Your Name | Manuela Bijvoet |
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Email Address | manuela-bijvoet@hotmail.com |
Cohort Assignment | Hybrid In-Person/Online with Intensive in Rwanda, Fall-Winter 2024 |
1. What do you see as your primary work at this stage of your life? | I find myself at a turning point in my life, on the eve of my move from Brussels, my hometown, to Kigali, where I am starting a new job as an M&E assistant in an urbanization project managed by the Belgian development agency. My goal now is to integrate the project, find my role and position in it and contribute to its success. |
2. What role do you see as yours to play? | When looking at my job tasks and responsibilities, my role is to track the progress of results envisaged and provide feedback, assess the effectiveness and impact of the interventions and identify areas for improvement. I will also work on knowledge management - capturing and disseminating insights, lessons learned, best practices and foster a culture of continuous learning within the organization, by collaborating with the different stakeholders involved in the project. In addition, I will set up or participate in a Global Citizenship initiative. I see it as my "bigger" role to learn from the challenge that is working abroad and take these learnings with me to integrate it in my future professional projects, as well as sensitizing my environment at home (= Belgium, close circles of friends and family but also future colleagues etc.) about global challenges and trigger them to be aware of their mindsets and thinking patterns in relation with others. |
3. What goals or aims do you have in regard to the above? | To have developed or improved the (use of) systems and tools for monitoring, evaluation and knowledge sharing in the project and the organization. |
4. Where do you feel your next arenas for personal growth are? | Boost my capacity for thinking more creatively, moving away from ingrained thinking patterns |
5. And for professional growth? | Learn how major challenges as population growth, climate change/biodiversity and natural environment loss and social inequalities are being addressed in the context of urbanization and how citizens of cities and towns, together with policy-level and other actors, have a role to play. |
6. What have you invested in to get you where you are? | I did not refrain from seeking challenging career opportunities to find where my true area of interest lies and what kind of functions or tasks I like to perform in a job, as well as the impact I want to have on the global community. This has taken (and is taking) time, reflection and the need to move away from my comfort zone. |
7. What fields of learning and which thinkers have been important in your life? | As a student in political sciences, I have found it interesting to read the texts of writers of international relations theory and sociologists. I often look at things that happen in the world with those glasses and try to understand events with those frameworks. |
8. Can you frame your philosophy or cosmology of life? What role(s) do humans play in it? | I am not able to label my philosophy of life with one word. For me life is a privilege and we all bear the responsibility of caring for the people around us and our natural environment. This can be done by being honest with oneself, daring to look at the impact of our actions and realizing that doing what's best for the planet and people of the earth is not always what feels best for oneself at that moment. For me humans are all connected in a way and we should aspire to treat everyone with the same respect and empathy regardless of how well we know someone and how close we are to them. Growing the sense of human interconnectedness would be beneficial to the respect and care we bring to the earth. |
Date Created | October 17, 2024 |