Sometimes Atalay Celenk (51) wants to shout out when he sees national politicians at work: “What world do you live in?”
This Monday afternoon, like every Monday afternoon, his world consists of tables with lonely, single elderly people. Hindustani grandmothers, Indian aunts, Turkish men, Moroccan mothers and white . The smell of vegetable soup and chicken comes from the kitchen, where a volunteer in a red chef’s outfit prepares the plates. Later there will be banana flip with vanilla ice cream. When the soup is served, all you hear for a moment is the tapping of the spoons on the porcelain.
The world of Atalay Celenk is that of the Transvaalkwartier in The Hague, which was a white working-class neighborhood when he grew up there as the son of Turkish guest workers. A neighborhood with social control and cohesion, he says. “My parents did not speak the Dutch language. They were helped by the neighbors. People looked out for each other.”
Now it is a neighborhood in which 93 percent of the residents have a migration background, of whom 45 percent are single. At 38,000 euros per year, the income per household is ten thousand euros lower than elsewhere in The Hague. It was never a wealthy district, just like the adjacent Schilderswijk. But both neighborhoods now turn dark on the municipality’s poverty map. Also for loneliness.
I was in shock. Loneliness was very unknown to me at the time
Celenk only really saw during corona times how bad things were going behind the front doors. In March 2020, his neighborhood restaurant Juliana Plaza, in the former Juliana Church on the border between The Hague’s Schilderswijk and the Transvaalkwartier, had to open due to the lockdown. From one day to the next. The cold room was full, as was the freezer.
Celenk and his partner Jale, who is a social lawyer, decided to distribute food to give something back to society. Deliver food parcels to seniors. “I was in shock. Loneliness was very unknown to me at the time.” He saw the isolation in which some lived, and that was not just because of the lockdown. “It was also accompanied by poverty.”
Atalay Celenk: “Be sociable, be merciful, be generous.”
photo BART MAAT
Juliana Plaza was never purely a commercial restaurant: according to the zoning plan, one third of the activities in the former Dutch Reformed church had to have a social character. Political debate evenings, neighborhood meetings, job fairs, Iftar meals and Christmas dinners were organised.
After the lockdown was lifted, Celenk wanted to expand that meeting function: “I was raised with giving. With hospitality, with mercy.”
After the food parcels, there was a weekly senior café. There was also a biweekly living room with free coffee and tea for all local residents, and a breakfast club in which hundreds of primary school students and their parents participated. There are cooking clubs and monthly activities, including concerts by the Residentie Orchestra with apple pie. During this year’s NATO summit, a diverse range of residents of The Hague discussed what peace and justice meant to them, with snacks from various world cuisines.
‘We are all descended from the prophet Abraham’
“Food brings people together,” says Celenk. “People no longer come to this former church to , but to meet each other. We ask: “What do you need? How are you? Paying attention. Love. Warmth. Offering help. That’s what it’s all about.”
People are basically social beings, he thinks. “It doesn’t matter whether you are a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim. We are all descended from the prophet Abraham.”
This Monday afternoon the tables will look back on cooking together. The elderly learned ‘high-protein cooking’ from the GGD. Lentil soup was made and couscous salad with “that white cheese,” says one of the women. “But I’m not really into that.”
Next Monday, the Heart Foundation will come by during dinner to draw attention to cardiovascular disease among women, says a volunteer. It is then Red Dress Day: “Then we will all wear something red. Gentlemen? Do you have something red? A red hat? Not too? Then we will come up with something red for you.” The women giggle.
Everything with ‘closed grants’ and a small contribution from the municipality
This is the Celenk method: agencies come into contact with a target group that they have difficulty reaching, the participants “become wiser” while they also make friends or simply have a nice afternoon outside. About 25 social organizations are participating or giving workshops. Everything with “closed grants” and a small contribution from the municipality. Volunteers – such as the chef in the kitchen – do the manual work.
There are no policy officers, there is no communications department. General practitioners, pharmacists and elderly consultants from a ‘steering group’ give lonely local residents a push towards church. Celenk’s network does the rest. “We know the neighborhood. I was born and raised in the Transvaal.”
Atalay Celenk, director of Juliana Plaza, is convinced that food brings people together.
Photo BART MAAT
The elderly pay 2.50 euros for three courses on Mondays. If they can afford it. The food bank, Celenk noted, does “beautiful work,” but people are ashamed to go there. As he talks, all kinds of people trickle in. It is not “classic welfare” where different organizations sometimes work at cross purposes. “Deliver, activate, mobilize. Impact. You can call me for that.”
Frustrated with politics
That is also the reason for his frustration with national politics. In 2023, the report ‘A secure existence’ was presented in Juliana Plaza to the then Minister of Poverty Policy Carola Schouten (Christian Union). The government committee that wrote it, appointed after a motion by Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt (then CDA), concluded that people living around the social minimum were significantly short of money and would get into further trouble if government measures were not taken.
“I saw light and hope. But the current cabinet apparently had no interest or time. Because it did not fit into their political agenda. And of course they were mainly concerned with themselves.
That report was two years in the making. Rock hard. And it cost a lot of money. Because yes, a committee, man hours, civil servants. The whole circus surrounding it. And then it fades into the background.”
In the foreground an argument in the tent. Ugly things. Run away, confront.
“And in the foreground there is an argument in the tent. Ugly things. Running away, confrontation. Why do the ministers sit together every week? In fact, you should now just call them to account. What have they delivered?”
The Schoof cabinet wrote in its Outline Agreement that poverty and child poverty will not increase wildly compared to 2024. But concrete plans, the Ombudsman for Children noted, have not yet been made.
Celenk sees it every day in Transvaal, more than 1.2 million Dutch people live just above the poverty line, more than half a million below it. In 2023 (), they had less than 1,510 euros per month to spend as a single person, or 2,535 euros per month for a family with two children.
Celenk has seen no “palpable changes” since the report was published. “When I look at national politics now, I really get an error in my head. You know, like that krr krr krr of a computer.”
Go deeper into the neighborhood
People want delivery, he says. He himself does not plan to open another community center. Celenk wants to go “deeper into the neighborhood”, behind the front door. In Juliana Plaza, the elderly who are mobile, who dare to come, now come. He wants to reach young people so that they “do something instead of sitting behind the screen”. “They now see the world of TikTok, Dubai and Ferrari. When they find out the reality, they will fall hard. Behind the screen you will get nowhere.”
Atalay Celenk, director of Juliana Plaza (left) eats with lonely elderly people in the Juliana Church.
Photo BART MAAT
He would like to have a new team of ministers on a probationary period before they go to the king. He will show them what it really means to be “serviceable, employable, inclusive.” And to “show a real interest in people.”
“That’s how I raise my children. Be social, be merciful, be generous. If you can’t give with one hand, you can’t take with the other. Don’t go for the cheap, but really go for what is needed and try to help as many people as possible. Within your ability and within the possibilities, of course.”
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