I usually tackle assignments alone but work with others when our complimentary skills enhance a project. Whoever I work with has to share values and a people centred way of coming at  development. It is also important that our personalities and styles click. My understanding of how the world works and what's  important overlaps, in different ways, with these four.  Each  brings skills, perspectives and a life history  that compliments mine. We bounce off each other. Bel, Mariam, Rory and Andrew introduce themself below.

Bel van Noorden

My wide range of experience includes competitive sport, youth work, counselling, sports coaching, adventure therapy, social psychology research, and volunteering with non-profit organisations. Although my initial tertiary education began with two years of physiotherapy study, earning a scholarship to play soccer at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) meant that I transferred that degree to achieve a BA in Social Sciences summa cum laude.

Highlights of my football career include playing for New Zealand at the FIFA W20 World Cup in Canada in 2014 and winning several national championships with the Canterbury women’s team. As an elite-athlete in a team sport I have learned how groups of people can work together to achieve common goals. Research experience in Social Life and Motivation and my current postgraduate psychology studies continue to fuel my passion for people and collaboration.

Volunteering and being a part of community initiatives are things I have benefited immensely from through feeling a sense of connectedness, contribution and broadening my perspectives. In 2018 I was part of developing a local start-up project in Pittsburgh which utilised experiential learning nprinciples to enhance health outcomes for disadvantaged youth. Following the mosque shootings in Ōtautahi Christchurch in 2019, I played a key role in local initiative Giving Seeds of Love which provided a therapeutic response for some children and families. A volunteer role I currently get a lot out of is as a helpline counsellor for Youthline, where I am pushed to further develop my nterpersonal and crisis-management skills.

When I first returned from the USA, a keen yearning for social justice (along with significant experience coaching young people through sport) led me to several challenging years as a youth worker in Ōtautahi Christchurch. An initial role with Oranga Tamariki showed me first-hand some of the devastating outcomes of a less-than-perfect social system. My next role with an adventure-based NGO allowed me to utilise the outdoor skills and joy I inherited from my parents and a childhood in the outdoors. Getting to share these natural spaces and facilitating opportunities for building trust, confidence, and achievement with young people in the youth justice system was a role where I felt I could make a real difference. However, it still felt too much like an “ambulance at the bottom of a cliff”.

I connected with Jeph through a Te Reo Māori language course. We had sat down as a group to eat lunch and Jeph and I quickly discovered shared values regarding people, the planet, and progress. When Jeph shared about what he does, and some of the projects he has led, I was fascinated- who wouldn’t be, right?! This is “big stuff”, complex stuff stuff that’s “too complex to solve, too important not to”. And, well, here we are. Let’s do this.

Mariam Smith

Mariam is independent consultant at Learning Loop.  Our perspectives are not identical- we are different people- but significantly both of our life histories straddle the rich and the developing world. We both still live and  work  on the planet's upper and lower decks and relate deeply to people in both spaces . As  a team we bring  our different skills,  education,  languages and perspectives wrapped up in our similar people-centred approach.  Here is  Mariam in her words: 

Rory Jones

Rory and I have a shared understanding and humour born out of sharing thoughts and life over many years. We’ve shared a house in NZ, and lived in a Himalayan village together, traversed mountains in Zanskar, shared alpine tents in NZ  and facilitated workshops together. Rory brings values that resonate with me along with his unique blend of technical and relational skills. Here he is in his own words.  

Though a qualified engineer who enjoys my career, I find restricting myself to only the world’s technical dimensions somewhat unfulfilling.  In recent years I have moved beyond the the industrial engineering technical space, to spheres as diverse as development projects in rural India, training surgeons in the west and outcome based evaluation. In evaluation I see deliberately looking for and understanding relationships as a key entry intof how organisations and systems function. One of my greatest strengths is my combination of “hard” skills and experience through which I can quickly grasp technical and regulatory facets of a system and “soft” skills which let me integrate human and  organisational relations into that.

My life as a professional process engineer was about creating boredom. No one wants to be in a processing plant that is 'exciting' because exciting is the edge of  ‘out of control’ and out of control is where really bad things can happen ( check out Wikipedia's Industrial Disasters page).  In order to create boring processes, it is imperative that they are really well understood.  All the minute detail of often highly complicated systems  needs to be drawn out and the consequence of changes in variables deeply thought through. Yet even the most automated systems in the world still need people: People are required in the design, people are required in the manufacture. people are required in the operations, people required in the maintenance and finally, people are required in the decommissioning of the facility. 

Literally and  metaphorically people bring industry to life.

Thus a people-in-systems-approach started to inform my engineering practise. Back then I began to see that many systems contribute to industrial processes : technical systems, regulatory systems, management systems, environmental systems.  However. its humans who facilitate the functioning and  the interactions of them all.  I learnt this in masters degrees and better through practical experience on 'the shop floor'.. Then I realised that what is true for running industrial plants is also true for any human endeavour- Everything we care about is nested in human behaviour and relationships. Mapping system change i is about having eyes to see relationships, sensitivity to understand what they contribute,  vision to see how those relationships might develop more beneficially and skills to   facilitate that to happen. That holds true in any engineering plant and any development context. 

A famous saying in Maori, the language of New Zealand’s indigenous people goes::

'He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata'
(“What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people” it is people.)

That truth, first discovered in engineering, now finds a home in my development practice.

Recreationally, partly as a result of my  New Zealand heritage, I am drawn to wild places.  In modern life we spend much of our time in surroundings engineered by people. Retreating to the mountains or the sea, deliberately wilderness where comfort is not a given, requires me to relinquish control to my surroundings. I find it so refreshing to discover and use many levels of awareness. I love being out there where my experience is all about my relationship with my environment,  especially  when sharing this depth with my two boys and my wife, Jane.

Andrew Nzimbi

Andrew Nzimbi is an Independent Consultant in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) based in Nairobi. He has 14 years of working experience in the Humanitarian and Development Sectors, supporting MEAL functions for programs in diverse fields, in 10 African Countries and Yemen. He is a proponent of ensuring continuous meaningful and mutual engagement, and communication between providers and recipients of aid. He values accountability and is motivated by mutual learning and sharing of knowledge,

Here’s Andrew describing himself:

I am passionate about the use of evidence for informed decision making. I am a proponent of ensuring continuous, meaningful and mutual engagement and communication between providers and recipients of aid at all stages of the program cycle. I highly value accountability and am motivated by mutual learning and sharing of knowledge, which leads to contextualized solutions.

I am happy when communities receiving aid mention that they have been in touch with the aid providers, have been involved in decision making and are aware of the results and findings of any surveys/assessments conducted in their communities. I am also happy when MEAL practitioners say they understand and use diverse methodologies and especially those that are participatory in nature. I love ensuring that monitoring and evaluation processes are simplified and findings thereof utilized.

I have over 14 years of work experience in both Development and Humanitarian Work, covering ten (10) countries in Africa, and Yemen. My experience involves supporting programs funded by diverse donors and focusing on: Cash and Voucher Assistance, Resilience, Livelihoods, Social Protection, Food Security, Health, Education, Shelter, WASH, Protection and Humanitarian Assistance in general.

I have supported, and continue to support International and National NGOs and government institutions to solve their Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) needs and to improve their quality of programming. I have set up and coordinated management of MEAL systems; facilitated trainings, meetings and conferences; coordinated and conducted assessments, reviews and evaluations; facilitated strategic planning and provided support in various other MEAL related areas.

I am an auditor with the Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative (HQAI), Trained as a Trainer for Cash and Voucher Assistance Skills for Program Staff (CALP), East Africa Consultant with Ground Truth Solutions and trained as a mentor with REDR UK.

I continue to engage in MEAL related consultancies (including researches, reviews, assessments, evaluations, trainings, advice on setting up MEAL systems, developing theories of change and writing MEAL content). I speak in or moderate MEAL related conferences and continue to share my knowledge and experience in MEAL forums. I am based in Nairobi, but work internationally.