Meet Our Sharers

We have invited some people to join our discussions and to share the socio-cultural differences they encountered at the working and schooling environment, here in The Netherlands, their countries of origin, or other locations they have lived, schooled or worked. The idea is to identify some of these differences, to learn from their experiences about how they managed it and to gain valuable advice that can help to increase socio-cultural integration in our communities.

We provide you with brief information about them. Before, during and after this event, feel free to chat and network with them.

MOSES ATOCON

Moses is a Ugandan Digital Political Media Activist and a Blogger, using internet technologies to organize campaigns. He was born and brought up in the North of Uganda, a region neglected and affected by civil war for years.

He studied at Makerere University Business School Kampala Computer and Internet based technology, Marketing tools and E business. Living as a refugee in the Netherlands he is at present the coordinator of the great lakes region-working group of The Hague Peace Projects. He also free lances as a language consultant with the International criminal court and is also a student of International communication management at Utrech University.

CHRISTINA MORENO

Christina is the founder and CEO of She Matters – a platform designed to connect refugee and migrant women with employment opportunities in the Netherlands. An international lawyer and communications professional by training, Christina is also currently with Global Rights Compliance (GRC) where she specialises in international humanitarian and human rights law. Prior to GRC, Christina was with HiiL Innovating Justice where she worked to improve access to justice around the world.

MARIAN SPIER

Marian is a visionary business professional, social entrepreneur, and strategy consultant. She has been a manager and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam for eight years. In 2012 she started consulting and has built a diverse portfolio of clients that range across industries, sectors, and size like the United Nations, World Humanitarian Summit, Unesco, TEDx in Europe, the Caribbean and TED.com. Marian also mentored and trained many young female entrepreneurs from the Netherlands, Poland, Hong Kong, The US, Algeria, The Caribbean, and Moldova. She founded the first Female Startup Award in the Netherlands and serves as an advisor and board member of several non-profit organizations, including Humanity in Action.

PATIENCE MAYAKI-VAN DER HORST

Patience is Environmental and Social (E&S) Officer at FMO’s Financial Insitutions Department. Since taking up her role in 2010, Patience has worked closely with various financial insitutions across Africa and Asia. She supports FMO clients in integrating E&S risk management into their lending decisions and promotes greenline investments.

Fostering long-term partnership between local financial institutions and the real economy across emerging markets is central to her work. Over the years, Patience has facilitated stakeholder dialogues among decision makers in different developing countries that have inspired collective E&S thinking and enabled local ownership around the sustainability agenda. Patience has both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Forest and Nature Conservation and in Business Administration from renowned universities in Africa and Europe. She is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria.

MILKA YEMANE:

Milka Yemane who is of Eritrean origin; she is the founder of the Lemat foundation. Lemat guides Eritrean newcomers in the integration process in the Netherlands. They also provide consultancy and trainings for those working with Eritreans. After her M.A in Political Science which she pursued in New York, she got a job with Dutch Centraal Orgaan opvang Asielzoekers (COA). Milka also worked in different field missions on the relocation and resettlement scheme of refugees in Italy and Turkey.

MAX GELJON

Max was born in 1983 in Lisse, The Netherlands, studied Electrical Engineering in Delft, specializing in micro-electronics and sensor technology. His gained knowledge was applied to develop hardware and firmware for various sensor systems and prototypes, such as an early warning system for nerves and veins during surgical drilling and a laser-based gas detection system for toxic and greenhouse gases. The latter gave him the opportunity to live and work abroad in Europe, Middle-East and Brazil. He recently changed jobs to join the National Research Centre TNO in The Hague.

AMANDA P. ALENCAR

Amanda is a Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Media & Communication at Erasmus University. Before joining the Department in September 2015, she was a Marie Curie Post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her Marie Curie research project entitled ‘TV News for Promoting Interculturalism: A Novel Step towards Immigrant Integration' addressed the variables involved in the mediation of migrant integration and experiences by media in a cross-country comparative perspective. This research worked towards a comprehensive and an integrated approach to the understanding of the role of news media in the integration processes of new migrants in the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, both at structural and sociocultural levels.

In light of the present Europe’s migration crisis, Amanda is now extending this research agenda by conducting a series of studies on refugee integration and digital media. The overarching purpose of her current project is to examine the variety of roles digital technologies may play in the daily lives of refugee migrants who are constantly negotiating their acculturation experiences in relation to the need of maintaining their cultural heritage and acquiring cultural capital of the new society.