Our facilitators
NATURELAB (English)
The activities within NATURELAB are facilitated by a team of five experienced professionals with diverse backgrounds in guidance, coaching, care, and working with nature. They have extensive experience in leading groups and work with a focus on attentiveness, safety, and respect.
Our facilitators follow a specialised NATURELAB training programme and carefully tailor the activities to suit both the participants and the environment. Together, they create an open and supportive atmosphere in which everyone feels welcome and is able to participate in their own way.
Seema Bansropansingh is a holistic GP, lifestyle physician, and community builder based in Amsterdam Southeast. Through her lifestyle practice Dokter Seema and her role as a lifestyle education lecturer for trainee GPs, she brings together health, nature, and community. She guides individuals and groups towards greater well-being through positive health approaches, mind-body techniques, and walking therapy.
Seema joined the NatureLab project because she believes that true health arises when people reconnect with themselves, with one another, and with nature. In Southeast Amsterdam, she is known for her lifestyle and health workshops and for community initiatives in the neighbourhood.
In her daily life, nature is a constant ally: she runs outdoors, enjoys walking with friends, family, and clients, and consciously uses the outdoors as a space for conversation, insight, and healing. For Seema, nature is not a backdrop, but an active partner in healing and transformation.
Miranda Suripatty is a physician for people with intellectual disabilities and co-initiator of Gardens of Brasa, a community garden located in Brasapark, Amsterdam Southeast. In 2022, together with three other women, she established this green oasis on the roof of the Gaasperdammer Tunnel, featuring themed gardens such as a vegetable garden, herb garden, and tea garden. The project fosters social connection and a renewed relationship with nature in a multicultural neighbourhood.
With her Moluccan roots, she understands how ancestral lines can continue to resonate in the present, and how gardening can have a healing effect. Being active and surrounded by greenery serves as a reminder of who you are — that you are part of nature.
Elias Simonse was born in Amsterdam but spent much of his upbringing abroad, including in Kenya, with which he still maintains a strong connection. It was there, at an early age, that he became aware of nature’s powerful impact on mental well-being.
His search for a place in the world ultimately became an inner journey, during which he discovered that the place he was seeking held a deeper meaning. Today, the Netherlands feels like home to him.
With a background in (Latin American) sociology and psychology, systemic thinking, and a deep engagement with various spiritual and initiation traditions, Elias brings broad insight into diverse worldviews. His guidance allows for the nuances and layered dimensions of complex life questions to come into focus.
Due to his Surinamese-Dutch heritage and extensive personal experiences of relocating across the globe, transcultural themes are not only intellectually familiar to him, but also deeply lived.
Dr Ghiselle Panneflek is a physician and a specialist in lifestyle and hormonal health, with nearly twenty years of experience in primary care. In her work, she integrates medical expertise with lifestyle medicine, stress regulation, and nature-based interventions, with a particular focus on women’s health, hormonal balance, and sustainable employability.
Ghiselle joined the NatureLab project because she believes that nature plays an essential role in recovery, resilience, and relearning how to listen to the body. From her experience as a GP, she witnessed how often nature’s healing potential remains overlooked, even though slowing down, being outdoors, and engaging the senses can help restore balance.
People may know her from her work in lifestyle and hormone-focused care, as well as through training programmes, webinars, and community initiatives around health and well-being. For Ghiselle, nature is not an add-on to her work, but a foundation: a place of calm, connection, and coming home, both professionally and in her daily life.
Nathalie Guicherit is a community builder and project coordinator in Amsterdam Southeast, working at the intersection of nature, well-being, and social connection. With a background in personal and social sustainability, applied psychology, and nature-based interventions, she is dedicated to connecting residents and professionals around themes of green spaces and health.
Nathalie joined the NATURELAB project because she believes that nature plays a powerful role in recovery, resilience, and the strengthening of communities.
In Southeast Amsterdam, she is known for green community initiatives such as Gardens of Brasa, GroenplatVorm Zuidoost, and Bloei & Groei. Central to her work is making nature-based experiences accessible to everyone.
