Just a few months after Quiet was founded in 2015, Sindus Salim first came into contact with the Tilburg poverty organization. In the beginning she was shy, but now she not only receives help, she also contributes as a volunteer. “Quiet gives me the courage to share my ideas.”
Sindus came to the Netherlands from Iraq thirty years ago. She is a widow and has two sons aged 26 and 21. “I was in debt,” she says in the Quiet building in Tilburg-West. “I had to pay a friend back money for my driver’s license. That was quite difficult with only benefits and two children to take care of.”
A social worker then told Sindus about Quiet. “Then I said, ‘What? Quiet? I’ve never heard of that.'” Still, she visited, and ten years later she can still be found there.
“This feels more like family than my own family.”
Quiet helps Tilburg residents with Iraqi roots in various ways. “For example, recently I couldn’t afford the dentist,” she says. “Then Quiet helped me with that.” That affected Sindus enormously. She says that she actually has no family in the Netherlands at all, apart from her sons. “This feels more like family than my own family.”
Because Quiet has helped her so much, both financially and socially, Sindus would like to give something back. “I hope my sons become rich so I can give back to Quiet,” she says with a laugh.
“Quiet gives me the courage to share my ideas.”
But for now, she’s helping in other ways. On Tuesday mornings she is hostess and shows visitors the way as they enter. “People come in with all kinds of questions and I point them to the right person.” Sindus also organizes its own drop-in morning every Thursday. That started during corona times, when only two people showed up. “The last time there were twenty-five to thirty,” says a beaming Sindus. “That’s really a lot.”
Coffee is drunk at one long table, but the Quiet member volunteer wanted more than that. “I wanted to be creative with my hands. I suggested that and they thought it was a very nice idea. I had not done that before. Quiet gives me the courage to share my ideas.”
For example, the Quiet members present have already cooked, made a welcome plate from ice cream sticks and baked baklava.
“A life without Quiet is no fun.”
In addition to the drop-in mornings, Sindus organized a few parties especially for women. The last time about seventy women showed up. “There is dancing and eating. Everyone brings something small, and that way we still have enough.”
For her, Quiet is much more than just an aid organization. “It means a lot to me. It really is my second home. Life without Quiet is no fun.”
Ten years of Quiet
The initiative for Quiet came in 2013 from Ralf Embrechts, Nick J. Swarth and Anton Dautzenberg. That year, the first edition of Quiet 500 was published, a counterpart to the Quote 500 with stories about poverty. Two years later, the first Quiet Community was established in Tilburg. That is exactly ten years ago on October 17, World Poverty Day. It didn’t stop there, because there are now fifteen of these types of communities in Den Bosch, The Hague, Groningen and Maastricht, among others. People who join Quiet are called members. There are now around 26,000 in the Netherlands as a whole.