dora djamila mester
social gardener| educator | activist
communities| relationships| intercultural encounters
I have been working as a creator, facilitator or as a volunteer on different garden and social engagement projects where the process has been fostering social integration, inclusion, community building, education, radical transformation, beauty or healing.
I work as a trainer, coach, educator on the domains of trust(building), intercultural communication, intimacy, gender, sexuality, safety, power dynamics, identity, empowerment.
I am the founder and leader of the Amsterdam based international non-profit organization In Touch and used to be the founder of the Budapest based Ars Erotica Foundation for sexuality education and for the acceptance of sexual cultures.
I live and work in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands but I do projects and have clients from more than a dozen countries in Europe. I use the floating garden metaphor to describe my life and my work.
All my work in the last almost twenty years, whether I worked as a sexual educator, activist, writer, social scientist, social gardener, community builder or a personal relationship coach, was around one basic question: how to achieve healthier and happier societies?
How to create and maintain trust, honesty, overcome misunderstandings; instead of isolation, segregation or violence how to create a shared (re)source out of cultural and all kind of diversity (age, color, gender, social status, etc.)? How to create safe but also inspiring and encouraging spaces where we can be born and reborn, heal, grow, rest, learn, work, create, play or just be as we are? This “space” can also be a relationship, a family, a community or your own body and mind.
Instead of fragmented, and mediatized ways of modern life I focus on the first-hand human experience because we give birth, grow and learn, love and work, eat and think with the same body and soul.
My working languages are Dutch, English, Hungarian but language is only one way of communication. Based on my experience with non-formal education – dance, voice, theater, artistic mediation – I use creative ways to get connected and achieve mutual understanding and a transformative dialogue.
(photo: Katarzyna Roguska)