Ruben van Tilburg

YEP period 2021 - 2022, batch 22

Young Expert at Woord en Daad - Ethiopia

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First position after YEP

Data-Analysis and Visualisation Expert at Woord en Daad Ethiopia

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YEP Role

I am employed by Woord en Daad as a Young Expert Water to assist their local partners on two projects. The first project is “Awash Water Pricing”. I will be working together with the Ethiopian Ministry of Water and my task within this project is to improve water management and realize more efficient water use in the Awash basin. We hope to achieve this through training in water conservation methods, soil moisture measurements, and data analysis, and through the use of weather data, providing farmers with information about expected rainfall.

The second project I am working on in Ethiopia is “Drought Resilience Shalla”. My task is to assist the public water supplier in Shalla with their main challenges in distributing water. The local groundwater is contaminated with fluoride, thus water is transported from a well 60km away. Currently, the pipeline system has a lot of leakages that need to be mapped out and fixed. Furthermore, data on water users (amount of people, cattle, schools, clinics) needs to be collected to give the water supplier a better insight into water use.

Skills

• I am a creative thinker: I am able to take a step back and look at problems from a different perspective.
• I have a passion for Africa: I grew up on the continent for eight years and it has always been my passion to come back and help to work on problems.
• Data Analysis
• Eye for detail

Background

Nationality: Dutch

Education: BSc International Development Studies at Wageningen University