Another 2.5 weeks and then the Vluchtelingenwerk Foundation in the municipality of Midden-Drenthe will close the door behind him. After more than twenty years, the municipality chooses another party. That news comes in hard at the organization.
“Yes, it’s a cold shower,” responds Gerard Glastra. He has been involved with the organization as a volunteer for about 2.5 years. 23 volunteers and four interpreters work at the location in Beilen. Some of them have been involved in the organization since the 1990s and are worried. “They will have to complete the work they have for Vluchtelingenwerk,” says regional manager Femke Hummel. “There is a lot of defeat and sorrow.”
The municipality of Midden-Drenthe recently held a public tender of 2.1 million euros for the legal assistance and integration of people with a residence permit, so-called status holders. For example, the money is intended for supervising housing, arranging family reunification, getting to know the environment and culture or helping reading letters and doing finances.
Several parties could respond to the tender. A requirement was that they did that anonymously. Nevertheless, the VluchtelingenWerk Foundation was recognized because they mentioned the names of organizations with which they collaborated. The municipality excluded the refugee work from participation. That is right, the judge ruled earlier this week. Refugee work saw the work on her nose.
“It is very unfortunate that because of a procedural check mark that is not good, the next stage of substantive discussion does not arise,” says Glastra. “If it turns out that you did not do your work well or that there are demonstrable reasons why we were not chosen, then you can place that. But this comes across bureaucratic and that is a pity.”
Glastra guides families in procedures surrounding family reunification. After a career in the business world in the IT department, he missed social contact and found it in his volunteer work. He sees what his clients have experienced and where they are in the middle of. He points to a family in South Libanon where the grenades ended up in the bedroom and how the family in Midden-Drenthe was worried. “Then as a family you really want your family members to come to the Netherlands. That piece of involvement is very strong in the entire team.”
In any case, a new party will carry out the assignment of the municipality in the coming two years. Then comes a new tender. That brings a lot of uncertainty for Glastra. “I don’t know how to do the next party,” he says. “If you see that we have 23 volunteers, you can’t get it cheaper.” He also wonders whether the current volunteers want to go to a new organization. “There is of course an emotional bond with refugee work.”
Hummel is afraid that if after two years it turns out that the Vluchtelingenwerk Foundation is missed in Midden-Drenthe, it is difficult to bring this group of volunteers together again. “It’s a team that you have built up in years,” she explains. “Volunteers do it from their hearts and from their passion. They want to mean something for this target group and do not sit still. In two years or in half a year, they may be involved somewhere else. They will not sit behind the geraniums.”
What Glastra will do yourself? “Of course you have a number of processes that are in a critical phase. Then you can hardly make it to drop it out of your hands,” he says. In addition, transfer will be important for him. “If I drop it now, then it goes wrong.”
The Vluchtelingenwerk Foundation is determined to properly inform and help the subsequent party. The municipality of Midden-Drenthe also wants that and says it is’ doing its’ utmost to guide involved volunteers as well as possible in this transition ‘. The municipality does not want to respond to the story of Vluchtelingenwerk.