Roos Nijpels-Cieremans

I live with passion for nature and a compassion for human kind.

Dedicated, motivated and decisive, are the words that people use to describe me. In the past 18 years I have worked with indigenous communities in Asia, farmers from Cameroon to Costa Rica and organizations worldwide. I enjoyed providing opportunities to grow small and medium enterprises of Non Timber Forest Products while maintaining and restoring the remaining pockets of rainforests. This work brought me deep into the forests where you start to learn to appreciate the strength of humans to cope with fast changes and rooted traditions and culture. It makes you think deeply about the choices made on high political level driven by those in power and with control over the common goods. How can we work towards a world that provides sufficient opportunities for all?

In my current position as senior PMEL and Quality officer for Both ENDS, I take the lessons from my work as project leader as point of departure. I still enjoy bringing people together from various backgrounds, facilitate dialogues to come to shared goals and taking time to reflect and learn. Strategizing for the systemic changes starts in local reality. Just like learning starts with the individual mindset and being able to maintain our ISO 9001 standard starts with making sure the internal processes are aligned and supportive to our work.