With great determination, Kamiel (6) with his boyfriend Siebe (6) and their parents pulled from door to door in Aawijk in Den Bosch. He dragged two bags filled with empty deposit bottles. His mission? Collecting as much money as possible, not for sweets or new LEGO, but to help people in war zones.
“I saw it on the Jeugdjournaal,” says Kamiel with a serious face in the camera of the video connection. “It has been war there for a long time and I found that very bad. I was shocked,” he says. Father Bart sits next to him and nods encouragingly. “I just saw that it did him a lot and I wanted to talk to him about it,” he adds. “The feeling of ‘being able to do nothing’ gnawed at him, I saw that.” Kamiel interrupts: “I wanted to do something,” he says wisely. And so they started thinking together. Bake cakes? “Can grandpa better,” Dad Bart chuckles. “But he didn’t have time,” says Kamiel. “So then we came on bottles.”
From old to gold
Kamiel gathered his best friend and his brothers and sisters and put on the bad shoes. Since New Year’s Eve he has been busy: “January 1 is a very good day to pick up bottles,” he notes. “People drink a lot,” Kamiel whispers mysteriously, “that’s our secret tip!”
And how he takes all those bottles with him? Kamiel shrugs. “We are just very strong!” Often it goes in large bags, or in the cargo bike, together with mum or dad. That day after the turn of the year they raised 55 euros. “I was so proud that I said:” I doubled it, then you have more to give to the charity. His mother did the same. In the end we donated more than 160 euros to Doctors Without Borders, “says Bart.
“This really touched him”
When Kamiel told what he wanted to do, father Bart got too angry. “That moment he was at the door and explained the other people that he collected bottles to help others for people in war zones, that touched me. Actually when I tell it now. That makes you proud as a parent.”
Bart himself also got a wise lesson from his son’s action, namely that you don’t have to be powerless. “You see those images on TV, and think: we can’t do anything,” he says. “But Kamiel shows that you can always do something that you can take into action. Through his eyes I learn that again.” A few months later they sat together again in front of the tube when at the Jeugdjournaal it was shown that the first convoys were allowed to cross the border with relief supplies: “It was great to show him that he had helped a little bit with that.”
A beer for charity
Maybe there will be another promotion next year. “But you don’t have to ask people,” says Bart carefully. “We want to keep it special. Once a year is beautiful.” But in the meantime they gather. In the neighborhood they search the floor for cans or bottles and then submit them: good for the environment and for charity. “And when Dad drinks a beer at the weekend, I get the empty bottle.” He looks at his father with a slanted eye: “Tonight too, right daddy?” A beer for charity does not sound that bad.
