When the plane landed in Rome after quite a long journey from Antananarvo, Marieke and I found our way back to the familiar hotel near the WFP’s office, where we were warmly greeted by a colleague from TNT The Hague. It was very nice to catch up and talk about our time in Madagascar. After having slept like babies, the next day the other country teams were arriving from their designated countries into Rome. Long hair, unshaved (the men) and healthy colored we met all of them on a terrace in the city centre. You can imagine the atmosphere..
Guido van Heugten
First name:
Guido
Last name:
van Heugten
Biography:
I was born in 1986 in a small town in the East of The Netherlands and spent almost my entire childhood in Arnhem. Since I graduated from my high school not even being eighteen I decided to do a year of travelling before going to university. I spent a lot of time in Australia, having some interesting jobs, meeting some more interesting people, visited the kiwis in New Zealand and strolled through South East Asia.
After this year it was time to pick up my studies, so I went to Maastricht University in the South of the Netherlands, to start my bachelors in European Law. The first two years of my studies I was a race rower.
In 2007 I was given the opportunity to have a very unique summer, I was selected for the AIESEC Ambassadors Programme: I went to Malaysia, where I had a great cultural experience, but also did corporate visits and humanitarian work and made some great friends. I still could not get enough of exploring the world and packed my backpack again and went to South America for two months and two months more in Central America, where I got to work on my Spanish skills and opened my eyes to this part of the world.
The years after I got involved in the politics of the university, doing one year of Faculty Council and the following year doing University Council, where I learned a great deal, being the leader of a fraction, vice president and representing my university in a committee in The Hague.
In the beginning of this year I was already very interested into applying for the TNT Global Experience Programme, so I took some language courses to freshen up my French. For my thesis I decided to write about development law with a focus on two African countries, which made my interest for development cooperation grow further.
When I heard I was given the opportunity to work for the World Food Programme in Madagascar and doing practical work in a field which I am really interested in I could not have been more excided.
The work has been a great experience, the last couple of months I have learned a lot and it has truly enriched my life in many ways. WFP is doing a great job in Madagascar, giving food to thousands of people who are in desperate need of food. It helps keeping the children in schools with the School Meals Programme, tries to develop communities with Food For Work projects and in case of emergencies WFP is there to assist the people in need.
It will be an experience I will never forget.
History
- Member for
- 2 years 10 months
Latest blog items
Capacity Training at Regional Bureau
12 February 2010
Guido van Heugten
This week I have spent in WFP’s Regional Bureau in Johannesburg and have been trained to upgrade my skills in Communication and Reporting. My colleagues from Public Information (Richard and Claudia) taught me all the ins and outs regarding information management.
Teaching About Hunger in Antananarivo
28 January 2010
Guido van Heugten
Many people are not aware of the hunger issue. They do not know that more then one billion people are undernourished worldwide and that 1.02 billion people are hungry every single day, which is the highest number since 1970, the earliest year for which comparable statistics are available, according to FAO. Neither are they aware of the fact that hunger (underweight) is number 1 on the list of the world’s top 10 health risks and that it kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Emergency Operations & Private Partnerships
18 January 2010
Guido van Heugten
When looking out of the window it is poring with rain, it is incredible to see how much rain can fall a day and the effects it has. The sky is so black that one can say it is already late in the evening. While I am writing this the electricity falls out continuously and the streets in Antananarivo are literally transformed into small rivers and sometimes the access to our gate is blocked because the road below transformed into a small lake, which makes it impossible for cars to drive through.
