SEVENSENSES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Challenge Coordinator & Participatory Action Researcher
Alice is Challenge Coordinator at SevenSenses. She first joined the Female Entrepreneurship Challenge in Kenya, after which she joined the SevenSenses Academy to become a Challenge Coordinator. She coordinated the ‘Healthy Teeth Challenge' in South Africa and ‘A Community-Based Tooth Decay Prevention Project‘ in Kenya. She is what you call a centipede. She is an independent dental hygienist, medical anthropologist and teacher. She combines all this with various oral care projects in developing countries. The PAR method of SevenSenses is an important success factor.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Denise is Participatory Action Researcher and -trainer. In 2021 she applied PAR in Rijnhuizen (Nieuwegein) on the subject of healthy living in a new, developing neighborhood. In 2022 she successfully finished the PAR-trainer course. She gives in-company PAR trainings and is part of the trainers team for the PAR Practitioners Program.
Dieuwke is training actress at SevenSenses. During interview trainings for our customers, she plays the role of the interviewee, giving the trainees the opportunity to practice their interview skills and providing feedback on what their verbal and non-verbal communication reflect on her as an interviewee.
Dieuwke graduated from Creare School of the Arts, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and has played leading roles in various films and plays. She has also produced three short films, which have recently been screened at several film festivals around the globe. Besides acting on screen, she has also worked as a coach in PsychoMotor Therapy with Intravant.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Evert Jan is managing partner at SevenSenses. After a career in IT, Evert Jan decided in 2011 to dedicate himself fully to innovating organizations. Most organizations still use the principles of the previous century, Evert Jan helps them to get ready for the future. He is frequent speaker on this subject and author of several management books, amongst which the highly praised "Ecosystem for Business" (Society 3.0 Foundation, 2013) and (in Dutch) "Van CEO naar tuinman" (Business Contact, 2014) about new ways of organizing things and about new leadership that is needed in this new business reality.
In 2014 he founded Business21, a kind of investment company developing anecosystem of companies. Each of these companies contributes in its own way to the transition to 21 st century business. Business21 facilitates these companies to further develop themselves in such a way that they use the new business principles themselves, work together and reinforce each other, and together make a difference.
In 2015 Evert Jan discovered SevenSenses. He was immediately impressed by the SevenSenses approach in developing countries and had the opinion that it deserved application in other areas as well. He decided to join with a main focus on developing SevenSenses business in The Netherlands.
Since then Evert Jan has been instrumental in further developing SevenSenses. As sparring partner of Madelon he helped setting up the SevenSenses Action Research Academy, he took part in building the SevenSenses Foundation, he built a team for projects in The Netherlands, he made SevenSenses well known in the world of municipalities, and more.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher & PAR Trainer
Famke is an experienced PAR facilitator and founder of the Action Research Company in the Netherlands. She is certified PAR trainer at SevenSenses. She is first author of the Dutch book: Action Research; principles for change in health and welfare (2017). She facilitates Participatory Action Research projects in nursing homecare settings, hospitals and local communities and provides methodological support to a wide variety of action research projects, as supervisor/co-promotor and co-facilitator and supports in writing grant applications. Famke has a wide national and international network and leads various programs on PAR and practice development. She has a background in healthcare as a nurse and as a health scientist in the field of health education and health promotion. She is an associate professor at Fontys University of Applied Sciences (Eindhoven). In 2013 she finished her doctorate at the University of Ulster (UK). Her study focused on systems of support in facilitating action research. She is passionate about the use of arts, creativity and storytelling in research and practice development.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher & PAR Trainer
Job Titles:
- Challenge Coordinator, Participatory Action Researcher & PAR Trainer
Geertje is Challenge Coordinator of the Sustainable Tourism Challenge, SevenSenses certified Participatory Action Researcher and PAR-trainer. She studied International Sustainable Development Cooperation at HAN University of Applied Sciences and International Tourism Management and Consultancy at the NHTV Breda. During her field work and traveling experiences, she discovered the potential of improving the intercultural exchange between tourists and locals and its impact on the livelihoods of the locals, as well as on local flora and fauna.
Jelka is training actress at SevenSenses. Together with our PAR-trainers, she gives lively interview trainings where she plays the role of any interviewee you may encounter when conducting PAR. She has the great ability to dive under the skin of an interviewee and feel what effect a particular question has in her role of the interviewee.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Karlijn is Participatory Action Researcher at SevenSenses. She joined the PAR Practitioner's program in 2021 and conducted together with her colleagues from Raedelijn a PAR about healthy living in the new barrio of Rijnhuizen (Nieuwegein).
Job Titles:
- Challenge Coordinator, Participatory Action Researcher & Board Member
Laetitia is Challenge Coordinator and treasurer of the SevenSenses Foundation. She did excellent work conducting Participatory Action Research with her team for the Father Involvement Challenge, moving an entire community in Hammanskraal, South Africa to improve fathers' involvement in their children's upbringing.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Founder of SevenSenses and Has 15 Years of Participatory Action Research
- Founder, Participatory Action Researcher, Challenge Coordinator and PAR Trainer
Madelon is founder of SevenSenses and has 15 years of Participatory Action Research (PAR) experience in the field. For governmental as well as non-governmental organizations she performs Participatory Action Research in different settings and on different subjects, in the Netherlands and abroad. Madelon gives training and lectures in PAR methodology and other PAR-related subjects to a wide range of different audiences. She has also trained experienced PAR practitioners as PAR-trainers, with whom she now forms a lively SevenSenses PAR-trainers team. She helps universities (and - of applied science) integrate PAR in their curriculum and gives training in how to guide and assess students in PAR.
"The first experience I got with Participatory Action Research (PAR) was in a small village in the mountains of Guatemala, during my research internship for the VU University Amsterdam in 2008. Surprised by what impact PAR can create in communities, I knew for sure I wanted to do more with this. Gaining more experience myself in Bolivia and Cameroon and guiding over 100 PAR researchers worldwide, I decided it was time to start my own organization - SevenSenses - providing PAR-trainings to all organizations that aim to create sustainable impact worldwide.
Margreet is board member of the SevenSenses Foundation since 2018. Since 2008 she works on projects based upon the principles of Crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing and Crowd mobilization, first 6 years in the first crowdfunding platform in the Netherlands 1%Club in which she co-built the community, designed a 1%Coaching system and several ways of working. After this she worked as a self-employed consultant in different innovation projects. During the last two years she set up the Social Innovation Pillar at UNITAR, a branch of the UN. At this moment Margreet is Innovation Facilitator of Partos, the branch organization for Dutch Development.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Mischa is certified Participatory Action Researcher at SevenSenses. She successfully completed the SevenSenses PAR Practitioners Program 2019. Mischa conducted her first Participatory Action Research in Tilburg, together with Participatory Action Researcher Minke Dijkstra. Their PAR focuses on sex work and stigma in the municipality of Tilburg. A second PAR on sex work and stigma followed in 2022, in Den Bosch. Mischa is also co-founder of PeepShowHoes, a peepshow on wheels: a combination of design, art and theatre, to celebrate sexual freedom together with sex workers and allies. An increasing visibility of sex workers will lead to normalizing and more understanding, in turn leading to an increase of acceptance in society. So that all people, in all their diversity will be accepted in a way that they will in actual fact feel free to be who they are openly.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Challenge Coordinator and Participatory Action Researcher
Phyllis is Board Member of the SevenSenses Foundation. Her career at SevenSenses started in 2015, when she joined the very first SevenSenses Academy course for Challenge Coordinators, conducting Participatory Action Research in an international team. She coordinated the Female Rights Challenge in Kisii and the Women Empowerment Challenge in Kisii, Kenya in 2016 and 2017 respectively and a follow-up in 2019.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Rhani successfully completed the very first edition of the PAR Practitioners Program and is now certified Participatory Action Researcher at SevenSenses. Together with Friederike Ertmer she conducted PAR at the project Elderly's Joyful Life (Utrecht).
Job Titles:
- Certified Participatory Action Researcher
- Participatory Action Researcher
Sandra Niezink is a Certified Participatory Action Researcher at SevenSenses. She has a degree in education and is fascinated by (universal) laws of learning, growth and development of individuals as well as groups. PAR is a powerful method and guide that honors those universal laws and therefore is able to shape healthy communication and co-creation in complex challenges of all kind.
She joined the PAR Practitioners Program in 2020 and conducted her PAR together with Wout Peters in the North of the Netherlands on preventive health (van Ziekte en Zorg naar Gezondheid en Gedrag). After her graduation she conducted several other PAR Projects on different subjects. In 2022 she joined the SevenSenses PAR-Trainer course which made her also a SevenSenses Certified PAR Trainer.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Board Member SEVEN SENSES Foundation
Ted is chairman of the SevenSenses Foundation since 2020. He is known for his dedication to nature, sustainability and social justice. He built his network during 33 years at Triodos Bank.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher & PAR Trainer
Wilma is a certified Participatory Action Researcher and PAR trainer at SevenSenses. She successfully completed the SevenSenses PAR Practitioners Program, for which she conducted PAR in Moerwijk, The Hague. Her PAR focused on Health and Wellbeing in the neighborhood. She conducts and guides several PAR practitioners in The Hague, Zoetermeer and Rotterdam, all in the field of health and social-services and gives lively PAR-trainings to our clients.
Wilma has a background in healthcare as a nurse, in healthcare management, and as a policy advisor on integrated care. She is especially interested in integrated care and care for elderly. Besides her work as a Participatory Action Researcher, Wilma holds a PhD at the Uclan University of Central Lancashire. Her professional doctorate study entailed the evaluation of a transitional care program implementation for older adults. As part of the SevenSenses Institute, she contributes to creating and spreading scientific knowledge about Participatory Action Research.
As a SevenSenses Keynote speaker she gives vibrant and inspiring talks about subjects such as integrated care - connecting health and social care, health inequalities, public and patient involvement and other subjects.
Job Titles:
- Participatory Action Researcher
Wout joined the PAR Practitioners Program 2020 and is since then totally PAR-minded. After years of experience in intensive care as an ambulance nurse, he successfully specialized in Healthy Aging. The PAR Practitioners Program of the SevenSenses Academy gave this Master Healthy Aging professional the in-depth knowledge he had been looking for for years. Since then, Wout has been conducting Participatory Action Research from the local health center in Veendam, on the subject of the movement from Sickness & Care to Health & Behavior (van Ziekte & Zorg naar Gezondheid & Gedrag, van ZZ naar GG). The ideas, plans and actions that are in co-creation are very promising. The movement from ZZ to GG has already been set in motion at the start of the PAR. This means that PAR can no longer be ignored in Wout's work. He thinks and acts in PAR. For more information, see the website of Stichting Ikibuntu.