In Roden, six high school students from De Esborg pack breakfast bags for sixty poor families in the municipality of Noordenveld every Thursday morning, so that no child goes to school on an empty stomach.
It is a well-oiled machine in the warehouse on the Tweede Energieweg in Roden. The teenagers lift the crates of brown bread and yoghurt drink from the car and place them in the shelving units. “This was brought to Roden by the Jumbo,” says Sarbine Blauw, internship coordinator at De Esborg. The shelving units are provided with stickers with written on them: Norg, Roden and Peize.
Eating healthy is expensive
The six teenagers from De Esborg do this as a social internship. In addition, students do unpaid voluntary work in order to learn more and take responsibility for social issues. After ten weeks, the students are now well attuned to each other. Cheyenne divides the tasks and two other boys stand at the shelving unit where they pack the cheese spread and butter into the brown paper bags.
The bags are richly filled: a brown bread, a pack of chocolate flakes, jam, an apple, cucumber, banana, pear, yoghurt drink, cheese spread, butter and an orange. The municipality of Noordenveld has put together the products based on advice from the Nutrition Centre. A healthy meal is very important for poor families, says Blauw. “Healthy food is expensive and unhealthy is cheap. A bag of fries is cheaper than a bunch of bananas.”
Poverty is a taboo
At the end of January, the municipality of Noordenveld started the breakfast trial. “The initiative is going well,” says project leader Sophie Nuberg from the municipality. “More and more parents get a weekly breakfast bag every Thursday afternoon, we started with twenty-three registrations, now there are around sixty per week.” Welfare in Noordenveld has arranged places where the breakfast bags can be picked up, as an institution they are committed to people in a vulnerable position. Nuberg: “In this way, collecting the bags remains accessible for the parents. A town hall is more stately than a village hall. The pick-up location is important, she says. “Poverty still remains taboo.”
In October, 650 primary schools in the Netherlands took part in a four-month pilot in which disadvantaged pupils in schools can receive a free breakfast. The Ministries of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) and Education, Culture and Science (OCW) made five million euros available to the Youth Education Fund for this purpose. The primary schools in Noordenveld were not included. Meanwhile, education minister Dennis Wiersma announced this week that he wants to extend the budget and significantly expand the group of schools. “That is very positive news,” says Nuberg. But as long as Noordenveld is not yet subsidized by the government, it will continue to work together with Public Primary Education Noordenveld (OPON). independently continue with the free breakfast promotion. At least until the May holidays.
The fact that poverty is a taboo is also apparent from the number of registrations. At the moment there are around sixty families with one or more children who receive a breakfast bag. The municipality had counted on around three hundred children from questionnaires in primary schools, completed by parents. According to Nuberg, not all children have been registered yet. “But the questionnaire did not look at income, perhaps well-to-do parents also supported the initiative without needing it themselves.”
Together is more fun than alone
In any case, the teenagers on the Tweede Energieweg are happy that they can help at least those sixty families. After exercise, it’s time to relax. Supervisor Blauw pours the children a cup of hot chocolate, but not for all of them. One of the boys is fasting and is therefore not allowed to eat meat, fish, dairy and eggs. Cheyenne climbs onto the seven-foot stacked chairs and sits on top of them to drink her hot chocolate. “It looks like a throne, Cheyenne,” says Blue, laughing.
While children of primary school age get the breakfast bags at home, secondary school students can eat their breakfast at school. That is often used at De Esborg, says Blauw. “Three of the six teenagers who are now working in the shed eat breakfast at school.” But that is not just a matter of money, according to her. “Some children get up alone, parents have already gone to work, eating together is more fun than alone.”
Every morning Blauw ensures that breakfast is ready for the young people. She smiles: “It’s okay if they eat a sandwich in class, better than sitting on such a device.” She points to the teens staring intently at their cell phones.