Coffee with help – Municipality of Amsterdam
In recent weeks you may have encountered them on the street, the volunteers of the Southeast Social Pact. They offered you free coffee, water ice tea. And they asked you ahead of time you were waiting for coffee when you came from the area. And what you think of the neighbourhood. And sometimes the conversation went a little further. About what you need. A home for your kind. Dying about your health could be better. Or that you are looking for someone to talk to or take a walk with.
The volunteers know who in the neighborhood can help with these kinds of questions. In the past few weeks, many Southeasters have continued. You can still meet this week and next week in the H-neighbourhood, on the Anton de Komplein, Reigersbos and Ganzenhoef. Always from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Volunteers
Lucia Martis and Genesis are both coordinators of this initiative called IJssie in de Wijk. They also went into the neighborhoods as volunteers. They first did a short training of three half-days. They learned a lot from that themselves. In this way, together with the other students, she completes an overview of all the help that is available in a neighbourhood. In a difficult word, this is called the social map. Lucia: “I already know the neighborhood quite well, but I didn’t know many organizations yet! There really is a lot of help around where you can go with your questions. Because we now know what all there is, we can tell the people who pass by the coffee stall where they can go with their questions.”
Refer
And what questions do residents have? Genesis and Lucia say that this is very different: “Living is a problem. People are looking for housing or they are looking for housing for their children. There are many homeless people who live with people and would like to live independently. And many young people are now unable to find their own home. And there were questions about health, about filling in forms, about money, about all kinds of social problems. We can tell people what they are entitled to, what they can do and where to go for more help. So we don’t help ourselves, but we make it through. We often use to the Neighborhood Teams. Because at the Neighborhood Teams they know a lot about care, money, living, health, work, meeting and safety.”
Creative in bad weather
Lucia says that the volunteers speak to 30 to 50 people at a time. How many there are also depends on the weather. But luckily they are creative: “If you’re planning to stand at a community center and it’s raining, we’ll just stand under an overpass. Or in another place where it is dry. That sounds so nice!”
Pride
Lucia says that she is proud that many volunteers do this work in addition to a paid job. And that they were able to do this work in a short time. Genesis is also proud of its work and that of the approximately 30 other volunteers: ”The flexible even we are starting to start, but we have everything on time and can do! And many volunteers got to know their neighborhood even better.”
More information and help
- Ice cream in the neighborhood is an initiative of Southeast Social Pact. These are organizations and residents in Zuidoost that work together to help residents who are not doing well or who have questions about money and health.
- Neighborhood team Southeast