Alumni dreams #3

Yeji Jeong combined a MA International Relations with an internship at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations in New York. 

She did research for 2nd Committee regarding the SDGs including the eradication of poverty.  In her own project she used her regional specialization in Africa in a critical analysis of the UN Vienna program for landlocked developing countries, for the case of Sub Saharan Africa. This is her 4th internship!

Alumni dreams #35

After her BA, Nienke Voppen did an internship at the Dutch embassy in Tanzania, working mainly on political reporting. She was also an election observer during the Tanzanian general elections in 2015. 

Next she was offered a job as a Policy Officer at the Africa department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs! After a year, she went for a Master's in Conflict Studies and Human Rights, including researching the planned closure of the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. 

After graduation Nienke moved to South Sudan, where she is now working for Charlie Goldsmith Associates Limited, a development consultancy that works in, among other sectors, girls' education and public health.

Ps: she has been running her Omwana Uganda Foundation since 2012!

Alumni dreams #38

After the BA, Justine Wildöer volunteered for a Kenyan secondary school and started working as a headhunter at Fairlane | headhunters for consulting positions.

She helps strategy consultants find further career paths and is learning much from gifted co-workers and high-end clients! She is also gladly spending time discovering Amsterdam and helping out friends with a start-up in the music scene.

The international context in International Studies really helped with her job in learning how to appreciate cultural differences. PRINS and courses on globalization taught her to be critical of existing paradigms and more than just debating them, also really coming up with solutions.

Celebrate success and growth Justine!

Alumni dreams #57

After International Studies, Ruth-Marie Henckes jumped right into a Master in Comparative International Politics at the Catholic University of Leuven, from which she graduated magna cum laude!

The 20+ interviews she did for her thesis on the Congolese diaspora’s political activism, inspired Ruth-Marie to pursue a career in advancing human rights and democracy.

To learn how the world of advocacy and human rights works in the EU, she is doing an internship at the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), the European network for democracy support!

Alumni dreams #67

After the BA, Sara Zarkovic worked in Child Protection and Advocacy Placement at World Vision. Then followed a two year master's at Wageningen University & Research in International Development - specializing in conflict and disaster studies. 

At the moment she is writing her thesis on the topic of multiculturalism in the Northern autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia. During the past year she also volunteered with Refugee Aid Serbia for three months. 

After this Sara aims for an internship in East Africa starting in May. She wants to continue specializing in work related to community development and refugees.

Go Sara!

Alumni dreams #91

Hendrik Oye is doing a MSc in African Studies at the University of Oxford! After graduating from the BA he briefly worked at a technology startup in Berlin that connects entrepreneurs from Africa and runs a 'Venture Bus' across the continent.

Hendrik then interned at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. First within headquarters in Frankfurt, and later at the Green Innovation Centre in Togo which aims to the increase productivity and income of smallholder farmers in the country.

He will return to Togo next month to escape the European weather and to conduct fieldwork for his dissertation.

Happy data collection Hendrik!

Alumni dreams #114

Lhamo Meyer started a 9-month internship at the International Organization for Migration IOM The Netherlands. She contributed to the integration project VOORwerk facilitating permit holders residing in reception centers to enter the Dutch labor market!

After Lhamo chose to do the MSc Governance of Migration and Diversity, Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam to further develop her academic knowledge in the field of migration. She was also a board member and now team member of the student initiative Reach&Teach, aiming to facilitate the integration process of status holders into the Dutch community. 

As a side job Lhamo started to work at Humanity House, a museum and platform to discuss humanitarian issues, where she can, among other things, give presentations on the subjects of refugees and migration to school classes.

She is now conducting thesis research on a project in Vienna where students and asylum seekers live together in collaboration with the research institution Veldacademie in Rotterdam. 

What a mix of Humanities and Social Sciences, great you found your fit and desired impact Lhamo!

Alumni dreams #195

After graduating, Anna Adima attended The School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) for an MA in African Studies. After she did various internships with NGOs in The Hague and London focusing on women’s and human rights, and worked for 6 months with UN-HABITAT at the United Nations Office at Nairobi, the UN Headquarters in Africa.

Anna is now doing a PhD at the University of York, where she is researching East African History, and is currently based in her home country of Uganda for fieldwork. However, because of Covid-19, much of her work-related travel and data collection has come to halt, frustrating initially, but it has taught her flexibility and resilience, both professionally and personally.

For her, the BA's most formative aspects were her regional specialisation in Africa, influencing all later career choices and research interests, and exchange at Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, which greatly improved her French language skills.

The diversity of the student body is what she appreciates and misses! the most about the BA, as such environments become quite hard to come by after university.

Great progress Anna! Here she is being a continuing source of inspiration!