Passmore Dongi and his team at Raymond Mhlaba Economic Development Agency (formerly known at Nkonkobe Economic Development Agency) welcomed Eleonore Hövel from Germany as an intern. Here is what she has to say to all of us:

Dear Amanzi for Food followers,

my name is Thekla Eleonore Hövel and I studied environmental engineering at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen in Germany. After my bachelor degree in October 2016, I was looking for an opportunity to be involved in sustainable projects in developing countries, especially in the water supply sector. I had read the book “Water Resilience for Human Prosperity” written by Dr. Johan Rockström. I was so impressed that I decided to find out more about him and the institutions that had been involved in the research and that is how I came across the Environmental Learning Research Centre of Rhodes University. This is where I found the “Amanzi for Food” project. This Project aroused my interest so much that I contacted them to apply for an internship. They linked me to one of their local partners, the Raymond Mhlaba Economic Development Agency (formerly Nkonkobe Economic Development Agency (NEDA)) in Alice, Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. So far, I could say that I am enjoying it working with NEDA and that the internship is more than I was expecting it to be. I`ve never lived in such a small city before, I´ve never been to Africa before and I`ve never met so many nice people on a daily basis. To sum it up I would say there are a lot of great impressions I experience here.

Kind Regards,
Eleonore