Jia

Travel information

I am currently

Description

Hello! My name is Jia and I am Taiwanese-American, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. After majoring in finance and accounting at university, I began career on Wall Street in banking, investing, and consulting. After six years, I realized this was not my passion and so I left my life in America and backpacked around the world for 15 months. After that, I moved to Berlin, Germany where I lived for 8 years - in which time I worked in the music industry for electronic music djs while also consulting for tech companies.

During the pandemic, I lost my job and took this chance to figure out a more meaningful life path. In 2021, I went to Namibia and spent one month on a cattle ranch where I helped the farmer build a business plan for a rotational irrigation project. It was from this experience that I realized I wanted to empower more farmers and entrepreneurs with business skills to economically uplift themselves and their communities. It's also through my experiences on farms that I became passionate about food systems and the connectedness between humans and nature.

Since then, I have been providing pro-bono business training and strategy support to non-profits, NGOs, farmers, and community based organizations around the world – with a focus on Africa. Here are some of those projects:

1. Madagascar Mobile Library (Madagascar) – Set up business structures and financial processes to support the non-profits projects related to rural literacy and education, food sovereignty and security, menstrual health/female empowerment, and responsible tourism.
2. GerHub (Mongolia) - Led financial management and Excel data analytics workshops for GerHub and Mongolian non-profits/NGOs.
3. Ilha Blue (Mozambique) – Led a 3-week intensive Financial Management Bootcamp for a sustainable tourism business focused on creating employment opportunities and providing educational skills training the local community of Ilha de Mozambique.
4. Africa Centre for Holistic Management (Zimbabwe) – Supported business planning, financial management, and marketing strategy for a 3,200-hectare learning site in the Dimbangombe Conservancy which provides training to communities to manage their land holistically by using livestock as a tool for regenerating degraded watersheds, croplands and wildlife habitat.
5. Ferme Agroécologique Karamba (Senegal) – Provided business plan training and supported the launch of agrotourism at an off-grid farm in the Casamance region of Senegal with a mission to demonstrate self-sufficiency and economic empowerment to the local community as a means of discouraging dangerous migration to Europe by sea.

Here you can see my resume:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14FnhI7lVI6Wn0O_O8P1whBKJXAxaPg0K/view?usp=sharing

If your organization, project, or farm is looking for the kind of help above, please send me a message as I am happy to strategize or go to your project in person!

Horses: In the last 5 years, I also found my true love: horses. I took my first riding lesson in Namibia and have since ridden horses in South Africa, Mongolia, Utah (USA), Egypt, and Jordan. In California, I worked as a barn hand at a riding program with over 100 horses. I also joined an endurance riding club in California and volunteer as a side-walker in equine-facilitated therapy for children and adults with mental or physical disabilities.

Horses have also been a huge part of my Workaway experiences. My first Workaway in New Mexico involved acclimating BLM Mustangs to humans so that they could be adopted. The cattle ranch in Namibia bred pinto horses and the farm in Bulgaria bred Trakheners. In Mongolia, my host had several herds of horses which we rode as part of ranching tasks. Needless to say, I need horses in my life!

Interests

Cycling

LGBTQ

Culture

Performing arts

Beach

Events & social

Water sports

Dancing

Adventure sports

Charity work

Sustainability

Self development

Technology

Politics / Social justice

Vegetarian or vegan

Sailing / Boating

Plant care

Nature

Music

History

Gardening

Farming

DIY & crafts

Cooking & food

Architecture

Animals

Languages

Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Chinese (Mandarin): Fluent
Spanish: Intermediate
German: Beginner

More details about my language interests
English

Find a language partner

Skills and knowledge I'd like to share or learn

I'm interested in:  

Eco Projects

Charity Work

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Some knowledge of:  

Helping around the house

Animal Care

Languages

Art Projects

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Able to teach about:  

Light gardening

Creating/ Cooking family meals

Life at a Farmstay

Hospitality/Tourism

Helping with Computers/ Internet

More details about your skills

Horses: general horse care (feeding, meds, supplements) , groundwork, tacking up,
lunging, trail and endurance riding

Professional/Business Skills: business strategy and corporate finance, financial modeling, Excel, data analytics, PowerBI, SQL, Python

Social Media: Facebook, Instagram - I previously did this for my music & lifestyle blog.

Languages: English (native); Chinese/Mandarin (intermediate), Spanish (basic), German (basic)

Gardening: tomatoes, chili peppers, zucchini, squashes, flowers, herbs

Cooking: I love to cook! At home, I often cook Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Mexican, and Mediterranean dishes.

Age

43

What else ...

I consider myself a very open and adventurous person. I love meeting new people, trying new types of food, and exploring places I've never been. I try not to have preconceptions about anything as you never know who you will meet or what you will learn.

Some more information

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  Smoker

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  Driver's licence

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  Allergies
  No

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  Special dietary requirements
  No