Hi, there!
If you want to meet the faces behind the Perplexed Periphery texts, stick around and take a look at our short biographies below.
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Ana Carina Figueiredo
Ana Carina is an independent communication consultant based in Portugal. Since her early training in communication technologies, she has been involved in various backgrounds, working in the creative industry, as well as in the academic context. She has a long-term interest and involvement in the non-profit sector, having also worked for multiple NGOs in Portugal, Angola, and Mozambique. Ana is now pursuing a master’s degree in Communication for Development, seeking to prepare herself to better meet the challenges of international development as a communication professional. Along with her interest in social mobilization and community development, Ana is an avid reader, and an amateur boxer who loves hiking.
Chloé Rigélo
Chloé is working as an Independent Travel Advisor. Passionate about International Relations and Sustainable Development in the Caribbean and Latin America, she has worked with regional organizations for sustainable development solutions. After several years moving around the Caribbean and Europe, she set foot in Sweden to complete her second Masters in Communication for Development looking to contribute to community development and ethical visual storytelling.
Ivona Petrova
Ivona is currently working as a Communications Assistant at THE WHY Foundation in Copenhagen. Born in Bulgaria, where she completed a B.Sc. in Tourism Economics, she was interested in exploring other cultures and learning languages. After a few years of traveling and working in England, Spain and Austria, she moved to Denmark to do her Master’s in Intercultural Studies. Along with her second Master’s in Communication for Development, she aims to open the doors to turn her passion for human rights, gender equality, and conservation into a career.
Jessica Stegermaier
Jessica works as a football coordinator and project leader at the local football club FC Rosengård in Malmö – Sweden and focuses on the areas of social sustainability, inclusion, integration, and equality. After having completed her Bachelor degree in Human Rights at Malmö University, she decided to take over the local project ‘Läsa by FC Rosengård’, a project that uses books as a tool for social change. Originally from Berlin – Germany, Jessica traveled for several years, before finally moving to Sweden.
Juan Posada Burbano
Humanitarian bureaucrat. Generalist. Did my time in one of the “Big Five” INGOs operating in Colombia, and played “good cop” as staffer of a major European donor office in South America, overseeing projects on Protection and Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Education in Emergencies in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Remote manager for projects in Peru, Central America, South Sudan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. I am deeply interested in learning about the role of civil society organizations as humanitarian-development agents, and knowledge co-production in transitional settings. I write from my life experience and position as a white mestizo man, born in the Colombian Andes, that has profited from the hegemony of expert knowledge, and my own engagements with local marginalized and exploited communities, mediated by Global North aid institutions.
Paula Mata Garcia
Paula, originally from Spain, started her career in Digital Marketing in the UK, after completing her bachelors in Tourism Management and Communication Science. During the first years of her professional practice, she freelanced and traveled around the world, both for work and as a volunteer for various NGOs in South America, Africa and Asia, with the aim of exploring the on the ground realities of humanitarian work and development. She has been involved in various backgrounds including tourism and the hospitality sector in different countries. She has worked for the UN system in Ethiopia and in the academic sector in Iceland, with the UNU programme on gender studies. Since 2018 she has focused on exploring sustainable forms of co-living and off-the-grid alternatives. Paula is currently living on a sailboat touring around the world as part of a sustainable cargo transport community project.