Reinier Veldman

YEP period 2014 - 2016, batch 3

Young Expert at Connect International - Malawi

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First position after YEP

Centre Manager and Technical Advisor at CCAP Smart Center/Connect International

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YEP Role

As a Young Expert I worked with Connect International as a Technical Advisor for the Mzuzu SMART Centre. In this role I worked on expanding the use of low-cost WASH techniques through the training of local contractors and entrepreneurs on the technologies and the marketing of the technologies. Through the monitoring of previously installed technologies these can be further improved. Furthermore I taught the course ‘Principles of Hydrology’ at the Water Resources Management and Development Department of Mzuzu University.

Click here for more information about my project.

 

Skills

My background is in land- and watermanagement in the developmental setting with a focus on agricultural water use for the production of crops and the socio economic setting in which it takes place. Though the years I have developed skills on project management, communication and training, finding (technical) solutions for water related problems and adapting to and working in the local setting.

 

Background

Nationality: Dutch
Education: International Land- and Watermanagement (MSc and BSc) at Wageningen University with the specialization of Irrigation and Watermanagement. My MSc-thesis was on wetland agriculture in Malawi and my MSc-internship on developing a low-cost solution for the arsenic problem in Bangladesh.

 

Experience before YEP

2012 – 2014
Trainee with the National Water Traineeship a waterboard in the Netherlands (waterschap Hollandse Delta, Ridderkerk). There I worked as a stakeholder manager at a dike improvement project and as a policy advisor on the maintenance of the water system.

 

2012
Laboratory assistant at BLGG – AgroXpertus, a soil laboratory in Wageningen, The Netherlands

 

2011 – 2012
Course assistant at Wageningen University for the course Irrrigation System Design and Operation

 

2011
MSc-Thesis in Malawi with the Rainwater Harvesting Association of Malawi on the use of wetlands for dry-season agriculture and the relationship with household strategies

 

2009
MSc-Internship in Bangladesh with TU-Delft on on the development of a sub-surface arsenic removal method

 

2005 – 2009
Promoter for Wageningen University at high schools in the Netherlands