What is Eutopya?
Coming to you from Rome, Beijing, Boston, and everywhere in between: Eutopya is an international, entirely youth-run media platform committed to carving out a niche in the international political realm for young voices. While our content is produced exclusively by young people from around the world, the stories and news we share reflect and concern the lives of everyone—not just our own generation. We hope to dispel the growing and detrimental belief that students are indifferent when it comes to politics. This is all about challenging the mainstream news cycles and highlighting what we deem important and news-worthy. It’s reclamation. In this sense, we are creating vanguard media.
We’re also all about finding and fostering connection. Yes, we live in an ever-globalizing world—but in some ways we’re watching authentic engagement (at both the domestic and international level) erode before our eyes, whether it’s due to social media, reactionary nationalism, etc. Every one of us at Eutopya really believes in the multilateral dream that underpins this project, and we know that, with a structurally unprecedented organization, we have an opportunity to uplift unheard voices and make a mark on the stories that are proliferated across the globe, thereby bringing people together.
Our Staff
Paula Medina Agromayor (Executive Producer) is a student pursuing a double Master of Governance of Migration and Diversity with the track of Public Administration at Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre. Previously, her passion for cultures, international cooperation, and politics drove her to pursue a Bachelor in International Studies at Leiden University, specializing in Africa and the Middle East region. She joined Eutopya in 2019, searching to keep exploring different issues happening around the world. Paula is originally from Spain and currently lives in The Netherlands, but has also spent some years in Singapore and Senegal. She loves traveling, learning new languages, being around nature, and working with Eutopya!
Anya Bégué (Executive Producer) is a student at Georgetown University pursuing a BA/MA dual-degree in political science and Arabic. Originally from a beautiful little town just outside Boston, Massachusetts, she’s excited to now live and study amid the bustling dynamism of the US capital. Anya joined Eutopya just after its inception in 2018, when it was still an online publication. She helped steer the project to its current manifestation as a podcast. She also co-developed and co-led Eutopya’s other projects over the years, including the 2021 Santo Stefano Summit. Within the IR and policy fields, Anya is primarily interested in global governance, human rights, and atrocity prevention. She credits her involvement in Eutopya with helping her discover these passions, and she is immensely grateful for the meaningful connections she’s made with fascinating people from around the world (both in her interviews and beyond) thanks to this amazing organization!
Mario Eduardo Simmaco (Founder, Executive Producer) created Eutopya and has been deeply involved in its operations ever since, leading its transition from a local, Roman student magazine to a global one. He studied at Leiden University College with a focus on economics and politics. During his time as a BA student, he also founded a reforestation startup called GreenAnt and served as a member of the Pontifical Council of Culture’s Youth Advisory Board. He has also belonged to the European Federalist Movement and co-developed the 2021 Santo Stefano Summit in Ventotene.
Lidia Varda (Project Manager) recently graduated with a BA in International Studies from Leiden University, pursuing an Honors diploma in Governance and Global Affairs. During her stay in the Netherlands, she became involved in projects to empower Activists, Independent Journalists, Human Rights and Environmental Defenders. She comes from a small Italian town, but she lived in Southeast Turkey and in India to cultivate her curiosity about the world and its complexity. She will now start a journey to Latin America, the region in which she has been specializing in her political science studies and which she is passionate about. Starting from Guatemala, she wants to witness firsthand the region’s environmental and social issues, which at times are untold stories in Europe, through establishing meaningful connections with people. She is especially interested in the links between the environment and conflict, and this is what led her to join Eutopya in 2022 to create a podcast series on Environmental Crime. She believes in the power of art to promote change and she dreams of pursuing a career in journalism and documentary photography.
Manju von Rospatt (Executive Producer) is a student at Leiden University studying in the international honors program Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges, based in The Hague. Growing up in Berkeley, California, and spending parts of her childhood in Nepal and Germany where her family is from, she spent a lot of her life navigating cross-cultural dynamics and hiking the Alps, Himalayas, and Sierra Nevadas. She is interested in issues of international relations, public policy, and global health, and particularly the nexus of corporate actions and human rights, environmental justice, and reproductive health. Manju joined Eutopya in Spring 2021 and helped organize and coordinate the Eutopya-sponsored Santo Stefano Summit in Ventotene, Italy in the Summer of 2021. She now also co-organizes and co-hosts the Environmental Crime series at Eutopya. When she’s not interviewing interesting people for Eutopya, Manju enjoys meeting new people, traveling, attempting to read more, going to museums and galleries, and spending time at the beach or in the woods!