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On 15 June Clapham Park Project welcomed a large Dutch delegation, made up of 35 people. The visit was organised by the Nicis Institute in Amsterdam which facilitates research trips so that information can be exchanged between cities. All of the members of the delegation work with the community in Holland.
The institute chose to visit CPP because of our good reputation in social regeneration, particularly in neighbourhood teamworking and youth empowerment.
We asked two members of the delegation to tell us what they thought of the day.
Gabi Kaffka
What is the purpose of your visit today?
I co-ordinate a neighbourhood of 10,000 people, where there are all kinds of different problems – economic, social and religious. I work with different partners, such as the police, housing corporations, government departments and other social parties, and I’d like to learn from your experiences and best practice.
What in particular have you learnt from your visit to CPP?
It’s good to hear that other countries have the same problems as we do and everyone is fighting the same fight. It’s interesting to hear about the projects you fund and how you support local initiatives by trying to make grass roots projects bigger because they work – I think this is really important.
What do you think you’ll take away from today?
I was really intrigued by your approach to community safety – the safety chain and the way all your partners come together every six weeks to discuss issues and share information.
I was also interested to hear about STREET, the organisation that works with Muslim youth. In fact, two weeks ago I was thinking about introducing a similar model to my area but I thought that nobody would ever support it and now I see that it’s actually working. STREET supports my opinion that this new way of working is effective and I think we are going to implement it too.
Jürgen Klaassen
What kind of job do you do?
I work as an Area Developer in Amsterdam for a social housing institution.
Did you find today useful?
Yes, very useful – especially the different approaches to social regeneration in the UK compared to Holland. For example, the way Clapham Park Project was set up [government funded over 10 years] is quite interesting. We can never copy and paste, but we can think about the good things we can take back to Holland.
I also found it interesting that in the UK is currently focused on what I call the basics –working with the police, on health etc – things that need to be in order before you go any further.
What do you think you’ll take away from today?
Clapham Park’s service delivery approach towards the community really attracted me. I’ve never heard of this before. It’s something you don’t really hear people talking about in Holland, but it’s actually very important.
Heather Chappell
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