EMIN Netherlands had a workshop in December with the aim to bring together young people to discuss the future of minimum income schemes. Solutions, given by the young people from different backgrounds: former homeless, former drop outs, people with chronical illness, students of social work, included:
- Steering towards a more inclusive society in terms of care. From self-reliance to cohabitation!
- Ask more and more questions, such as:
- How can we help each other?
- What does the social network look like?
- How can social education (at school) play a role. Can discussion be included as:
- What is sufficient social assistance?
- What does a good health insurance look like?
- How do you feel about Food Banks?
- Where do you get help to understand contracts for energy, smart phone, et cetera? In Amsterdam they started with financial cafes. Here you can get information and possibly help with questions concerning the health insurance, the housing corporation, utilities.
- The minimum income increase at least 100 to 200 € per month up.
- We have to demonstrate for more money. More people have to revolt.
- The government must look at the persons strength instead of its weakness.
- The minimum income (assistance etc.) must have the same growth as the economy. The gap between rich and poor is increasing. Costs, such as rent, energy and expenses, increase more than the minimum income.
- A minimum amount must be set to be able to live off, without having to be dependent on the food bank. For example, 30 € per day. That is about the minimum amount that a tourist spends per day in our country.
For this workshop we built a coalition of several –national and local- organizations for homeless youngsters and lectors of three Academies for Social work and EAPN Netherlands.
The following questions were key for the discussions:
- What is needed to ensure basic security for everyone, regardless of their position in society?
- What does that basic security look like?
- What role does a minimum income play in this? How high should a minimum income actually be in 2027 and beyond?
It was not as easy as it looks to bring these groups together from completely different worlds and with entirely different perspectives for their future, to talk to each other in order to create opinions, ideas, alternatives and proposals about the role that a minimum income in their lives will, can or must play, but it is absolutely valuable to open doors towards different groups and starting a common dialogue.
It was not simple to ask people to think about 2027, but valuable at a time when only today and tomorrow are looked at. At the end, the results were presented to the plenary, with the rule that no questions, comments or discussion are allowed, because every proposal is valuable.
At the moment we are working towards a second workshop. If all goes well this will include students and young, starting entrepreneurs.
Ulicoten, 11th of January 2018
Jo Bothmer
The Peer Review on Coverage and Take Up took place on 13 and 14 March 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. The countries involved were Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Portugal, UK, Spain and Estonia.
EMIN - European Minimum Income Network 