About the authors
Lida Schelwald-van der Kley
Having worked for many years as an international environmental consultant and being a member of the Executive Board of a Dutch Regional Water Authority, Lida has become more and more intrigued with international water issues. She has noticed that despite all efforts, too many people in this world still suffer from too much, too little or too filthy water. During her more than 20 years of consultancy work for both private companies and government organizations, Lida has experienced that communication and cooperation are important for the success of any project. Taking into account the cultural context is likewise important.
She wondered if an exploration of the relationship between water and culture world-wide could help to find the keys to successful and sustainable water management. Lida decided to start an explorative journey across the continents and to lay down her findings in a book. At this point she met a former colleague, Linda, who brought along a wealth of world-wide cultural expertise, and they decided to join forces.
Lida has written several international publications on successful communication between industrial companies and their stakeholders. One widely used, as it provides practical guidelines, is "Communication on contaminated land management". Since 1994 Lida has been the Managing Director of Envision-S.
Lida was born in Vancouver, Canada and has lived and worked most of her life in the Netherlands.
She is married to René and they have two children, Esmay and Rayner.
Address:
drs. A.J.M. (Lida) Schelwald-van der Kley
Envision-S BV
Linda Reijerkerk
Since 1985 Linda Reijerkerk has been working as a cultural anthropologist and an international consultant in water management and sanitation with a clear focus on processes and institutional development and management. She has been working in Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and South America for institutions including the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, EBRD, African Development Bank and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On all of these continents her work has always focused on project management, institutional development, training and communication/education. Linda speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, French and Dutch.
As Linda saw an increase in water conflicts, she specialised as a mediator in 1997. She is now Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in the Netherlands, one of the top three Dutch companies specialised in trainings for mediation and negotiation. She is furthermore a professional coach and mediator for business and workplace-related disputes, as well as for public disputes (environmental, multi-party mediation) with a special interest in water conflict resolution.
Her interest is still focussed on water and environmental disputes, with a special eye for the cultural context of both water and conflict. She was, therefore, excited to work with Lida on this project on water&culture.
Linda is co-author of, among other publications, the Praktijkgids Mediation (Practical Guide to Mediation, 2005), Diversity Management (2005), Intercultural Conflict Management and Mediation (2004), Verbinden met Vertrouwen (2008, on multistakeholder and participatory processes) and Groupmediation (2008).
She has been a board member of the Dutch Mediators Association (NMV) and is presently President of the European Mediators' Network Initiative, EMNI and board member of the Association for Environmental Mediators in the Netherlands.
Linda is married to Jon and has two children, Florian and Amaya.
Address:
Centre for Conflictresolution
Jansweg 40
2011 KN Haarlem
The Netherlands