"One thing I will never forget, is that during my AMID graduation ceremony I was labelled an activist. A title I take great pride in. At the NL MFA, I work on topics related to young people in Africa and the Middle East. For me it was important to make sure that in my work the voices of youth were heard as back then (2018) programmes were designed without the meaningful participation of youth. I pushed for the partnership between my department and One Young World to be signed as a first step into providing a platform for young people in Africa and the Middle East. Fast forward to today, I am proud to say with the help and support of a lot of people we now have a Youth At Heart strategy, hold the first virtual conference of the NL MFA, a toolkit, a youth advisory committee, and more specifically at my department we are also drafting more ways into incorporating meaningful youth participation in programmes and decision-making (where our current AMID-trainee is leading one of the processes).
AMID has provided me with the opportunity to get a foot in the field of development cooperation whilst gaining practical experience in combination with learning the latest development theories. On my Twitter-bio you will see that I refer to myself as a pracademic as I still try to incorporate academia into my work. Moreover, it has provided me with a network of people working in the field of international development but foremost at AMID I met one of my dearest friends."