Our fellow Ella Egberts is currently in sunny Cyprus to carry out her non-academic secondment. We have asked her how things are going…
Q: What are your secondment activities?
A: I conducted my secondment at the Laona Foundation, Cyprus. The Laona Foundation is a well-established NGO dedicated to cultural landscape conservation, environmental stewardship, and community-led sustainability initiatives. It combines heritage protection, ecological restoration, rural development, and public participation. I joined them to collaborate on one of the projects they are currently a partner on: the Interreg Euro-Med WatHer project. The WatHer project specifically focuses on traditional water harvesting, storage, canalisation systems and explores how these historical infrastructures can contribute to climate adaptation, biodiversity enhancement, and the revitalization of rural economies. In the context of this project I worked on interpreting the landscape based on remote sensing and historical data and mapped all historic water management features in the study area. This data set was used for field visits, during which we investigated these water management systems.
Q: Which skills are you learning or developing?
A: Through the collaboration I gained insight in the working of EU Interreg Projects as well as insight in the organization of a NGO like Laona, which focusses on community-led initiatives. Joining these initiatives was hugely inspiring. Through working with Laona, I gained insight in how to initiate community-led initiatives. This broadened my horizon and showed me new possibilities for future cross-sectoral projects.
Q: What is the most interesting part of the secondment?
A: It has been particularly exciting to learn in how many ways the work of Laona and my research group can bounce off each other. I am happy to share that plans are in the making to further develop our collaboration.
