STEPPING STONES FOR AFRICA FOUNDATION - Key Persons
Cindy Noordermeer-Panou is the co-founder and president of the foundation. Cindy earned her professional degrees in Nutrition (BSc) and International Public Health (MSc) at VU University in Amsterdam. Cindy has been living in Ghana since 2003 where she gained working experience in the health, development and tourism sector in urban and rural parts of the country. Ghana revealed her entrepreneurial skills and a great passion for social responsibility and development.
Madeleen Husselman moved to Ghana in 2012 and is settled here with her family. She has an MSc in Tropical Land-use and worked in South Africa and Zambia before coming to Ghana. Her professional career to date has focused on research and policy advisory work, within the broader development sector, and she has extensive NGO management experience. She joined the Stepping Stones for Africa Foundation board in 2022, to be able to contribute at a more grassroots level to small community-driven, sustainable projects.
Job Titles:
- Special Advisor of the Board
Margriet Reinders started her career in West Africa three decades ago in Tiebele in South-Eastern Burkina where she worked as a volunteer for SNV, a Dutch development Organisation. During the rest of her career, she worked for various organizations among others the Gender and Water Alliance in West Africa and a farmer's organization Trias in Guinee. She established her own successful weaving gallery in a small village outside Ouagadougou that became a sustainable source of livelihood for many women in the area. She is currently living in Ghana and working for MDF West Africa as a trainer and consultant. She joined the Stepping Stones for Africa Foundation as a board member, based on her broad experience in the development sector and her belief in small-scale community-driven development projects.
Naa Ashiley Vanderpuye is a medical doctor and advocates for the provision of accessible healthcare services delivered at the community level. She is the Medical Director of the International Health Care Center (IHCC), a private infectious disease clinic in Accra, Ghana, and CEO of the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF). She is specialized in the clinical management of HIV and TB and has been involved in the capacity building of many Key Affected Population groups as well as in the care and support of orphans and vulnerable children.
Remco Kalf - Founder, Treasurer
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Secretary
- Treasurer
- Telephone Secretary
Remco Kalf (1971) is the co-founder, treasurer and secretary of Stepping Stones for Africa. He lives in the Netherlands and has his own (web)design and -development agency. He designs and builds websites for companies and government bodies and works as a freelance consultant, designer and front-end developer.
Together with Cindy, in 2006 Remco founded the Stepping Stones for Africa Foundation. The foundation was the logical next step from the successful ‘Aandacht voor Aids' (‘Focus on AIDS') initiative, started by Cindy and Remco in 2003, while Cindy was working in an AIDS/HIV clinic in Accra. He also helped build Jolinaiko Eco Tours, the travel company of Cindy and her husband in Ghana, from a one-man company to a medium size enterprise by offering design and business-development support.
Remco's motivation for founding Stepping Stones for Africa, for helping grow Jolinaiko Eco Tours over the years, and for facilitating the partnership between both, is that he has seen over the last 12 years that real, meaningful impact on poor peoples's living conditions and motivation can be made. People living in poor rural villages can be inspired to take their own responsibility and focus on their entrepreneurship. They mostly need some guidance or practical help, and people that believe in them.
The partnership between the villages and their communities, Stepping Stones for Africa and dedicated and responsible tourism companies like Jolinaiko Eco Tours is a powerful one, to which he loves to dedicate his spare time.
Remco Kalf is the co-founder, treasurer and secretary of the foundation. Remco lives in the Netherlands where he works as a freelance designer, developer, technical writer and consultant. His motivation for founding Stepping Stones for Africa with Cindy in 2006 was his belief and experience in the previous years that making a real and meaningful impact on people living in deprived communities is possible. People can be inspired to take their own responsibility and start their entrepreneurial journey. They mostly need guidance and practical help, and people who believe in them.
Rob Handgraaf, who is Dutch, worked in the Netherlands until he was 35, in logistics and real-estate management. In 2001 he and his wife moved to France where they started a bed & breakfast and where he runs his own building company. At the end of 2017, Rob and his wife went to Ghana for the first time to do volunteer work for 3 months, in Liati Wote, in collaboration with Cindy Noordermeer-Panou. During this stay, the love and passion for Ghana and its people arose and the desire to contribute grew more. At the beginning of 2019, Rob and his wife returned to Ghana to work on the plastic recycling project in Liati Wote. After this second stay in Ghana, Rob joined the Stepping Stones for Africa Foundation board in March 2019.