Next Sunday is Neighborhood Day. The goal of this day: to strengthen the bond between neighbors. This year is extra special for Cindy Slaper-van der Werff from Zaandam, because her neighborhood bench will be ‘opened’ by alderman Natasja Groothuismink. “With my bench I want to combat loneliness and offer help to the neighborhood.”
A place in the street where local residents can talk to each other: that is the function of a neighborhood bench. The national initiative has more than 1,200 benches and five are added every day. It is an initiative of organization De Buurt, and was created to promote solidarity. It is very simple: you place a bench, register the bench and then the entire neighborhood can use it.
“The goal is to meet people outside your own bubble, to reduce loneliness and to speak to local residents that you normally don’t speak to so quickly. This way the bench becomes a place to look at each other and show more understanding. In addition, it also adds to the conviviality of the neighborhood,” the organization said to NH.
“With my neighborhood bench I want to combat loneliness and offer help to the neighborhood”
Social cohesion in Zaanstad
Cindy Slaper-van der Werff has been an ambassador for neighborhood benches for a month now and her own bench will be put into use on Sunday. Cindy: “I want to combat loneliness and help the neighborhood.” People hardly talk to each other these days, because everyone has a busy life. It really is: ‘hi, bye and bye’. Then it stops again. I don’t know who lives in my neighborhood anymore.”
In addition, Cindy sees that people suffer from ‘poverty shame’ and do not know where to go for help. “They get out of their house with a neighborhood bench, so you get to know the neighborhood and you can help each other.”
Pee outside the pot
That Cindy likes to work for the neighborhood is evident from her own foundation Prakkie 075, where she is committed to underprivileged people who are not entitled to the food bank but also do not have enough money to pay for their groceries.
“Some people pee just outside the pot. I make sure people can still eat their bread, fruit and vegetables. I had to use the food bank myself for a year, so I know what it feels like to have nothing.”
“I make sure that people can still eat their bread, fruit and vegetables”
Effect of neighborhood benches
In a few months’ time, fifteen neighborhood benches have already been opened in Zaanstad. “We see that Zaanstad actively encourages to place more, in that respect it is really an example for other municipalities,” says the De Buurt foundation.
Cindy hopes to inspire the Zaankanters to install a bench themselves. To make sure that a neighborhood bench also has an effect, De Buurt actively monitors the results. Each owner receives a survey. The results show, among other things, that people really meet new local residents, do something for a local resident more often and become more active in the neighbourhood.
Motivating neighborhood
To place benches in as many places as possible in the neighborhood, Cindy organizes the opening of her neighborhood bench, accompanied by coffee and tea. In this way she hopes to motivate neighbors to also put up a bench. Her bench will be opened by alderman Natasja Groothuismink at 12.30 pm at Kopermolenstraat 52 in Zaandam.