Chaordica was born out of the union of four founders of the Mandril Cultural and Political Center and post-graduates of the University College in “Liberal Arts and Sciences” (Maastricht, NL). Since 2012, we have been using creativity and the power of community to activate and empower individuals and collectives to contribute to sustainable citizenship by initiating, organising and managing projects and events.

We achieve this activation through art, philosophy, education, cultural engagement and political activism. Above all, by recognising everyone’s potential to think, analyse, act, create and be a like-minded member of society.

“We aim at being the bridge between implanting and activating educational initiatives,  thereby joining our diverse brains, bodies and perspectives to create social innovation“

We form a diverse and creative work team, made up of professional facilitators, event organizers, pedagogical leaders, academics, anthropologists, activists, artists. Each of us and together, we are constantly experimenting and initiating inclusive and encompassing alternatives. We do so by using our extensive, synthesized networks and facilitating skills.

CORE TEAM

Fanny Desvachez

Fanny completed high school in India, in one of the 17 United World Colleges (UWC) making education a force to unite people, nations, and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. Out of the wish to unravel economic and political systemic flaws, she graduated with a MSc in Public Policy and Human Development.

She however found empowerment in grassroots initiatives and soon understood that this is where her time and creativity was worth investing. She co-founded the Mandril Cultural Center, has worked as a researcher on a female agency and mobility project at the UNU-GCM in Barcelona, as a youth worker for the Red Cross Belgium and has organised a number of experiential courses for international groups of young people – both in collaboration with the UWC movement and independently in Italy, Turkey and Belgium. These experiences specialised her in group mediation, facilitation as well as intercultural and interpersonal dialogue.

To her, experiential education is a wonderful tool to create personal and socio-political change towards a sustainable and equitable world.

Linda al Sharif

Linda al Sharif holds a cum laude MSc in Cultural Anthropology and Sustainable Citizenship; an interdisciplinary education addressing the relationship between citizenship, cultural diversity and societal sustainability. Earlier she obtained a BASc in Liberal Arts and Sciences; a transdisciplinary programme aimed to create all-rounded, ambitious, critical and independently organised society-shapers. Through both, she made her home in political science, globalisation, sociology, cultural and media studies, minority and social justice studies, postcoloniality and qualitative research. Together with Fanny and Amber she co-founded and ran the Mandril Cultural and Political Centre, as well as the Cultural Freezone Collective and Stichting Caracola.

Through Critical Mass, she facilitating ‘difficult talks’ on bullying, discrimination and exclusion through experiential learning, interactive games and extensive training for teachers and pupils, and worked to reform normalisation and institutionalisation of social exclusion at schools. As a freelancer, she’s conducted research and produced projects to promote citizen’s initiatives, civic space and civil participation in policy making. She currently works for an international peace organisation, training and supporting youth activists, and working on feminist justice, in conflict zones. In her free time, she’s obtaining a degree in movement-therapy. Shaped by a multicultural and trilingual upbringing spread out over various countries, cultural diversity and belonging are important themes for her. Today, she identifies as a full-time feminist activist on a mission to make this world a safer, juster, and more colourful place if she has any say in it.

Amber in ‘t Veld

Amber grew up in Spain and decided in 2010 to travel alone and work as a teacher in Nepal for 9 months. This sparked in her an interest in the complex dynamics that underlie our globalised world, and triggered critical reflections on topics such as privilege, power and cultural diversity. She graduated from University College Maastricht in 2015, where she gained in depth academic knowledge on these themes by majoring in sociology, political sciences and sustainability sciences. In order to further deepen her skills on social entrepreneurship, participatory leadership, group facilitation and non-formal education methods, she studied for one year at the Youth Initiative Program in Sweden.

Driven by her passions for social justice, activism and building upon people’s capabilities through self-empowerment, she has co-founded the Mandril Cultural and Political Centre (Maastricht), organised a variety of international independent youth gatherings on sustainable citizenship (Switzerland, Spain and the Netherlands), designed and taught a course on youth empowerment at the Vrije Hogeschool (the Netherlands), and coordinated a conference on the topics of migration and privilege in Sweden last year, among others. She is currently living in Brussels where she is part time developing as an artist and sing-and-songwriter, aiming to further connect creative practices with social and political activism.

Celine Desvachez

Céline has engaged in different social/ cultural/political projects. She worked with youth empowerment; through skills learning/sharing, handcrafts, sailing and outdoor activities. Notably, she was trained with the association “Bel Espoir” in Brittany as a youth worker, sailor and social facilitator. She likes to experiment and share knowledge, with others, through food, low-tec, music and bodily endeavours. She puts her energy in creative cultural and artistic projects related to social innovation and gender struggles. Aside from her involvement with Chaordica as our food logistics manager and action-taker, she is a woman of the winds and sails with Greenpeace on the Rainbow Warrior III, as a sailor (officer in becoming) and activist in different environmental campaigns, globally.