in Croatia for nonviolence and nonviolent
action, this year through the organization of dialogue forums and education for facilitation of the DF with important and controversial topics for the local community.

It is very important for me to be part of the community of people who apply, promote and
spread the NVC because I know from my own experience that when NVC is the key foundation it uplifts all possible relationships, peacebuilding and community building activities to increadible levels.

I live and work in Osijek, Croatia.

Supporting Team

Milana Crevar (Croatia)

I am a pedagogue by profession, and I am currently working as a kindergarten principal. I am 37 years old and I live in Zagreb.

I became acquainted with nonviolent communication in 2022 and immediately recognized the possibility it offers in developing the quality of relationships with children and adults.  Inspired by education and a trainer, I am enrolling in an intensive non-violent communication training in 2023.

Encouraged by the support of the NVC community, as well as the quality of private and professional relationships that nonviolent communication has made possible for me, in 2024 I am entering the process of certification as a coach.

I am dedicated to the integration of non-violent communication in institutions for early and preschool education, and especially in working with children of the youngest age.

Eva Delač (Croatia)

I am a math teacher with many years of experience working in schools, a student of non-violent communication, and recently a mother of a little girl.

I don’t remember how I started learning NVC, but I know it had a significant impact on my life from day one. Privately and professionally, I learned to stand up for myself, to deal with stress, but also to have understanding for people and situations that I didn’t believe I would have. NVC is not a passing trend, it is a lifestyle that I will gladly transfer to my environment, but also to my daughter, because I myself have witnessed how much it enriches lives. See www.grmek.hr.

Zrinka Čornij (Croatia)

After degree in Economics in Croatia and a Master’s degree in European Studies from KU Leuven in Belgium, I contributed profesionally with over 15 years of work to Croatia becoming a full member of the European Union.

In the past decade I started transforming my profesional roles into more direct work with people. This led me to becoming a certified logotherapist and an executive coach.

My first encounter with Nonviolent Communication came through Marshall Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life“, which sparked my genuine excitment and curiosity. I felt deeply moved by the transformative power of compassionate communication. So, I continued learning NVC at the Center for Nonviolent Communication Croatia.

I am happy and excited to continue NVC path by starting a certification process and strengtening our community in Croatia and in the region, so we could invite others to experience this transformative path. 

Rosana Šimunović

After degree in Economics in Croatia and a Master’s degree in European Studies from KU Leuven in Belgium, I contributed profesionally with over 15 years of work to Croatia becoming a full member of the European Union.

In the past decade I started transforming my profesional roles into more direct work with people. This led me to becoming a certified logotherapist and an executive coach.

My first encounter with Nonviolent Communication came through Marshall Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life“, which sparked my genuine excitment and curiosity. I felt deeply moved by the transformative power of compassionate communication. So, I continued learning NVC at the Center for Nonviolent Communication Croatia.

I am happy and excited to continue NVC path by starting a certification process and strengtening our community in Croatia and in the region, so we could invite others to experience this transformative path.