Influencer Ingrid Gumbs

In this week’s blog (19th – 25^th of March 2024), we interviewed Ingrid M.A. Gumbs, Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Public and Private Administration. Furthermore, we invite you to our next MYM Book presentation on Tuesday, March 19^th, 2024. Finally, we share some short videos related to Talent. We will upload one of these videos every day on our Facebook page.

Life is a learning experience

Ingrid M.A. Gumbs – Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Public and Private Administration.

Could you share with us some information about your family life?
76 years ago I was born in Curaçao to French and Dutch St. Martins Parents. I don’t have children and I am not married. I was raised in a Methodist/Roman Catholic family of 10 children. The fact that I was raised in a family that was multilingual and Curaçao a multicultural environment was the first acculturalisation process I went through.

Since my father died when I was at a very young age I became half of an orphaned. My education on the island was mostly by the Dutch nuns of Schijndel who ran an external School complex and an anex Boarding school in Santa Rosa where I’ve been until my 17th.

At the end of my schooling, I followed a preparation school for nurses because my plan was to become a nurse, and wanted to migrate to the Nederlands to become a General Nurse.

But since I was too young to start The nurses’ School I stayed first for a while in Geneva, Switzerland to get costume to the European weather and culture before I went to Rotterdam to start my study at the age of 18 years. First at the Dijkzigt Hospital and later at the St. Francis Gasthuis Rotterdam. I consider this transformation from a Caribbean culture to a European one as a second acculturalisation process.

All these changes became the basic blueprint of the person I am today as an Afro Caribbean living in Europe for 55 years by now.

Could you share something about your educational background and your experience?
After this training, I received a scholarship from the Curaçao Government to continue studying as a midwife at the midwifery school in Heerlen. I followed a training for maternity nurse but eventually chose technical training and specialized as an Intensive Coronary Care nurse in the then Binnenziekenhuis Eindhoven today the Catharina Hospital in the department for open heart surgery and traumatology.

At that time the Dutch Open-heart surgeon Dr. Van Schaar, who has worked in a Houston hospital in America, staged the first open-heart surgery at the Binnenziekenhuis Eindhoven with his team. And also accompanying a certificate in Intensive Coronary Care training for nurses based on the Houston model. It was a period when society and healthcare underwent a major transformation. We are then in the middle of the period of Hippy and flower power. It was the time when Martin Luther King and Angela Davis fought for the equal civil rights of African Americans. And everyone reverberates along with James Brown in the disco ‘I’m Black and Proud’. That the young men, regardless of their ethnic origin, walked around with Afro wigs and platform shoes under wide-legged trousers.

_{Meeting with Angela Davis during a lecture at the VU -Amsterdam.}

The society was quite static in the Netherlands at the time, and divided into classes and separated along religious pillars (this was to a large extent the case within the health care organizations). As a result, social certainties began to shake to their foundations. And partly under the influence of the developments in America, a new cultural direction began to gain momentum.

After this period, I experienced the rest of my studies mainly as a search for my own identity within a rapidly changing social culture, as I mentioned earlier. It was like alternating between surfing big and small waves that took me somewhere different every time

Besides my profession as an Intensive Corynairy Care Nurse I was studying part-time Cultural Education work at the Social Academy in Eindhoven to better understand group dynamics in a cultural Context of the organization since Team nursing was required in the intensive care unit. And also to understand why and how the social changes are taking place so rapidly during this flower power period. Later I understood that we were in the middle of a Social Revolution.

This Social Academy was very progressive for its time and allowed you to put together your study package and direction separately from the planned curriculum. The Book of the Cultural Philosopher Prof. C.A. van Peursen “Strategy of Culture: A View of the Changes Taking Place in Our Way of Living and Thinking Today” was one of the recommended literature during this study at the Social Academy.

It was an eye-opener to understand what was going on in the turbulent world we were facing at that time. I’ve sent the author a request for an interview about the question about how to apply his theory to the Health Care Sector. And that is how I came into contact with the Cultural philosopher Prof. C.A. van Peursen, who later became my mentor. He was an Inspiration in my worldview and the abilities for my further personal development. From then on I’ve organized various lectures with him about the impact of a changing culture and the impact of technology in the healthcare sector and nursing which inspired me to focus more on the theory and aspects of Intercultural Nursing in practice. First during a conference titled “Development in Nursing (now) in a Changing Culture”, held at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Later, during a study day for HBOV fellow teachers, the theme was “Interculturalization &HBOV”.

Influenced by the mentorship of Prof. Van Peursen later on I followed a study Philosophy as an Extraneus Student at the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University. The courses were: Western Philosophy of the 20th Century. Eastern Philosophy ( Hindoeisme, Bhoedisme, which I combined with a study trip to Bangalore, India to observe Hindoisme in daily life. Today Bangalore has become the silicon Valey of India). Taoism was also a part of this study since I was interested in Zen Buddhism.

The course Africanistic which was also a part of this Extraneus course was given by Prof. Heinz Kimmerle, a specialist in Intercultural Philosophy with a special focus on African Philosophy left me with the question of how it is possible that such a huge continent as Africa with such a very ancient history remains so unknown and was not a part of the curriculum. Later on, he was considered to be one of the first pioneers who put African philosophy as a unique philosophy with its epistemology and methods on the agenda. Ethnically I was related to this continent and besides my birth as an Afro-Caribbean born on the island of Curacao did not know anything about its rich history.

My next step was to retrace my Afro-Caribbean roots by following an Inter-University Course Caribistiek at the KITLV (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal -, Land – en Volkenkunde / Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology) in Leiden. later on, inspired by the VN decade for the people of Africa 2015-2024 I started a self-study about this continent and its legacy in the Caribbean, which culminated in the founding of a Homeschool Africa History Diaspor&Sancofa. I am still learning about this continent. its rich history and its relationship with the Caribbean and the Pan-African community. And I must say that I go from one surprise to another while discovering the continent.

Studying at the Erasmus University I’ve closed with a study in Public Administration: Public and Private Management, which I completed with a Bachelor of Science ( BSc) in Public and Private Administration.

Currently, I am retired. Before my retirement, I worked as a Healthcare Teacher at the HBO Nursing course, for which I obtained a 1st Degree from the HBO Healthcare teacher training course at the University of Limburg.

We met as an author and you presented your Book ‘Your Talent Your is a Gift’. Can you expand a little bit on why you wrote the book?

I have seen many people in different stages of their lives – healthy and sick – who have certain talents. and that due to a lack of knowledge or adequate guidance, they have not been able to develop their talents adequately. Because they had to survive and maintain a family. It is also a reflection of the process I’ve gone through to discover my talents and those of others. As a teacher, I was able to theorize my experiences and develop different methods to help others develop their authentic talents. With this book, I want to allow the reader to evaluate their talents and see if they can still update their untapped talents with the help of the possibilities that are available to them in this digital era. Especially parents, educators, and teachers, to recognize the talents of young people at an early stage, to be able to advise or guide them in a targeted way. Certain talents can be better developed in an early stage of life and others later in life when you achieve more life experiences.

And what is your BIG WHY or driving motivation to be who you are right now? And why is it that you want to find ways and means to contribute to society via the ‘Voedselbank’ as a volunteer?

At this stage of my life, I think it’s normal for you to share your experiences with the community you’re a part of. Or contribute through fundraising to projects that support needs in the society.

Why? In my life, I have taken every opportunity that I could to learn something to move forward. Life is a learning experience with all its ups and downs.

Or contribute through fundraising to projects that support those in need. Why? In my life, I have taken every opportunity that I could learn something to move forward. Life is a learning experience. Or I created the circumstances myself so that I could always update my old knowledge. But therefore sometimes I had to leave other things that I would have liked to do. It means that sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone in order to grow for long-term fulfillment.

But you should always dare to ask yourself whether the path you are taking is the one you want. And whether it makes you happy in the end. This requires self-knowledge, introspection, and contemplation.

What are your plans for the coming years for the coming 5 years from now?

Keep going on Continue to make people aware of their talents. Even if you think that no one is waiting for that, it turns out that what you have to offer in services or products or inventions is a big solution for someone else that they have been waiting for a long time and for which they are willing to pay. Especially in this day and age, where we are in the middle of a rapid transition, there is a great need for creative solutions to complicated problems that are increasing by the day.

Talented individuals who use their gifts responsibly are likely the happiest people on earth since they get to do what they love and are meant to do. However, their lives are not necessarily easy. Life itself poses a challenge for them, but they face it every day with the help of their creativity. A community of this group of people contributes to a happy society and a happy island. That is why it is worthwhile to pay attention to Talent Development in education and upbringing. It is good for the individual and certainly for the community of which one is a part.

What are the challenges that you are dealing with? And how are you dealing with these different challenges you confront?

The challenge I now face is how, in this time of rapid AI development, human talents can continue to be supported as a basic fact and not let Artificial Intelligence take over. Because the core of your talent has to do with your Meaning of life and SELF-REALIZATION as a person. And by being compassioned toward your fellow men being able to add value to their lives. In doing so, AI can play an important complementary and supporting role, but it can never take over the AUTHENTICITY of a talent that is unique to everyone.

Your inner voice requires silence to be able to listen. In this day and age where you are bombarded by sounds everywhere, it is not easy. Everyone has to find his or her quiet moments. There are several ways to isolate yourself mentally and physically. If necessary, this can be in the form of meditation or a nice walk in nature or the beach. Or practicing “Dulche far niente” just doing nothing which is sometimes confused with laziness in this hasty society.

Or to concentrate on what you are doing at that moment Zen Bothisme teaches.

A simple way of problem-solving is to just sleep on it and leave the solution to your guardian angels, so to speak. It is sometimes amazing how during the day you dreaded a problem like a mountain and the next day the solution was obvious.

How are you trying also to keep up with your knowledge and skill levels?
I read a lot of books and articles about my fields and also gathered information that is not directly related to my field but can give me a new view of what I am accustomed to. Like a Koi fish experiences a river after living for a long time in a bowl. Masters Classes and conferences are also sometimes welcomed as opportunities to meet like-minded people with new ideas. It’s amazing how fast things are going. But I always keep coming back to the classics that contain an inexhaustible source of knowledge and prove to apply to every era every time because of their core values.

What are your strengths?

I like to stay informed of all kinds of developments. Also outside my field of expertise.

Being able to make quick analyses and brainstorm possible solutions. Although I can also think very abstractly, I am very practical and feel most at home in this. What is the value of knowledge if you can not apply it to everyday life?

3rd prize at fencing club La Rapier Maastricht

Do you have hobbies or interests that you are also passionate about?
Collect vegetarian recipes. Family tree research, painting, and films based on historical novels. And also world history in general.

If you Ingrid would meet a stranger on the bus (let’s say in New York or Paris) and they would ask you to introduce yourself, what would you answer?

My name is Ingrid M.A. Gumbs. I was born on the sunny, colorful multicultural, and polyglot island called Curacao. It is located in the Caribbean Sea. Currently, I live in the Netherlands and I am the author of YOUR TALENT IS A GIFT. I am the founder and director of www.makeda21.com. If you want to know more about my activities feel free to visit my website and contact me.

How would you describe Ingrid in one word or one sentence?
Sense of humor. Interested in people. But also enjoy silence. Let me be surprised every time by the four seasons.

Who are the persons that have inspired you the most in your career?

First of all my parents and siblings.

Inspirations back in the day at school.
Virginia Muzo taught me a love for Curaçao folkloric music, dancing, and reciting Papiamentu poems by Elis Juliana.
Tatiana Radier’s creativity and imagination during classical ballet lessons.
Mrs. Zwart taught her a love of reading, especially Greek myth and legend, during her art history lessons.
Sister Maria Anastacia’s knowledge of color painting and interest in classical music.
Inspiration on worldview and own abilities for further personal development.
Prof. C.A. van Peursen taught me how to place social events in a cultural and historical perspective. And as an inspiration for my worldview and my abilities for further personal development.
Prof. C.A. van Peursen taught me how to place social events in a cultural and historical perspective.
Dr. J.F. Van Deal (former director of St. Jans Gasthuis Weert) gave me the confidence that innovations in healthcare were welcome and supported my project for the transformation of Traditional Nursing into Team Nursing 100%. A true revolution in itself at the time.
Prof. Howard Gardner with his Multiple Intelligence theory, he offers more options to test your IQ and thus increase your sense of self-worth to better develop your talents.
Les Brown, a great storyteller with a sense of humor and straight from life through his special biography.
Prof. Sheikh Anta Diop. The greatest inspiration for the establishment of the Makeda21 Homeschool Africa History Diaspora&Sankofa.
Frank Martinus Arion has made it his life’s mission to set up a Papiamento School Community, Colegio Erasmo. And thus allow the Papiamento language and culture to live on and be preserved for generations to come.
Prof. Sir Ken Robinson. I wish I had him as a teacher when I was in Primary School. And so many others that inspire me in so many ways.

I want to thank them all for being in the right moments in my life and making me who I am today. Because I am aware that I am standing on the shoulders of giants and heroes.

_{Frank Martinus Arion during Rotterdam Readers’ Festival at the celebration of the 2nd nomination of his best seller ‘Dubbelspel’.}

What is a trait that is still a work in progress?
Patience

What was a defining moment in your life?
The death of my mother when I was 20 years old.

What would you want your Loved Ones, family, friends, and others to say about you let’s say 20 years from now?
She knew her worth and loved life. And as someone who enjoys helping people discover their talents and their mission in life.

What makes you stay optimistic about the future of the world?
History shows that good people always had saved the world.

Video tips – Podcasts Orphise Rodriguez with Ingrid Gumbs.

YouTube: Career boost ep.1 : Self-knowledge and Permanent education, the pillars of talent development?

YouTube: Career boost ep. 2 : Want to find your hidden talent?

One of the 250 Influencers

Ingrid Gumbs is a dynamic figure whose insatiable curiosity and zest for life propel her toward continuous learning and growth. With a rich variety of studies and experiences spanning diverse fields including nursing, culture, and philosophy. Her knowledge of African history and diaspora and her experiences on different Boards make her bring a unique perspective to her work as an author, trainer, coach, and mentor.
In her book ‘Your Talent is a Gift’, Ingrid shares her wisdom and insights to inspire individuals at all stages of life to recognize and nurture their innate talents. She advocates for a holistic approach to personal development, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery and guidance, especially in an era marked by rapid technological advancement and societal change. Driven by a deep-seated desire to contribute to the betterment of society, Ingrid actively engages in fundraising efforts to support those in need. Her commitment to community service and her passion for empowering others make her a true influencer in the coaching sector and beyond. Ingrid Gumbs exemplifies the power of lifelong learning, resilience, and compassion.
Look at the list of the Influencers we have interviewed or reported on, up to now.

The goal of the core group of Share2Uplift for 2024

The goal of the Share2Uplift movement is to: “Identify 250 leaders from all walks of life to connect, align and create impactful changes in all walks of life, which includes intergenerational collaboration by the end of 2024.” We will use interviewing Influencers, meet-and-greet events, “train-the-trainers”-programs on “Emotional Mastery” and “Intentionality “as national intervention strategies, to reach this goal on top of our goal to scale up the possibilities to connect, align and create impact via a virtual platform. We believe that by collaborating with Miguel Goede on the virtual Vision 2030 platform, we will accelerate the possibilities to connect the diaspora and others elsewhere in the world and on the island willing to constructively create impactful changes in Curaçao, to join.

As Share2Uplift, we are fully trying to align with this thinking of Center for Curriculum Redesign to promote this agenda in our educational systems and workplace. So, in that sense, we fully support any initiative to make our educational system 21st-century proof.

Share2Uplift aligners are those that:
– Create an inspiring vision of the future;
– Motivate and inspire people to engage with that vision;
– Manage the delivery of the vision;
– Coach and build a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision. These criteria are now being polished.

We also consider these 5 values the most important ones for Share2Uplift aligners. They are:

• Peace from within;
• Compassion;
• Respectfulness;
• Integrity;
• Responsibility.

As we will progress towards this goal, we will update you on the progress.

MYM-platform session

Our next MYM-platform session will be on the 19th of March 2024 via Zoom from 7 to 9 PM, where we will present the book: Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom, by Vandana Shiva.This book will be presented by Sherlyne Eisden.

With a new epilogue about Bill Gates’s global agenda and how we can resist the billionaires’ war on life. This is what globalization looks like: Opportunism. Exploitation. Further centralization of power. Further disempowerment of ordinary people. . . .

Vandana Shiva is an expert whose analysis has helped us understand this situation much more deeply. Russell Brand Widespread poverty, social unrest, and economic polarization have become our lived reality as the top 1% of the world’s seven-billion-plus population pushes the planet and all its people to the social and ecological brink. In Oneness vs. the 1%, Vandana Shiva takes on the billionaire dictators of Gates, Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as other modern empires like Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag, whose blindness to the rights of people, and to the destructive impact of their construct of linear progress, have wrought havoc across the world. Their single-minded pursuit of profit has undemocratically enforced uniformity and monocultures, division and separation, monopolies and external control over finance, food, energy, information, healthcare, and even relationships. Basing her analysis on explosive facts, Shiva exposes the 1%’s model of philanthro-capitalism, which is about deploying unaccountable money to bypass democratic structures, derail diversity, and impose totalitarian ideas based on One Science, One Agriculture, and One History. Instead, Shiva calls for the resurgence of: Real knowledge Real intelligence Real wealth Real work Real well-being With these core goals, people can reclaim their right to: Live Free. Think Free. Breathe Free. Eat Free.

Datum: Tuesday the 19^th of March 2024
Time: 7.00 – 9.00 PM
Entrance fee: Free 
Subscribe by emailing us: at sixtaivan@gmail.com and we will send you the Zoom link so that you can participate in our presentation of this book.