There is a serious shortage of staff, especially in healthcare. If you then get the chance to bring a young enthusiast on board, you should grab that opportunity with both hands. That is what director Chantal Beks of De Wever in Tilburg must have thought. She had Zeinab Benali (14) at her side for a day, a VMBO student at Campus 013 in Tilburg. Working with the elderly in a nursing home seems like something to Zeinab: “They give me confidence and a good feeling.”
On Thursday, children will join hundreds of companies in the country for a day. Chantal Beks takes Zeinab to nursing home De Hazelaar. There she will work with resident Ben Verhoeven. He has dementia and he paints every Thursday morning. He is seated at a table, with brushes and tubes of paint.
Spraying blobs of red and blue onto a plate, he talks animatedly to Zeinab. “It’s a fantasy work,” he says. “What subject would you include?” Zeinab wants to know. “I think something from New York.”
“Care for the elderly is often not very popular among young people.”
Beks is happy with Zeinab: “We are short of many good workers, which is a major problem in healthcare. And especially care for the elderly is often not very popular among young people.” But Zeinab is hopeful that this will change: “I notice that girls in particular find care interesting among classmates. This year we had the elective courses for elderly care and youth care. And most of them went to elderly care.”
Zeinab has known since the eighth grade of primary school that she wants to work with the elderly: “Sometimes I’m on the bus with grandmothers and I talk to them for a really long time. An old grandfather was sitting on a bench at a shopping center. Suddenly he started talking to me. about his life in World War II and he showed me pictures. Elderly people help me overcome my fears.”
Old painter Ben understands: “We are a bit calmer in our dealings,” he says. That’s exactly what Zeinab likes. And Ben is satisfied with her: “I really enjoy working with her. I do feel at home with her.”
“Zeinab works from her heart.”
Zeinab’s work will go further than just taking care of the elderly on Thursday. Director Beks also wants to know from her how De Wever can enthuse more young people like her for working with the elderly: “Zeinab works here from her heart. And that suits the people who work here, they all do it out of passion. would like more of it.”
Of course, Zeinab cannot simply supply more young people. But the day at De Wever confirms to her that she wants to work in elderly care later: “Because I really enjoy seeing the elderly happy. And when Ben says I make sure he feels at home here, it gives me a warm feeling.”
That is surely one new care worker won.
