Physical Health Netherlands Project #24961

Volunteering for those in need

by Stichting Present Den Haag

Project Report | Jun 17, 2019
When companies care

By Eva Mabayoje | General Manager

May and June is the time when companies have their anual team building events, here in The Netherlands. And apparently in stead of bowling they find it more and more appealing to do something for someone else. And they are right! When the focus is not on you, but on helping someone in need, you learn something new about yourself, about your team and about the world you live and work in.

We welcome every teambuilding event, but imagine what it will do for the whole company if these findings were to be incorporated on a more structural basis? First of all, you would spread our work a bit more throughout the year, and we wouldn't be doing 11 projects on 1 day. But more importantly: Those in need also get more help and attention spread throughout the year. It's the same reason why we created 'Light in Darker Days'. A project where we focus on 3 months in stead of only the high profile December month. People who are lonely or facing big challenges in life, financially or phisically, don't only need your help during the Christmas season. Especially for the northern hemisphere, January and February are more depressing months, since no one is helping or visiting them, and it's still dark and cold most of the day. Especially in reflection to December.

What if you would give your employees 3 days a year to do voluntary work. At a time of their choosing. We would be more than happy the facilitate that! We could help so much more people, in a much more effective way. Or choose one period your company puts extra effort in helping the society.

In May we had one company who did a week long projects throughout the city and country. In June it's a whole month we are helping another company. It's amazing to see what it does to people. People who are being helped and people who do the helping. Truly, you should try it.

Permalink

Mar 18, 2019
Social Gardening

By Eva Mabayoje | General Manager

We recently started a new concept which is called: Social Gardening. It has a lot of different aspects in it, which is probably why we are so enthusiastic about it!

The basic idea is to clean/clear up gardens of people who are unfit, either physically, socially or financially, with a group of volunteers. Besides doing that, which is something that we've done before, we're now looking extra carefully at the environmental and social aspect. For this reason, we not just work with our volunteers, we ask for help with a professional gardener. The idea is to create gardens which are environmentally save, which attracts insects like bees in a natural way, which deals with rainfall in a natural way and which is also easy to maintain. But a garden also has a social function. It gets people outside of the house and into life. Especially life with others. We therefor hope to fight loneliness mostly common with the elderly.

Last Saturday we had our first Social Gardening project which had all these aspects in it. We worked together with the company who owns the building and therefor the communal garden. The project is an apartment building which houses mostly 55+. We attracted a gardening professional who works with the Salvation Army. Which meant that not just he and the volunteers got busy, but also people who are trying to work out a homeless, possibly with substance abuse, situation into a way that leads them back to work.

It was a windy day, but really fulfilling. The new garden became beautiful with lots of flowers, herbs, birdhouses and a bee house! The volunteers did the work and of course Present was there to attract the elderly who live in the apartments. We had coffee and cake and a lot of them came by and had a talk about how they loved the new garden and how they hope this new garden will help with social gatherings and a better social environment!

Of course Present will track this new situation and already offered them to help organize a summer event to get people more involved with their neighbors!

Permalink

Dec 17, 2018
Giving thanks

By Eva Mabayoje | General Manager

Ready, steady... GO!

On December 3rd our organization closed off our year of festivities because of our 10 year anniversary. We have done some marvelous projects throughout the year. Projects where we wanted to show the neighborhood how you can be 'Present' - to be there for someone else. Projects where we wanted to celebrate all our volunteers and projects where we wanted to be extra ‘Present’ for all our partnering organizations.

It was a tremendous year, in which we we're very grateful for the work we could do. But that last project, the project where we wanted to say 'Thank You' to the most vulnerable people of The Hague for letting us help them, was the most beautiful of all.

It began with all of the people helping us and supporting us in organizing this big event. An event so big, that it was something Present Den Haag has never done before. Local companies, the municipality and loads and loads of helping hands made sure that 100 people had a night to remember.

We invited several organizations we work with to help their clients. For the elderly, we had two tables available, so in total 20 people came. The amazing thing was that it weren't all clients. They also send their regular volunteers. These people, who spent most of their spare time with the vulnerable elderly of The Hague on a weekly basis, also deserved a night out – and we couldn’t agree more!

We held the event in the biggest church of The Hague. The surroundings we're so beautiful! The chefs that prepared the dinner were the same chefs who had done such a dinner for 12 elderly last year. And they did such an amazing job! Actually, everybody was so pleased with this entire evening, that we are almost certain, we're doing this again next year. We just have to find the funding, and then we're good to go!

Hopefully I can write a similar report around this time next year....

Dessert

Links:

http://www.presentdenhaag.nl

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.