“I found the beginning of the Corona period quite scary. When I heard that the schools around me might be closing, I thought: oh dear, then all structure will disappear, whereas predictability is so important for children. On Friday they still went to school on their bikes - on Monday the whole family was suddenly at home.

I wanted to make sure that the connection would stay. I thought: there must be something that reminds children that a teacher is there for them every day, to offer a smile ánd discuss serious matters.

So I recorded a video for children in the 5th - 8th grade every day for our YouTube channel 'Flipped?!' About 7 minutes of short instructions and quizzes: repeating the finite verb etc. It was informative and interactive, designed to combine learning with entertainment. Every child watches YouTube; but that's actually all entertainment.

For example, we had a campaign where we - when lonely elderly people were in the news - sent people in the nursing home a video. The children recorded a self-made text, which we pasted together at the end of the week and sent to the elderly. Very moving: children all over the country started working with such a camera.

The fact that the channel got such a wide reach so quickly (now about 10k followers) was mainly due to the media; the Jeugdjournaal was there, and newspapers. It was the only thing that was offered every day - structurally - for those children.

Now I record a video once every two weeks or month. You cannot keep doing this every day; I have never worked so hard, had my own class and a child at home all this time! In retrospect I think: how did I do that? I am convinced: if you see that you can mean something to someone else, it gives you a lot of energy.

Would you like to know more or do you know children in grades 5 - 8 who like this? Please forward! www.youtube.com/Benjegeflipt”

I myself am a farmer in training and part-time festival producer. When the covid crisis hit, I was just working in the fields and sensed panic among farmers; the borders were closing and they depend heavily on seasonal workers from Poland and Romania. The harvest season was coming up. What could they do about it? At the same time, I also heard that many people who usually work at festival were without work. Then I thought: this is a match. Then I set up a pilot at the fruit grower, where I worked at the time. Together with ten friends who normally work with me at festivals, we planted 1500 young apple trees in just one day. At Lowlands (one of the biggest festivals in the Netherlands) you sometimes have to a kilometer-long fence, planting trees is about the same, only you don't have to deconstruct it after a week, trees will stay there for at least 15 years. That gave a lot of satisfaction! Then I turned to the Slow Food Youth Movement to help build this project. Soon we had a team. We did most of this work voluntarily. As a kind of alternative employment agency, we started to link people from the city to the farmer. It was a great challenge, an enormous amount of administrative work. I traveled across the country to talk to people who we linked to farmers to hear how they were doing. Their stories were incredible! For example, people realized how much work had to be done before a carrot was brought to the shelves in the supermarket. They felt more connected to food and to the earth then before. These stories gave me a lot of energy to keep going. So far, about 250 people have found work through us (more than 800 people signed up), it was really cool to see that it attracted so many different people. The farmers were also positively surprised. Suddenly they were working with people who spoke their language and showed curiosity to learn about farm life. This resulted in a dialogue, farmers enjoyed it very much. The team spirit was best reflected in our initiative Harvest Camp Site, a week of working and eating together on the countryside. We organized activities, education, and a harvest party at the end of the week – everything was organized covid-proof. We want to continue to build that bridge between city and countryside in the future. This could also work in other countries. During the covid crisis, England really suffered from a shortage of seasonal workers. To this end, they are also looking for further collaborations, for example with parties such as WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms organizations) or Global Shapers in countries where our initiative would help.” 

Want to support Kester?

- sign up for the Seasonal Workers

- connect him to other organizations willing to work with him

- contact him when you are interested in setting this up in another country

Bart: “It started on March 13th, after Mark Rutte's press conference: the situation wasn’t under control at the time. So I was wondering: how can I contribute? I’m not part of the group of people at risk, how can I find people who need help? Individually people offered help online, but how do you find the people who need help outside of your bubble? Then I thought of creating a platform and asked Nimue if she wanted to do this with me.

We believed - and believe - that something like this can work if you keep it local. That is why we created the Facebookpage "Amsterdam Corona Help". On the Friday after the first press conference, we shared the page with our friends. ”

Nimue: “Suddenly it got big. That is why in the beginning we tried to actively link the page to existing organizations that offer help. But soon it became clear there was enough supply and demand of help. It was very endearing to see what people are willing to do for each other. Delivering groceries and meals to people in quarantine, finding apartments for stranded people, sending cards to the elderly. It is quite a lot of work to moderate such a large group of 10,000 people. Stress and uncertainty sometimes resulted in rude reactions. Sometimes we let that go, but it was a difficult balance between giving space to emotions and chaos in the group. "

Bart: “I found it extremely difficult to moderate and at some point, I didn’t have the energy for it anymore. After six months I was done. Then we handed it over to Count Me In, a partnership of various aid organizations in Amsterdam. We had given everything we had. Now it is time for new energy and others to continue. I think there will be more questions in the near future, especially now that more people are going to be quarantined. But I don't know if people are as willing to help again, the energy is very different from the that in March.”

Nimue: “Small personal requests for help will always remain and a Facebook page is actually only suitable for that to a limited extent. In fact, a more structural solution should be found for bringing together supply and demand during a crisis."

In the beginning of the lockdown the “Kindertelefoon” (roughly: ChildLine) was flooded with phone calls. Being at home constantly wasn’t pleasant for all children. A friend and I were thinking: how can we protect these children from unsafe situations at home? By investing in parents, taking away insecurities. Why don’t we start an equivalent for parents: the ParentLine? Many things we deal with as adults have roots in the first 6 years of our lives; there’s so much to gain. When I investigated more, it turned out a group of children had actually proposed to Minister De Jonge to start a parentline – which received positive response. And: The Netherlands is one of the few countries that don’t yet have such a line.

A few months in, we get lots of different phone calls. Common situations. “My child doesn’t sleep, my ex handles raising our child very differently. How do I get my child to do his/her homework, without playing cop?” - all the way to questions about teenagers who are seriously addicted to videogames. All conversations are anonymous. I want to break a taboo on asking for help, feeling shame or insecurities. You don’t have to reach rock bottom to ask for help, often times we wait for way too long. It’s okay: raising children can be exhausting. Children have become almost something sacral; a big part of their parents’ identity. There’s a lot of tension and cramps around parenthood.

We now have 25 trained volunteers – people who have backgrounds in healthcare, education or pedagogics. We work with a solutions-oriented conversation method, which we use to help parents formulate their own solutions. We want to keep going after corona, let parents know we’re here. We’re looking into whether we can host a night in English or Arabic, so that the line can become accessible for a bigger group of parents.

Virgil Tevreden, founder of Jongeren die het Kunnen: "First, people started to panic. I was worried about the young people here in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. Very soon, I noticed how young people needed to stay in contact with us, because they were suddenly stuck at home. They had questions such as ‘Where is the virus? What does it mean for us?’ There was a lot of uncertainty and panic. We also saw that young people got involved in conflict situations more often and the number of incidents increased. They became involved in criminal activities, were victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence and consequentially were replaced from their homes. Only then I noticed how few places there are for these young people in Amsterdam who are being removed from their homes. They were suddenly placed far outside of the city, for example all the way in Groningen (in the North of the Netherlands). Away from their safe environment, out of their comfort zone. Young people called me crying that they could maybe be placed outside of their own city, Amsterdam. I could not let this happen. I almost wanted to let those children stay in my own house! That is when I founded the organization 'Eigen Kracht! Jeugd en Gezin' (Own Power! Youth and Family). This is a place that offers protected living to young people who have been displaced for whatever reason. It is now a home to three boys. Due to corona it is more difficult to help young people, there is still so much uncertainty to deal with. But despite corona we stayed in touch with young people and parents. We really got their backs in the difficult months. We helped them transfer to other organizations, such as the Voedselbank (Food bank). I now have a much better overview of how I can help people in difficult times. We have become sort of the first-place people go to when they seek help. That's a crucial role, and man, the gratitude is so great. You feel really appreciated if you can help people in such a situation. “

“Stichting Leren voor de Toekomst already existed before the crisis. I set it up because as a student I needed homework assistance myself, but my parents did not have the financial means to afford expensive homework assistance. I wanted to make good education available for boys and girls like me. I come from a deprived neighborhood myself, I know what it's like to live there. That is why young people can identify with me and vice versa. I see myself as the Ali B (well-known Dutch rapper) of education.

The corona crisis was hell. We were planning on a busy period ahead, we had completed a few large assignments with schools for the holiday in May and then suddenly the lockdown was there. The mentors who work for us suddenly could no longer do so, almost a thousand students suddenly received no more guidance. I was completely shattered, it really affected me. The lack of personal contact with everyone in particular has taken a hold of me. You really have to be a tough guy to absorb these blows as an entrepreneur. First we tried to switch to digital assistance, but that turned out not to work. It really opened my eyes: many children were not ready for digital education! Many children did not even have a laptop. Some children share a room with three or four others. It was very hard for them. I have tried to keep in touch with some students. For example, by having an iftar (the meal that is consumed by Muslims during the fasting month of Ramadan immediately after sunset) with a student during Ramadan. And I paid extra attention to a boy who had lost his mother at a young age and was struggling at home. Then I thought: instead of digital homework assistance, it is now perhaps even more important to give personal attention to this group of children. Then I asked our mentors to do the same: to listen to children who wanted to talk about their home situation and how they dealt with it. Those moments of contact with each other became very important, not only for the children, but also for me. That made everyone feel better and less lonely. But it's frustrating to see that we could normally help children get higher grades, and now we can't. In any case, the schools really have to remain open, that is so important for many children! ”

“I thought: gosh, what's happening to us! We soon realized that the crisis was serious, because we felt it right at our restaurants. This was a disaster. For all entrepreneurs, costs simply continued while no money was coming in. And when we were no longer able to supply the catering industry with our wholesale business InstockMarket, we immediately started brainstorming how we could deliver our products to people's homes. Samuel Levie had the same thought and proposed to work together. Within two days we had set up a webshop and in our large warehouse, together we started packing parcels with local food products. The energy of the group of entrepreneurs created hope. It was so cool when the first orders came in. Many 'e-high-fives' were exchanged via WhatsApp. And the packing team went for it: apron on, mouth mask on, music on and go! It was so nice to see how quickly many volunteers came to help pack the packages. We had help from almost 200 people! From actors without work, to flight attendants who could no longer fly.

People who ordered a box did so for several reasons, but usually we heard: we want to support you. The togetherness that we felt from all of Amsterdam was unique. The mailbox was filled with cheering responses.”

“I was not in a great place when Corona started. I was very busy and always on the run. Suddenly all activities I was doing stopped. This was a lesson for me: you should actually never be so busy that you forget to unite, do things together. The lockdown especially affected the elderly people. All their activities stopped, they did not even get a spot in the garden of the nursing home, their world became very small. I was supposed to go on a fun activity with my older friends – Marie, Will and Jan all aged 81 – but that also got cancelled. People became isolated. So we asked ourselves: How can we do something for these people? The existing Omapost (granny mail) became coromapost: send elderly people a postcard in corona times. And it worked, suddenly 10 times more cards were sent, sometimes even 6000 cards a day! But then we thought: maybe the elderly also like to be in touch with other people, other than their own grandchildren. So we started adopteer.omapost.nl. We really listened to what the elderly wanted and founded jarig.omapost.nl; to send elderly who are celebrating their birthday a card, because celebrating your birthday in these times is lonely. And what happened: this was even used by youngsters, who also could not visit each other, to feel less lonely. So, send a postcard! There is a huge need for this way of contact. People endlessly said: “This is needed especially now!” But this will continue to be needed in the future. In the week against loneliness in October we are doing a campaign with a big supermarket chain. And when corona is less prominent we want an office in a nursing home. But first we will continue to send cards. Because we really want to end loneliness worldwide.”