Date

Key activities of Michiel Matthes / Jeugd.net / Ecology of the Child

What happened in the wider society? Possible links with activities mentioned in the column on the left

April 1998-December 2000

Michiel Matthes invites a.o. the following groups for a meeting in the Polman’s House in Utrecht on 25 June 1998:
- The Protestants Parents Organisation (Werner van Katwijk)
- The Catholic Parents Organisation (Irene van Kesteren)
- Platform of Client Organisations
- Netherlands Youth Group (Peter van Heek)
- Scouting Netherlands (Peter van der Vliet).
The theme of the meeting: the quality of the living environment of children is not optimal in the Netherlands. If we start to work together we can make a difference.
The Group decides to stay together and to work together. The group calls itself the Children’s Dialogue Group. The Group writes together a policy note and adopts the ecological approach, i.e. on the basis of indicators the quality of the living environment of children can be shown. It decides that a publication should be made with the title ‘The State of Dutch Children’ and a conference should be organised on this topic.
Michiel Matthes opens in June 1999 a website called www.jeugd.net , or translated www.youth.net.

Werner van Katwijk of the Protestants Parents Organisation is board member of the daily newspaper Trouw. He gives the editor of Trouw the policy note of the Children’s Dialogue Group. The paper decides to publish with Christmas 2000 a special report entitled ‘The State of Dutch Children’, with all sorts of statistics on children in accordance with the ecological approach explained in the policy note of the Children’s Dialogue Group.
Werner van Katwijk takes with others the initiative to organise at the Free University of Amsterdam on 18 January 2001 a symposium ‘New Chances for Children in Dutch Society, in Search of a New Policy Agenda’.
There were some 180 participants, including key people from all political parties, who had just started to draft the election manifestos for the elections that would take place in May 2002.
The symposium group presents the politicians with a list of 75 wishes to be incorporated into the election manifestos.
Result:
Children and the quality of their environment become an important element in the election campaign in the Netherlands and this subject becomes important in the media henceforth.

2001

Policy Note:
Michiel Matthes drafts in the spring of 2001 a policy note on the basis of the above mentioned symposium and sends this to all political parties, that are drafting their election manifestos.

Social traineeship:
The Socialist Party invites Michiel to advise them on the subject of how to shape a social traineeship.
Michiel holds a workshop on the subject with various experts and drafts a report on it, which is sent to all parties.

Policy Note:
The Labour Party puts the policy note on its website during the entire election campaign.
The Socialist Party (SP) and the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) incorporate the idea of a social traineeship in their election manifestos.

Social traineeship:
In 2006 thousands of schools have introduced the social traineeship into their curriculum.

June 2002

Michiel Matthes writes a letter to the team, that forms the new Dutch cabinet, i.e. Balkenende, Zalm and Herben and all the new parliamentarians. The key message in the letter: the central government has some five ministries dealing with children. These ministries do all their own job, but do not take into account each other’s activities. It is necessary to hold a conference to clarify the policy agenda for children and to agree on roles for the various ministries.

In 2002/2003 the government sets up a coordination unit called Operatie Jong (Operation Young) to coordinate the activities of the central government in the area of children and their living environment.

Spring 2006

Michiel Matthes sets up Ecology of the Child private foundation in Brussels.

February 2006

Ecology of the Child will start to lobby that the Dutch report ‘Children Count’ will be done for all member states of the European Union.

The newspaper Trouw and other Dutch organisations publish a report entitled ‘Kinderen in Tel’ (Children Count). This report is a follow-up to the special report in the paper of Christmas 2000. However, this time statistics on children and the quality of their environment of all 467 local governments in the Netherlands are published and significant differences between local communes become visible.
This report is a benchmark for the Netherlands and the EU.

July 2006

16 July 2006: In the Netherlands the government just fell. The current cabinet less two D66 ministers will take care of the business until the new elections on 22 November 2006. For this reason all parties work very hard to draft their election manifestos. For this reason Michiel Matthes contacts all major parties and sends them the Communication of the European Commission entitled ‘Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child’ with the advice to take this note into account while writing the election manifestos.

Strasbourg, 4 July: José Manuel Barosso, chairman of the European Commission, and Franco Frattini, Eurocommissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security present to the European Parliament and the media the Communication of the European Commission entitled ‘Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child’.
With this step the Commission lays the foundation for a comprehensive approach of policies regarding children in the EU.

July / August 2006

In Brussels on 4 October 2006 the first meeting of the Alliance for Childhood European Network Group.

On 5 December 2006 in the European Parliament the first session of the Working Group on the Quality of Childhood with the theme Toxic Childhood Syndrome

The general public becomes every day more aware that we as citizens can do something about the Quality of Childhood in the societies in which we live. The media start to pick up this new approach.