About me

"Food is a medium I use to realize a higher goal."

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Shop assistant & Kitchen help
Cato by Cato | 2013-2016
- customer service in store
- small kitchen responsibilities like making jam
- helping out with catering events
- cleaning activities

Founding member & volunteer
Food and Future | 2016 - present
- nonprofit student organization about sustainable lifestyle
-plant-based cooking workshops on schools and universities
-giving lectures about food, lifestyle, zero-waste, permaculture and activism in schools and universities

Internship & extended work period
Restaurant De Nieuwe Winkel | May-Augustus 2022
Everything kitchen related -
Mise en place and assembling dishes -
Kitchen cleaning and dish wash -
Serving and presenting food -

Market stand help
De Nieuwe Weelde| 2021-2022
- selling organic vegetables
- connecting with customers and give food advice
- getting up real early to build up everything

Bike delivery service
De Groene Rijders | 2022
- delivering packages and flowers sustainably

Shop managing
Bakkerij Tom van Otterloo | 2022-2023
- working in bakery shop on 3 locations
- Opening & Closing activities
- Customer service
- Horeca activities

Volunteer floor management & communication
Community centre De Stadskeuken | 2020 - 2022
- Daily floor management and horeca activities
- Coördinating weekly neighborhood cooking activities with volunteers
- Coördinating volunteers and interns in general
- Facilitating space for neighborhood activities
- Coördinator of media & communication team
- Research into starting coöperatives
- Process facilitator sociocratic governance

Tuition teacher primary school
Self-employed | 2017 - 2019
- Helping children with homework and learning process for maths, syntax & grammar, reading and other subjects.

Cleaning aid
Self-employed| 2017
- cleaning aid at someone's home
- testing and developing home made, bio-based and zero-waste cleaning supplies

GIMSEL Academy Rotterdam
BA Natuurvoedingskok| 2021 - present

Rakesh Roots n Permaculture (online)
Holistic Life Design Course |2020

ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem
BA Base for Experiment Art & Research | 2016- 2021
research about the role of art in creating -regenerative cultures
member of student council -

Rakesh Roots n Permaculture (online)
Online Permaculture Teacher Training Course | 2020

Rakesh Roots n Permaculture (online)
Sociocracy Course | 2020

Rakesh Roots n Permaculture (online)
Forest Garden Design Course | 2021

PUUR Permacultuur Breda
Permacultuur Design Cursus | 2017-2018

Porta Mosana College Maastricht
VWO Cultuur&Maatschappij | 2010 - 2016

Internship & Volunteer
mOERveld | 2013-2015
maintenance of experimental archeological outdoor classroom -
practicing ancient & natural building techniques -
building a prehistoric longhouse without machinery -
collaborating with United World College students -
practicing ancient natural leather making techniques and -cleaning animal hides

Volunteer in Malawi
Worldmapping | 2015
- Helping out in different long-term local developmental organizations for on education, food sovereignty and shelter in the southern region around the city of Zomba

Campaigner
Milieudefensie | 2017
- Campaign to spread awareness and call for action from people, businesses and government to divest from the Palm Oil industry.

Internship
Eotopia écovillage | 2018
helping in the permaculture garden -
helping with building a tiny house -
daily chores in the ecovillage -
learning about community governance, Nonviolent Communication and living without money -

Rebel
Extinction Rebellion | 2018 - present
- co-founder XR Wageningen, XR Netherlands,
XR Arnhem & Nijmegen
- giving trainings for activists and building a movement
- Facilitating spaces for grass-root organizing

Fermentation Café workshop series
Self-employed | 2022
- Organizing fermentation workshops and knowledge sharing from leftover organic vegetables from the farmer's market

Wildproefwandeling collab with Salina Berendsen
Self-employed| 2022
- Foraging walk / botany class in connection with nature and with homemade bites from wild plants.

Forest garden bike excursion
Self-employed | 2022
- With Wouter van Eck at Voedselbos Ketelbroek

GIMSEL Academy Rotterdam
BA Natuurvoedingstherapeut| 2022 - present

Cleaning aid
Self-employed| 2023 - present
- cleaning aid & clutter coach at someone's home
- testing and developing home made, bio-based and zero-waste cleaning supplies

work experiences & education

I studied the Arts, but wouldn't call myself an artist. I study macrobiotics cook and therapist, but putting my work in these boxes would be too narrow-minded. And while permaculture design comes back in all my work, a majority of people still only associate this with gardening, which is also a big shortcoming of what my work is about.

More accurately, my given names represent my vision and mission, that lay at the foundation of everything I do.

Zoé, given at birth ('98, Maastricht). Meaning: 'Life'.
As a child I was already very concerned about biodiversity loss and consequences of climate change to all life on our precious planet. After leaving college in 2016 I came to Arnhem, with a realization that years of school had hardly prepared me for anything to face the challenges the near future would bring. My activist flame was ignited; to disobey structures in our society that cause the destruction of life on Earth; to educate myself about ways and bring about the work that is needed to help create regenerative cultures, where all living systems can flourish to their fullest potential.

Saraswati, given by my spiritual teacher ('21, Haarlem). Meaning: 'A river in India and Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom and learning, who is one of the Tridevi with Lakshmi and Parvati'
A long time I felt shy carrying a name of a big goddess. But then I realized what it actually meant to be a river: the river is not the water the flows through it, but is the ground that carries and gives space to the water, to all creation, knowledge and wisdom, to flow. My second nature is to be an initiator, more than a maintainer of structure or one who dismantles it. And different than embodying all knowledge, creation and wisdom, it is my purpose to facilitate spaces as well inside each person to let their inner wisdom and creativity flow. Food is a recurring theme and medium I use to realize this goal.

Collaboration with Manon Danker in
The Work that Reconnects workshop weekends
Self-employed | 2022 - present
- Cook on weekend workshop retreats

Illustrations by Zoe Saraswati