Whoever was born for a dime will never become a quarter: Annamaria Evers grew up with that. She managed to get out.
“My mother was the boss and I was a puppet. You take that with you. A wrong upbringing, a lot of violence and aggression. I just didn’t exist, I was invisible,” says Annamaria Evers.
She grew up in the Veenkoloniën, in so-called ‘generational poverty’. Poverty passed down from generation to generation. This is not only about money, but also about patterns that you get. About opportunities you may or may not get.
Evers’ mother was a narcissist and spent every penny on herself. Her biological father disappeared a year after birth. Her stepfather was violent. Evers was told she was stupid and retarded. When she got her first boyfriend she was thrown out on the street. She has three children and eventually becomes homeless.
“If you look back on it, it’s terrible, but at that moment you are surviving and you don’t experience it as terrible. You live by the hour, you live by the day. You try to get out, that’s just it.” says Evers in the TV Drenthe program De Staat van Drenthe.
Evers is not alone. In the Veenkoloniën, about 14,000 families live in poverty, which is often passed on from generation to generation. “I was ashamed of the choices I made. But I made them based on patterns that I inherited from the past.”
She asked for help, but ran into rules. For example, when looking for accommodation. “The municipality did try to find a house for me. Only there was a time frame of six weeks and no house could be found within those six weeks. Then you get a choice: no house or crisis shelter. I chose the latter, because otherwise I would become a homeless mother.”
In the end, there was no place in the shelter and she ended up on the street with her children. Despite everything, she has now managed to break the circle of poverty. She trained as an experience expert and now helps others who are in a similar situation.
She also received help from an experiential expert, and it was very helpful. “It was the first person to ask, How are you?” For the first time in her life she was appreciated for who she was. “The expert by experience saw me. She did not point out my responsibilities, regardless of the circumstances, she saw that not only my children, but also me had a problem.”
She now tries to share her experiences with others. “That there is hope, but also the recognition that their story is being shared. Because my story is the story of many. And that is often underestimated. People think that it does not happen in the Netherlands, but it does. I give a lot of people a voice, and I would like everyone to see that bright spot in the future.”
Watch the broadcast of De Staat van Drenthe below: