Board

OtherWise is run by a board and three coordinators. Each term of the board starts from October and lasts for one year.
Meet this year’s board (2010/2011)!

(from left to right: Leonardo, Marta, Saskia, Geke, Rashid)

Here you can get an idea of the people behind OtherWise!

Leonardo: Our Treasurer!

I have never been able to fully ignore issues of development. Perhaps this is related to my childhood home, which shifted from Brazil to the Netherlands to Mozambique and back to the Netherlands. Perhaps an internal struggle, related to my double nationality, played a role. In any case, as I gave in to this fascination, it began to steer my life in altering and unexpected directions. I could not stop travelling and moved in and out of various BSc and MSc programs until finding my peace in International Development Studies. My interest narrowed and deepened with my thesis and it appears this trend will set forth with a pHD in rural development sociology. OtherWise offers me the opportunity to escape from the unforeseeable dangers that hide in these depths. With a broad vision, people from different places with different perspectives and its emphasis on public engagement, in OtherWise ideas are challenged and given a face.

 

Marta: Our Vise President and Research mediator!

I like cooking so it is not surprising that my involvement with OtherWise started with organizing FairShare Dinner one year ago. Preparing food for hundred people was challenge and… fun! Next, there was a series of workshops organized as part of the Research Mediation Programme that evolved from Training for the Fieldwork to Participatory Workshops. Getting to know OtherWise better, I discovered that I have much in common with people I met there and stared to feel member of the Other community. Therefore joining the board was natural follow up step.

As a vice-chair I am responsible mainly for the Research Mediation Programme. The objective of the programme is to encourage students to do research, which is not only scientifically sound but also meaningful for the local communities. It is one of the main OtherWise activities and I hope that in the coming year we will make everybody enthusiastic about participatory research.

Besides my involvement in OtherWise board, I am busy with my studies at Rural and Development Innovation programme. As this is already my second year I am working on final project, a comparative study of organic farming in the Netherlands and Poland. The rest of my agenda is filled up by Smyk- a little puppy that always wants to be in the centre of attention.

Saskia: Our Public Relations

The first encounter with Otherwise and me was a very fruitful one: Otherwise created a ‘playground’ to facilitate a workshop try-out on visual and verbal meeting grounds. This workshop try-out was part of my thesis on Transformative Tour Guiding for the Master Tourism Leisure and Environment, that aimed in exploring new recipes in tourism meeting grounds to create deeper intercultural understanding. It was a very inspirational event for me, my thesis and (hopefully also) for the participants. Since then I am a big fan of otherwise: There are so many beautiful events, there is such good and positive energy, there is so much to learn, and so many interesting people to meet. Otherwise is creating dialogue for development; creating a shared reality by connecting different life worlds in Wageningen… and beyond!! Otherwise is a young and creative organization that is creating possibilities to learn, share and enjoy outside university structures and that is why it was so fruitful for me. As Theodore Zeldin, the founder of the Muse Foundation claims: “For ideas to be born a midwife is needed.” For me, Otherwise is such a midwife, and I hope to experience many new ‘idea babies’ to be born! This year I will take care of Public Relations for Otherwise, I will make sure more people and networks will get connected and inspired by ideas created through dialogue. Can’t wait to meet you! 

Geke: Our President!

If you’re not Dutch, you’ll be in trouble pronouncing my name, sorry about that!  Last year I graduated from MAKS  (currently Development and Rural Innovation) and currently I work at Stichting Oikos in Utrecht and the Teacher Training College in Ede.

Although I am not linked closely to Wageningen through studies anymore, I still live in this global village, enjoying the diversity. Since I came to Wageningen in 2007 I’ve been interested in OtherWise’s activities and became more involved last year by being part of the Docu Film Festival team. This summer I visited a friend in South Africa who was taking part in the Research Mediation Programme, another encounter with the activities organized by OtherWise. This year I have decided to apply for the board to play my part in achieving the organization’s mission; working towards a more critical, sustainable, and just thinking about development and then.. act! Being the new chair of the board this year, I want to warmly invite you to join in on our activities. If you have ideas about activities to organize or you feel we are missing out on a certain topic; please feel encouraged to share your view or become a volunteer.

Besides my jobs, I make plans to learn how to play guitar, clean up, read the books i borrowed, do my administration but never end up doing so since I am usually with friends or outside in the garden or from now on; doing OtherWise stuff.. Keep me busy!

 

Rashid- Our Secretary!

After having spent two joyful years frolicking in Wageningen’s rich intellectual (and, ahem, scientific) pastures, and emerging with scientific profile tucked securely beneath my arm, I suddenly found that my feet were no longer on any path that I could discern. Apart from a stretch of highly rewarding and useful day to day routine work, my road ahead was blocked by a tangled jungle of uncertainty and possibilities.

What it seemed like an eternity hunting toil of activities of my interest, but was actually only a couple of months, I came across st-Otherwise through their DocuFilm festival. Otherwise seemed to offer me a way to explore an interest in  a dynamic social and political environment that I had really always harboured.

An idea that proves elusive because of the way that the issues, rules and interactions occur at a local level but lead to astonishingly organised global behaviour. I wanted to tackle that idea, and tame it, so that we may understand the common interests, shared values and respect across boundaries we are able to live and think. If we knew common grounds how it had happened, maybe we would be able to take the solutions human nature had developed through billions of years of evolution and apply them to our own social problems. Otherwise, almost uniquely, offers the platform to tackle such lofty dreams.