Hi there!
First, thank you for visiting :) In this section I will tell you a little bit more about me and why I have put this website together.
I’m guessing you already know my name, so I’ll leave that out here. I am 26 years old and I am from the Netherlands. I grew up in a city called Eindhoven, with two architect-parents and a few pets, but I moved to the small town Wageningen back in 2013 when I started with the bachelor Nutrition & Health at Wageningen University. I learned a lot about human health & nutrition, but also about microbiology, chemistry, statistics, psychology and communication.
In 2017, I decided I wanted to go on adventure and spend some time abroad. I was lucky to get a spot in the Erasmus Exchange program at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in As. I decided to do courses on human rights and gender, which, when I think back, was a nudge towards the rest of my study career and the start of my interest in international food systems and value chains.
After I finished my bachelor, also in 2017, I started with the corresponding master program. I made my own special mix of courses, because I became more interested in international development and developing countries. Also, I went to Vietnam for three months to do field research for my masterthesis and did an internship at Wageningen Economic Research about child labour in agriculture. I learned about the Sustainable Development Goals, about human rights, value chains and international food systems.
In the past year I joined the Sustainable Development Goal traineeship from the SDG House and TheRockGroup and I shortly worked for the FairChain foundation where I learned a lot about the coffee value chain.
I have always tried to integrate some creativity into my study and (so far) career, which was quite hard for me in the beginning. After the first year of my bachelor study I really missed creating ideas and other kinds of creative expression. Also, just studying from books didn’t go very well, until I discovered I was better at studying by creating mind maps and using colours. Besides that, I taught myself how to use a drawing tablet and GIMP (the free version of Adobe Photoshop, but pretty much the same).
Since October last year, I am working in corona teststreets in Wageningen and surroundings. Whith the infection numbers going down, so have my work hours, which provided me with the opportunity to spend time on other things. I started thinking of how I could combine my creative side with my interest in value chains, healthy food systems and sustainability. As you may have figured out, I like taking photos, I like making illustrations, and once in a while I write about what’s on my mind. And all this combined, resulted in this website :)
So, there you go. Good job if you made it all the way down here to get to know me a little bit. If you would like to get in touch with me, give me advice for my website or just want to comment on something, please see the link below.