Chiara was born in Austria in 1983 to an Irish mother and an Austrian father. Growing up she knew very soon that she wanted to go abroad, and it was never out of the question because her parents met while living in Iran and her mother left her own country to set up her family life abroad.
After finishing high school in Austria, Chiara started studying in the UK. The degree she decided to follow was Social Anthropology with French at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and she was especially interested in their programme because it offered a year in France. Chiara loved studying at Kent and the year she spent in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, was mind blowing. During her time at Kent she fell in love with Academic research and was also able to delve into other subjects that interested her, like International Relations and Development Studies. Her bachelor’s thesis was about the Slovene speaking minority of the southern Austrian province of Carinthia and the political and social identity issues present there.
Becoming more aware of social justice issues, Chiara decided to leave Anthropology for a while and concentrate on Development Studies, in order to create informed positive change in people’s lives. This is the path she is still on, although she is eager to get back to following and doing anthropological work again in the future.
After four years in England it was time to leave, and because she wanted to take a master’s course in International Development Studies, Chiara moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to do exactly that.
In 2009 she graduated at the University of Amsterdam, having written her thesis about European Commission funding channels to peace education projects in Lebanon, after spending a three month fieldwork period in Beirut.
Chiara has worked intensively with children over the last few years as a nanny and teacher, and is particularly keen on working on projects with children and youth in the development sector. At the moment she is preparing to move to Honduras for a year. Why Honduras? Well, because her girlfriend Sandra found a great job there. So in this blog the transition from life in Amsterdam, to life in Honduras will be written about extensively over the next year.
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