Five questions for Hans Guijt (Terre des Hommes)

On Monday it was announced that Terre Des Hommes will still be awarded a subsidy from MFS-II. After the rejection last year, Terre des Hommes has lodged an objection in an alliance with the Stichting Kinderpostzegels and the Liliane Foundation. A good reason to call Hans Guijt, head of projects at Terre des Hommes. He was relieved that Terre des Hommes now shows that they do meet all strict quality criteria: “We have lost the image of loser”. 1. Congratulations on securing the grant. Did you have a party? 'We held a modest party with the supporters and people from the field. There is no 'cheer', there is no reason to do so. Above all, it is a sense of relief that all our efforts over the past two years have been rewarded. We finally know where we stand. But above all, we are relieved that it is recognized that Terre des Hommes meets the strict quality criteria. It still felt like a vote of no confidence. We are rid of the 'image of loser'. That was unjustified. We have now shown that we do meet the quality standards, even the strictest. In the end we are very happy. ' 2. Did the grant award come as a surprise?'Yes and no. No, because I would have been very surprised if it were not awarded. The notice of objection was well put together. We made some mistakes in the first application, but we worked hard on that. I would have thought it wrong if we had been judged differently. But on the other hand, it also came as a surprise, because we assumed the worst. Such hard blows had already fallen to the development organizations. ' 3. Did you gain insight into the reason for the ministry to reject the application on the basis of two points?'I must admit that I haven't gotten around to reading the papers yet. It is such a huge job. I'm going to struggle through that at my leisure. Two of the nine points were honored, so that we still ended up with sixty points. I don't know yet on the basis of which criteria the two points were awarded and what was wrong with the other seven points. However, I have remembered the last sentence of the letter: “the decision has been amended and approved”. We have yet to see what will happen next. We do not yet know what is expected of us and what the consequences will be for our programs and partners. This information is still on the way. ' 4. Are you disappointed that less than half has been awarded to the alliance, EUR 32 million instead of EUR 68 million?'No, we are certainly not disappointed, 32 million euros is a lot of money. Certainly because otherwise we would not have received anything at all. We are happy that the work can continue. We simply live in a time when we all have to step back. So no, we are very happy . ' 5. How is the distribution made among the alliance (Stichting Kinderpostzegels and the Liliane Foundation)? Laughing: 'We take everything and the others nothing, I thought so. No, we'll talk about it calmly. That will not be a problem because we have a pleasant contact with each other. Probably the allocation key is determined in such a way that each organization receives 40% of the amount submitted by them. That is the percentage we were ultimately awarded of the amount we originally submitted.

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