Mardjorie van Eyma

I was born in Surinam a colony of Holland till 1975. Writing this down I realize that the indepency of my homeland is not that long ago. Growing up this meant that the infleunce of Holland was significant. My grandfather was one of the first in his community who was sent off to The Netherlands to study and get his Msc degree. This meant that education, intellectial development was a major part of my upbringing. To make the most of your talent and the chances that are given to you but also to be considered of people who dont have the same opportunities.

It was to be expected that I would pursue an academic career and therefore I came to Holland to study at the university of Amsterdam.

I started with a study chemstry and later switched to geography and planning. I am specialized in research on migration and the effect on the surrondings. During my study I started giving capacity building training to isolated migrant communities and refugees. These were my first steps away from the scientific research environment. This new path gave me enormous fulfilment mainly because after a few years I could clearly see the effect on the participants and was proud to be part of this development. I also began to stimulate these migrant communities to organize themselves which led to the birth of serval migrant, refugees NGO’s .Together with others I developed programs for these bodies to participated and to interact with local athorities. The involment of some of the NGO on EU level was an important milestone. Mainly because the legislationon migration and itegration is an EU concern this is key.

Over the years I have invested in contacts with youngsters. Especially migrant and refugees younsters that have great difficluty to adjust and cope in society. I developed a parentingmethod for families who have difficulty coping. More recently I published this method for professionals in this sector who want to help these families but don’t have any idea how to achieve this.