Our employees

Wil Groot, founder and quartermaster.

I was born in Zwaagdijk and raised in Hauwert. Two small villages, situated in the heart of West Friesland, North of Amsterdam. Having seven brothers and five sisters meant that I had a fabulous youth. There was always something going on.

I remember that we used to collect silver chocolate wrappers for the poor children in Africa and the missionaries. We had an aunt and an uncle who worked there. This inspired me and I dreamt about the trips to far away countries that I would make when I grew up. 

In the highest form of primary school we made a large map of Africa with all the countries. Many of them still colonies at the time. You could see what raw materials each country had and where they found gold and diamonds. We made huts and palm trees and dreamt and fantasized about long journeys. 

When I was about 18 I began to travel. Packed my bag and there I went. First with friends and later on my own. I was inspired by cultures and felt best at ease among the native people. I travelled a lot, saw all continents, wrote many letters and received many letters from home in return poste restante

From the early eighties I was confronted with AIDS. It was dangerous and mysterious. One did not talk about it. People were scared because so little was known. I travelled a lot and that has probably been my luck. I packed my bag, had a farewell party in the pub with my mates in the weekend before I left and I would be gone for another nine months.

But when I came back and expected to see everybody for a welcome home the pub was almost empty. I asked my friend the barkeeper “where is everybody” with a smile on my face. He answered “dead”. This was at its worst at the beginning of the nineties and I had to say farewell to many friends. When I was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1994 I decided to stay abroad for reasons of health. 

I returned to Amsterdam in 2000 and started a vocational training in 2001 for social and cultural work. I qualified with full honours. After that I did the higher education course part time and worked as a youth worker and streetcornerworker in one of the inner city districts of Amsterdam, group leader in an institute for juvenile delinquents and housing coach. I qualified for the higher education course in August 2007 with a final paper on young people at risk.

25 stories about Aids, the book by Stephany Nolan made me aware of the youth culture in South Africa and I became curious. Many children and young people there grow up without parents, HIV positive and without medicine. They do not have a hand that teaches them when to stop, the hand that shows them how to be self- sufficient. They are often without work, without education and without money they cannot buy medicine. They live in fear because you are condemned by your surroundings when you have  “the disease.” Many of them become outcasts.

Research has shown that people are fearful of HIV/Aids in Africa. This was the same in Europe in the eighties because so little was known about the disease and there were no medicines. This is the situation in Africa now. Especially among the poor.

I know from my own experience that fear leads to stress and stress diminishes resistance. Lowered resistance creates possible illness.