Today, I attended the Hartenhuis Awards ceremony at Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht at the invitation of Stichting Het Vergeten Kind. They had made it a great show with a few hundred people in the audience. But central were the poignant stories of "The Unforgettables", the youth council of The Forgotten Child. They are experts by experience, children who ended up in youth care with trauma from their home situation. Experts can tell you a lot, complete with figures and statistics, but the stories of these adolescents and young adults really come through.
The Hartenhuis Awards ceremony was the closing event of The Week of the Forgotten Child. The central theme of the week this time was "Lack of attention destroys vulnerable children". Children who end up in youth care institutions when they are 8, 10 or 12 years old need positive attention. They have lost trust in the people around them, and in many cases have acquired a negative self-image: "I'm not worth it." All too often, Dutch youth services are unable to provide that positive attention. Not because of unwillingness, but because of protocols, lack of time, money and other resources. As a result, children - again - do not feel seen and heard.
This is what The Forgotten Child is committed to. By calling attention to this again and again, by influencing policy, by showing that things can be done differently and better, and much more. Since a number of years, I have been allowed to work with The Forgotten Child on behalf of TwoPurpose to support them with beautiful solutions on the Salesforce platform. And all these years, I see the passion and drive of the people I work with. Today pushed me to the brink once again. I know about ICT, and how cool it is to be able to use my skills for their mission!
