With encouragement from her colleagues, the Anne van den Ban Fund enabled Belle to study in Wageningen

Belle grew up in the city of Santa Rosa, a highly urbanised area right outside of the capital Manila in the Philippines. She is the youngest in a family of five children. During her bachelor’s she found refuge from the concrete city in the Forestry programme at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. It turned out to be a very technical program, focusing more on the ecological dimension of forestry, which sparked her interests in broader aspects in the field. Once she delved into more social topics, such as urban forestry and agroforestry, she found a path that suited her. Following her graduation, she spent some years volunteering at an international youth organisation and working with an international research organisation focused on forest and landscape management.

Now, her master’s in Development and Rural Innovation at Wageningen University & Research, is the next step on this path. “My colleagues and my boss all studied in Wageningen and thought I should apply,” she says. Thanks to a scholarship from the Anne van den Ban scholarship fund of University Fund Wageningen, a master’s programme abroad became a possibility for her. 

“Not many Filipinos get this kind of opportunity. I am incredibly grateful for this privilege of studying abroad and learning at a world-renowned university from professors with different expertise,” Belle explains. Another opportunity she had in Wageningen was learning how to ride a bike. “I spent three months inconsistently trying to learn it,” she laughs. “In the end, I took 30 minutes one day to really get the hang of it, and now I can ride!” The scholarship has also provided her with a broadened career perspective: “It has allowed me to think about the many paths that I can go and impact that I can have in the future, which I wouldn't have considered possible otherwise.”

Belle will do her thesis in Cambodia on the political ecology of water governance, a subject that has captured her interest since learning more about it from her programme courses. “I find it very interesting how different people or communities have varying ways of stewarding their own resources, and different strategies for political mobilisation.” After she graduates, she wants to lead international research organisations working on the same subject, by contributing to development projects and advising on government policies. “I would love to learn how communities around the world govern their spaces at different scales. And I want to create linkages for knowledge exchange, so they feel empowered to mobilise, especially at times of political turbulence. I feel like my purpose in life is to serve the people.”