Social Services in the Netherlands (an brief introduction)

May 24, 2017

Refugees and asylum seekers in the Netherlands create a situation similar to the illegal immigrants in the U.S. What is very interesting is that the sentiment towards these people is very similar to that of the US. Surprisingly, here, the laws are very strict about who can come, stay, and seek special status as a refugee or asylum seeker. In a nutshell, they are dealing with very similar challenges, but there are organizations that are helping with the situation, because it's more than the government can handle.

Today we visited an organization that has the purpose of providing a "bed, bath and bread" to those who are waiting to hear if their application for asylum is granted by the government. The program is called BBB+. The director, John (in the pic above), is a very passionate man who is doing a great job leading the organization in providing dignaty and respect to people who are at a very low point in their lives. They are taking a very systematic and humanitarian approach to providing these people, who have no where to go, a place to live in dignity. It is very difficult to sum this up in a short blog post, but if you are interested to learn more, you can visit their website ... http://inlia.nl/englishsummary.html

After lunch we traveled to the town of Delfzijl again to meet with people from a social services agency where Liesbeth works one per week. Their main job is to help young people to are unemployed, and they do this with a variety of help that may include resume writing. Liesbeth spends one day per week there to meet with youth who may want to reenter school to complete a degree. They seem to really be working hard to provide as many opportunities to youth who are unemployed. Like I mentioned before, they are proactively working with 18 to 23-year-olds who dropped out of school. It is a little different that we do isn't the U.S.

We had the real pleasure of having dinner at the home of one of Liesbeth's colleagues and a host of another American visitor, Francine and her husband, Rolf. They live in a small village and have such a lovely home. Their back yard overlooks a canal and farmland. It was so beautiful. Francine is such a fun lady and a good cook. We had such a great time enjoying the great dinner and good company.