In March 2020 BNP Paribas Fortis became a Silver Partner of ArmenTeKort, an Antwerp-based non-profit organisation dedicated to combating poverty. Our colleague Martine Hendrickx is acting as a volunteer ‘buddy’ to a fellow-citizen looking for new chances in life.
In 2013 businessman Theo Vaes helped to set up a non-profit organisation in Antwerp called ArmenTeKort. From personal experience – ever since he was young he had been helping to distribute food parcels to underprivileged people – he knew that poverty in a family very often spills over into the next generation. Realising that public policy had not succeeded in tackling the problem, he started looking for an alternative approach whereby volunteers try to help their fellow-citizens make progress – not by giving money but by providing friendship and care, i.e. as buddies. His initiative recently won the prestigious
‘Ashoka Fellow 2020’ award.
A two-year commitmnt
If you volunteer to work with ArmenTeKort, you are asked to commit to working for a two-year period with a fellow-citizen, who has been living in poverty for some (often quite a long) time and has lost his or her self-confidence. You will see or speak with each other on a weekly basis, at the moment of course exclusively via remote channels. This relationship works as a sort of arranged friendship based on personal equality.
Training
“After an initial information session, you’ll receive some very interesting training,” says Martine Hendrickx, who signed up to become a buddy back in 2018. She explains: “Among other things you learn how to look upon another person without prejudice, how to build up your buddy’s resilience through empowerment, and how to boost a person’s self-esteem and help expand his or her social network.”
Eye-opener
“Signing up as a buddy with ArmenTeKort was a real eye-opener,” Martine tells us, underlining: “A mother who only has €70 per week to spend on herself and her daughter often has to make heart-wrenching choices, which is a constant source of stress.”
A sympathetic ear
People living in poverty often have no-one to fall back on. An ArmenTeKort buddy isn’t a care worker and doesn’t attempt to manage the person’s budget. “First and foremost you’re there to provide a listening ear and to help build up the resilience of your ‘chance-seeking’ buddy,” stresses Martine.
How do people benefit from this?
“I’ve learned a lot over these last two years,” reveals Martine, pointing out: “Just because someone goes around looking shabby, that doesn’t mean s/he hasn’t got any talents. My buddy has become a lot calmer. She’s coming out of her shell again, is getting her social life back together and works – when the coronavirus crisis isn’t with us – as a volunteer at the local cultural centre. She’s now happy and really appreciates our relationship. I helped get her daughter into a good high school and I hope that she’ll graduate in a few years’ time and so escape the generational poverty trap.”
Silver Partner
Given the current health crisis, the number of bankruptcies and the rising unemployment rate, the government is now forecasting that as many as one Belgian citizen in five will be living on the edge of the poverty threshold by next summer. As a Silver Partner of ArmenTeKort, BNP Paribas Fortis is donating €25,000 euro to the social welfare organisation this year. The Bank will assess the partnership in the spring of next year and decide whether to extend the arrangement.
Volunteers wanted!
Some 1,000 buddies are currently working with ArmenTeKort and the non-profit organisation is aiming to increase that number to 5,000 by 2023.
More information on their website.
