I am a student of political science and a passionate social entrepreneur ;). Most people tell me that I am "a gem of a person". I love to empathise with my surroundings and engage in profound discussions. From party nights to deep talk I had throughout wonderful experiences while Couchsurfing.

My current engagement is dedicated to the social enterprise GlobalMatch I founded a few years ago. Have a look at my Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bct6TBc_Fko&t=9s

A few formal words about my passions:
Appalled by global disparities, which I realized the first time during a trip to South Africa at the age
of 14, I early on followed my aspiration to engage in a project with profound meaning. Already
during high school I dedicated three months of voluntary service to an orphanage in Jinja, Uganda.
There I had the opportunity to work in a health center, supporting the community work of the
orphanage by building houses in the rainforest and visiting microcredit projects across the country.
However, I quickly became aware that global disparities are rooted in socio-political complexity,
which made working in an orphanage seem insufficient. Instead, I made it my goal to understand
the roots of global challenges as a precondition to participating in a process of change towards a
just world.

Consequently, I decided to study Politics, Society and Geography in Bonn. Recently I got particularly fascinated by postcolonial authors such as Said, Fanon, Spivak and Escobar. Feeling the urge to learn about
non-eurocentric perspectives I continued my journey of understanding development during a
semester in Brazil. I decided to follow up my experiences with courses of anthropology, sociology
and history of Brazil thus gaining insights in how colonial continuities shaped the economic
success and political failure of Brazil. Coming to Brazil in a time of political unrest - president
Rousseff had just been impeached - I realized that bureaucratic structures established in colonial
times consolidated an overlap of the private and public sphere and thus still foster corruption and
mistrust amongst the population.

Besides my academic engagement, I constantly followed my goal of exploring possible solutions to
global challenges by becoming a Greenpeace activist, a member of Unicef and the local agenda
21. As I became interested in the power of international organizations I participated in the Model United Nations session in New York in 2015 and have an inspiring meeting with the former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Still searching for the right approach towards global challenges I joined the board of ProjectTogether, a
social start-up which supports young people in claiming an active role in society by starting social
enterprises. I learnt to build and scale businesses, lead teams and to cope with responsibility.
Working with people who managed to build organizations that are able to tackle problems they
experienced in their own lifes, made me wonder about my intrinsic motivation and the problem I
really want to solve in my life. Looking back at my encounters in South Africa and Uganda I figured
out that my biggest wish has always been that people from all over the world should have equal
opportunities to explore the world and shape it. I had a key epiphany in my life when a Ugandan friend told me during my voluntary service that the Ugandan government does not repair potholes because they wait for Europeans to pay for it.

Finally, I used my gained skills in entrepreneurship to found GlobalMatch, a social enterprise which takes advantage of the potential of digitalisation by connecting young people from different parts of the world on the basis of their interests. As the bare connection is not enough to overcome historically established power
relations, we provide intercultural training and approach the issue of postcoloniality. At GlobalMatch I am
responsible for two full-time employees and 35 volunteers. In this context I have been invited from
universities, social entrepreneurship summits and the GIZ to give workshops on post-colonialism
within development work.

In October 2018 I will enroll in the MPhil of Development Studies at the University of Oxford.

I am happy to discuss with all of you wonderful people how to shape Globalization.

Love and big hugs

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I love couchsurfing because that's the best way to discover places with amazing people. I am really into colecting perspectives ;) and discussing all kind of topics.

Interests

• dancing
• cooking
• modeling
• politics
• traveling
• socializing
• painting
• study abroad

What I Can Share with Hosts

I really like cooking for my hosts ;). But I also appreciate nice talks and discussions!

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Peru, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Peru, Spain