They are among the pioneers and innovators of the environmental movement and development cooperation in the Netherlands and have formed a high-profile duo for decades. Although they are fully enjoying their retirement, Ron van Huizen and Hans Guijt are sounding the alarm about a development that worries them: supervisory boards that want development organizations to run as if they were companies. "Stop the crazy goal that you always have to grow."
Suppose you have had a working life that reads like an adventure or roguish novel. You have worked in the charity sector for decades and have always been at the forefront and the driving force. You founded Greenpeace Netherlands and built it up to be the strongest brand within the environmental movement. You let Terre des Hommes undergo a metamorphosis from a somewhat dozed-off charitable foundation into a high-profile organization in the field of children's rights campaigns.
You were aboard the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in 1985 when the French Secret Service carried out an attack. You introduced Johan Cruijff to charity land and were co-founder of the foundation named after him. You broke open the 'cartel' of Novib, Cordaid, * ICCO and Hivos and ensured that other development organizations could also receive subsidies from the Dutch government. In the end you gained almost world fame by inventing the computer girl Sweetie , to lure pedophiles into a trap. Ron van Huizen and Hans Guijt can credit all of this - as a duo or otherwise alone. At Greenpeace and Terre des Hommes.
We meet in Bray, the Irish seaside town where Hans Guijt lives with his wife and children. Guijt is an excellent guide: he shows us the houses where writer James Joyce and singer Sinéad O'Connor lived, the bed and breakfast where Oscar Wilde grew up, as well as the hotel in a dilapidated state where Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra liked to stay . And of course there are the cozy dark pubs where the pints of Guinness are freshly tapped, although Van Huizen prefers to stick to white wine. The obviousness with which Guijt ' thanks, mate'says to the waiter, indicates a high degree of integration, it is an ideal environment for a quiet exchange of ideas with an inseparable working duo, which worked together for decades and always became the rebels of the environmental movement and later the development sector. seen. Guijt likes to talk about his years as a campaign manager at Greenpeace - about exciting actions at sea against ships that wanted to dump nuclear energy or against whalers - and about Sweetie , the famous campaign to expose pedophiles, which in the last years of his working life caused a a new world opened up for him. He has since become an expert on cybercrime.
Van Huizen can tell tasty about his adventures with Johan Cruijff, with whom he worked for seven years, made a memorable trip to India and with whom he - together with football journalist Jaap de Groot - organized the competition 'The Orange of the Century' at the end of 1999, with the best players who have ever played for the Dutch national team; a team composed by the inimitable maestro himself. The proceeds went to Terre des Hommes and the Johan Cruyff Foundation.