Welcoming YPARD Netherlands Country Representative: Ingrid Flink

We are delighted to welcome the YPARD Netherlands country representative, Ingrid Flink.

Ingrid is a graduate with a Master’s degree in Applied Communication Science specialising in Food and Health at the Wageningen University, Netherlands. She is currently a Junior Advisor at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) for the Sustainable Economic Development and Gender unit and a member of the Prolinnova network, hosted by KIT. On the position, Ingrid mainly supports country partners in Latin America and the francophone African countries whose interest is in promoting innovation by youth in agri-­?food initiatives.. Besides playing a leading role in the development of a new thematic cluster on youth and farmer-led innovation in the Prolinnova network, she was also involved in qualitative research on the aspirations, opportunities and challenges of youth’s agricultural livelihoods in dryland systems for the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). She has furthermore reviewed the CRP Maize & Wheat full proposals on youth-related researchable issues and supported CRP Livestock and Fish on a literature review on youth’s engagement in the livestock sector.

Previously, Ingrid worked on various sustainable food campaigns such as the ‘Que Rico es: comer sano y de mi tierra’ in Ecuador, as well as The Fairtrade Municipality campaign in the Netherlands, where involved municipalities would receive the label of Fairtrade Municipality if they aligned with campaign criteria.

Its with this excitment and great energy that Ingrid takes on the task of being the YPARD representative in Netherlands.Ingrid believes in the power of networking, as described in her YPARD article, where she expresses that “shining the spotlight on an important stakeholder group, youth in YPARD’s case, is the first step towards changing perceptions and relations in agricultural innovation systems. And being part of a network of people pursuing this aim and encouraging each other gives me the confidence (and new ideas!) to try to bring about change in agricultural and rural development”.

She has this to say on the account of joining YPARD;

“I am really looking forward to spreading the YPARD message, making more connections between members in the YPARD Netherlands network and beyond, and I’m very eager to learn from all the powerful experiences all over the world!”

Together with fellow YPARD Netherlands member and communications focal point Machteld Schoolenberg, Ingrid plans to connect with existing (youth) organizations in the Netherlands, focusing on agriculture and sustainable food such as Youth Food Movement and Nederlands Agrarisch Jongeren Kontakt (NAJK). Her main goal for YPARD Netherlands is to have a clear common strategy with YPARD Country representatives, YPARD Europe and the Global unit to get young people of her country more involved in agricultural development.

We are looking forward to hearing more on Youth-in-Agriculture activities from Netherlands under the leadership of Ingrid.

We also take this opportunity to thank Machteld Anna, the outgoing YPARD Netherlands representative and look forward to our continued interaction with her as the YPARD Netherlands communications focal point.

If you are from or based in the Netherlands, and want to get involved in YPARD Netherlands activities, please contact Ingrid at 该邮件地址已受到反垃圾邮件插件保护。要显示它需要在浏览器中启用 JavaScript。