Anja was elected to the ISA Board in 2013 and continues to serve on the board as Chair from 2019.
Currently I am the spokes person of the ISA-Team of the German Stuttering Association called BVSS (Bundesvereinigung Stottern und Selbsthilfe e.V.). I studied business administration at an university of Berlin and specialized in human resources and Corporate Social Responsibility. Furthermore I took my trainer degree and my master in democratic school development as I wanted to work more in the field of education in the non profit sector. Now I am working as a project leader for an educational organisation in Berlin.
I started stammering with the age of 4. From both parent sights I got the “gift” of stammering – my father himself and my mothers two brothers. Although stammering was not unusual in my family it was hard for me dealing with it in my private life because when I spoke to family members it was worse than everywhere else and the understanding was not so high as I wished for. With my friends or in school I had no dramatic complications as I could hide my stammering really well. Except with reading and doing speeches in school – here it was difficult to change the words. So after 1-2 group therapies as a child which did not help at all I started to surge again for possibilities to change my stammering when I started my studies – I thought: Now I could not escape from stammering anymore. In 2004 a speech therapist recommended me the self-help group in Berlin and so I started to be active in the self-help right away. Since than I played open cards with my stammer, made great experience, started to gain self confidence in doing speeches etc. although my stammer did not disappear and I got new great friends, which I do not want to miss in my life anymore. I have been the chair of the Berlin self-help organization, organised the German congress for people how stammer and got involved in different projects of the BVSS. All in all I am really thankful for the self-help organizations around the world which work on raising the awareness of people who stammer. I decided to step into the work of the International Stuttering Association to support this great movement and I would like to make my contribution to that.