Alexandru Gulei is the Executive Director of Alternative Sociale Association, an NGO in Romania dedicated to defending human rights through prevention, support, training, research and advocacy. He coordinates the association’s actions related to research, development and implementation of interventions (creation of working methodologies, provision of support services, capacity building for professionals etc.).

Alex is a university-trained social worker, with a two decades long preoccupation for direct interaction with the different individuals and groups at risk (children and adult victims of abuse, offenders and the children of prisoners, families affected by negative effects of migration etc.). He is a researcher (holds a PhD on Sociology with a thesis on the social perception of migrants, is an author and co-author of several studies and recommendations reports on topics related to migration as well as well as other national and international publications) and a trainer – providing capacity development to professionals from social services, national police, border police, judiciary etc. More recently he was part of the team that produced the independent evaluation of the Romanian National Strategy on the Protection and Promotion of Children’s Rights 2014-2020 and currently he is the UNICEF expert on the topics of child friendly justice and of violence against children in charge of producing the new national strategy for the period 2021-2027.