Pieter Smit

Review of Europa Kinderhulp

We have been a holiday family for children from Ha...

We have been a holiday family for children from Hanover, the Netherlands and England since 1993. We were also regularly a "reception address" for children who temporarily needed a different place. We have always kept in touch with our oldest guest child from Hanover (now 33 years old) and last year our English holiday child (now 28 years old) suddenly appeared on the doorstep. I still find most moving to hear that they still regularly look through their scrapbooks that I made for them every holiday and that their best childhood memories were the holidays at our home.
Imagine if your own child (ren) would say that about their childhood: "My best childhood memories are holidays with complete strangers who let me be a child for three weeks ...."
It shows how necessary it is still for children to be able to be a carefree child for three weeks.
It may seem strange that the holiday child has more expensive things than your own child, or tells about an amusement park where it has been with his / her mother because that does not fit in the picture that we have of an underprivileged child .. But above all I felt sorry with the foster child who cannot live at home but is not really "at home" in the foster family; he / she is not allowed to go on holiday with the family and has to go to complete strangers again .... that does not even make an Iphone with Netflix films good .....