Nadja Lobner

Salzburg born, Nadja grew up in Schladming, a little town in the Austrian Alps. A political scientist and Slavonicist, she more recently specialised as a horticultural therapy practitioner, adult education trainer, nature coach, health mentor, and tourism specialist.

From 2004 on she got involved in research and alleviation of youth poverty in Ukraine, completing her PhD thesis with a scholarship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Nadja and her son spent 6 months in an orphanage in Kharkiv for her field research, then another 6 months at Kharkiv State University researching political strategies of NGOs supporting neglected children and youth in Ukraine (funded by the Austrian Scientific Community ÖFG). Nadja worked next as coordinator of the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, Salzburg University ’til 2012.

Based on her research findings, Nadja decided to concentrate on questions of population health and people’s relationship to nature. She worked on farms and trained in the gardening division of the “Christian Doppler” psychiatric clinic, Salzburg, where occupational therapist, Maria Putz, (a founder of therapeutic horticulture in Austria) taught her gardening and therapeutic horticulture. During 2014 Nadja attended the “NaturCoach” diploma course at the Rural Institute for Education and founded “Gabriel’s Garten” as a training programme for adults. Her first clients were displaced persons, refugees, migrants and homeless people.

In 2016 Nadja began a collaboration with a clinic for people with alcohol addictions. Invited by “AVOS” Society for Preventive Medicine, she joined the “Health for Everybody” health mentoring course, focused on socio-economically disadvantaged groups. Nadja combines health mentoring with therapeutic horticulture and nature coaching.

Nadja began work in a hotel in 2018, overseeing hygiene, quality management and employee health. Last year she completed the “Grünberg Certificate in Therapeutic Horticulture” allowing her to work as an accredited horticultural therapist. Her final project for the Grünberg Certificate was to develop a project for the hotel staff: a therapeutic horticultural concept for workplace health promotion in tourism.

Nadja is member of:

Salzburg Association for Herbal Paedgagogics/Teaching and Nature Education 2021 (www.verein-skn.at)