Nicole Hart is a social worker by profession, she holds a bachelor’s degree in social work, and a Master of Arts in Intercultural Communication. She also has a strong background in journalism, media, writing and organizational skills. She is a mother of three.
Nicole runs a one-woman company, AmaLurra Consultancy, Coaching & Training, explaining she is in the heart business, and as such serves the business sector on the island. She is usually brought in to help with some employees in acute crisis and stays on for team building, and workshops to help make the workforce more resilient, more aware, and conscientious.
On August 25th, at sunset, Nicole is organizing a mutual support group for single mothers. She is inviting anyone, at any age, to join, contribute Awg 15, and share stories, challenges, strengths and hopes. She would like to have at least 10 women but would be happy with just three. It’s a start, she says.
Later in the month she is piloting the program at one of her clients, where most of the female employees are single mothers, struggling with financial strains, emotional and mental health challenges, time management, lack of support and the concern for the wellbeing of their kids.
Nicole explains that women in Aruba, are forced to multi-task to survive. This is a worldwide phenomenon. They all survive some kind of trauma, which remains untreated, and makes them suspicious and distrustful. That lack of trust prevents them from getting help which further alienates them. Nicole would like to build a bridge, connect, share best practices, successes, and failures, help strengthen their sense of community, and with it restore trust.
That’s not her only project. She is determined to bring all Centro Di Barios together and prepare them to pitch their activities and plans to private sector companies. This project, in collaboration with CEDE Aruba, will prepare local community centers for adoption by the business community, and thus successful companies, can more easily pay back, get involved, and invest in the community in which they operate.
Nicole is also determined to run a mutual support group for men. Help them restore their ‘masculinity,’ and understand their role better, teach them what they forgot, or never learned, to be responsible and dependable partners, in raising a family and caring for kids.
While girls were the risk group on the island for many years, in 2024, girls do fine, they are taught by their mothers, useful life skills, and they apply those to their lives, while boys are raised as princes by single mothers without male role-models whose behavior, attitude, and achievements serve as an example for them to emulate. Nicole is looking for a male counterpart to take this project off the ground, because as a woman, she cannot inspire and influence men, as easily as their own peer, who can demonstrate perseverance, and integrity, and share with his equals, aiming to improve their personal and professional lives.
Nicole is also currently writing a book, a children’s book, the adventures of an indigenous lizard, who encounters the island’s flora and fauna, and tries to live in peace in his universe.
This multi-tasker grew up in St Nicolas, studied in the Netherlands, and over the years, as an avid observer of people, talks very openly about the island’s cultural and behavioral challenges. A society where sexual abuse, gambling, drugs, poverty, and lack of opportunity lays waste to human potential, again, a worldwide phenomenon.
She worked as co-teacher and Academic Advisor for the Academic Foundation, at the University of Aruba for more than 10 years, but she abandoned academia, she now operates in the real world and feels she has much work to do!
