Jennifer DeCoste 

Founder of LifeSchoolHouse | Co-Founder of FireLoch | Ashoka Fellow, Closing Keynote Speaker, International Folkemøde for Educators 2025 

“Sharing abundance with neighbours defeats a scarcity mindset.” 

Jennifer DeCoste is a community innovator from Nova Scotia, Canada, dedicated to building strong, connected communities. She founded LifeSchoolHouse, a global network of barter-based folk schools that foster grassroots skills sharing and reduce social isolation. 

Her latest venture, FireLoch, is a forest retreat space supporting the mental health of nonprofit changemakers. 

At the International Folkemøde for Educators, Jennifer will deliver a powerful closing keynote on the mental health of community builders—a vital topic for the sustainability of folk high schools worldwide. 

Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele 

Co-Executive Director, Highlander Research and Education Center  | Tennessee, USA, Opening Keynote Speaker, International Folkemøde for Educators 2025 

“We’re not preparing people to survive oppression. We’re helping them imagine, build, and defend a world where we all get to be free.” 

Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele is a movement educator, facilitator, and minister working at the intersection of spirituality, justice, and collective liberation. As Co-Executive Director of the legendary Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee, he helps steward a place that has trained generations of change-makers—from Martin Luther King Jr. And Rosa Parks to today’s grassroots leaders. 

Allyn’s work is rooted in Highlander’s long tradition of education for liberation: learning that emerges from community, that speaks truth to power, and that dares to imagine a just and joyful future. 

In his keynote address, Allyn will open our folkemøde by grounding us in shared purpose and inviting us to dream, connect, and act. His presence brings a vital perspective from one of the world’s most enduring folk education movements—and a deep call to courage and collective imagination. 

Mel Lenehan 

Principal & CEO of Fircroft College of Adult Education (UK), Lead Facilitator at the International Folkemøde for Educators 2025 

Champion of social, climate and environmental justice, lifelong learning, and educational sanctuary. Advocate for sustainability, transformative leadership, and inclusive communities.

“Adult education must be anchored in social justice — it’s about transforming lives, not just passing tests,”  (interview on the Universal Learning podcast).

With deep roots in community-based adult education, Mel Lenehan has dedicated her life to creating learning environments where equity, dignity, and social purpose thrive. At Fircroft College in Birmingham — a residential college founded in 1909, influenced by the Folk High schools in Denmark and one of the UK’s most unique educational institutions — she has helped position adult learning as a catalyst for personal and societal transformation. 

At the International Folkemøde for Educators, Mel will serve as a Lead Facilitator in one of our collaborative Shared Knowledge Sessions. Whether the topic turns toward transformational learning, democratic education, or sustainable futures, Mel brings an ethos of hope, humility, and practical action. 

Lene Rachel Andersen 

Co-founder of the Nordic Bildung think tank | Author of The Nordic Secret, Bildung, and Libertism , Lead Facilitator at the International Folkemøde for Educators 2025 

Economist, author, futurist, Bildung thinker.

“The development of self and society must go hand in hand.”  The Nordic Secret.

Lene Rachel Andersen is one of the most influential contemporary thinkers on Bildung, the deeply human process of individual and societal development. Through her writing, teaching, and founding of Nordic Bildung, she brings fresh insights to how education can nurture democratic resilience, existential meaning, and planetary responsibility. 

At the International Folkemøde for Educators, Lene will lead a session exploring the power of Bildung to shape inclusive, sustainable, and meaningful educational futures. Expect intellectual depth, practical inspiration — and courageous questions. 

Jacob Hundt 

Executive Director of Thoreau College & Driftless Folk School | Host of the Microcollege Podcast, Lead Facilitator at the International Folkemøde for Educators 2025 

From Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA – “The Town that Beat Walmart”.

“Our programs blend the scientific with the qualitative, the contemplative with the practical, the needs of the self with the needs of the community,” (interview with LILIPOH Magazine).

A lifelong educator, innovator, and passionate advocate for holistic learning, Jacob has helped found not one, but two schools inspired by the Danish folk high school tradition. His work champions immersive, community-rooted education for young adults — especially those looking for meaningful alternatives to mainstream higher ed. 

Jacob also hosts the Microcollege Podcast, spotlighting visionary educators and learners around the world. 

As a Lead Facilitator at the International Folkemøde for Educators 2025, Jacob will join fellow practitioners from around the globe to share stories, ask big questions, and dream together about the future of folk schooling. 

Mette Højland – Programme Coordinator

Mette Højland has lived her life in the free schools in Denmark both as a child and an adult. She is educated from the Independent Academy for Free school teaching in Ollerup, Denmark, and she is also an educated life coach. She has worked as a folk high school teacher for 22 years (Brenderup Højskole from 2000-2005, and Nordfyns Højskole 2005-2022), and is a co-founder of the association “Menneske først – LifeDialogues”. In 2024 Mette published a book about folk high school spirit titled: What you say, makes me think – folk high school from within. 

Julie Shackelford – Program Coordinator

Fircroft College

Fircroft College is residential adult education college, helping people to realise their potential, focus on themselves and help them make what once seemed impossible, possible. Read more here: https://www.fircroft.ac.uk/about-fircroft-college/

Nordic Bildung

Nordic Bildung’s specializes in qualified, meaningful, inclusive conversations about the changes and the future we need to create. Read more here: https://www.nordicbildung.org/about/

Thoreau College

Thoreau College offers gap year programs, short courses, and fellowships for young adults in southwestern Wisconsin. Their programs immerse students in authentic community, practical labor and homesteading skills, and deep engagement with the natural world and great works of human culture. Read more here: https://thoreaucollege.org/

Highlander The Movement School

Highlander The Movement School is rooted in the U.S. South and Appalachia, and is grounded in a 90-year practice of participatory research and popular education, incubating the movements that drive us from the world we inherited to the one we deserve. Read more here: https://beta.highlandercenter.org/the-school/

Grundtvigsk Forum

Grundtvigsk Forum is an association inspired by the priest, poet, and politician N.F.S. Grundtvig. Some members join as individuals, while others are part of a larger community, association, or organization that holds membership in Grundtvig Forum. Read more here.

Learn for Life

Learn for Life develops and coordinates cultural and educational tours, as well as exchanges for educators and education experts. The activities are carried out in collaboration with educational and cultural institutions that offer courses and longer learning programs.
The core themes are Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and values, personal development through learning (“livsoplysning”), and Danish pedagogical and folk high school traditions. Read more here.

Life.School.House

What makes the LifeSchoolHouse model different from most folk schools is that our work focuses on community development – not just the preservation of traditional skills. We also use a barter-based trade system; Life.School.House breaks down the financial barriers many people face when trying to access education and then in these accessible classes neighours engage in simple exchanges by sharing time and tea, connecting and learning from and about each other in a simple but meaningful way. Read more here.

Menneske Først – Life Dialogues

The core activity of the association Menneske Først – Life Dialogues is to create networks and organize inspirational events where presentations and conversations offer opportunities to explore our self-understanding, our understanding of one another, and the unique light each of us carries. Read more here: https://lifedialogues.dk/hvem-er-vi/