This coffee place gives people a second chance

At Heilige Boontjes (Holy Beans) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, ex-cons and everyone who’s been dealt a rough card, gets a second chance to start work.

Delicious coffee, remarkable stories

At Heilige Boontjes (literally: Holy Beans). It means as much as ‘very innocent’ the Dutch version of ‘choirboy’ or ‘Mother Theresa’) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, you get delicious coffee while supporting a social project with an amazing impact. At this coffee place, people are given a second chance, no matter what brought about the need for one.

coffee with a cause

Rodney van den Hengel started the foundation a couple of years ago, in an old police station with his companion, police officer Marco de Dunne.

“The need to start this came from personal motivation. I have been in jail for years myself. I dealt with a lot of violence and drug related problems. There were people there for me as well. The social aid was more prebaltent back then, and now everyone has to just take care of themselves, and some people just can’t you know. My father always said, in a flock of sheep, there’s always one that’s slower than the rest of them. And what sheep do, they wait for eacht other. We’re now living in a soeciety where no one wants to wait for eacht other anymore. And that’s where my buddies and I want to make a difference.

Heilige Boontjes started out of a need for something. What we often see is that youths come into contact with life on the streets and it goes downhill from there, but once they want out and want the whole settling down experience, they go to find a job, but no one wants to hire them. It can be because they have a record, or because they’re in debt or lack work skills.. but the most important thing is that they have this sort of ‘street’ way of reacting to things. And we remove that.

There was nothing doing that before. People were like, you can re-integrate someone within six weeks and we just don’t believe in that. We believe it takes a minimum of a year. And in order to provide that service to the youth, we started Heilige Boontjes.”

Source: BrightVibes

a close-knit family

Heilige Boontjes gives everyone a chance who’s willing to put in the work. That’s why not just former cons work at the coffee place: they make up a mare 60%. The other 40% is made up of a variety of people with different backgrounds. There’s people with debts, personality disorders, minor psychological disorders and people who are from a difficult background or don’t have any family around to rely on. At Heilige Boontjes they all get a chance to develop a variety of skills that will help them  with work. They get Dutch courses, psychological guidance, barista courses and learn how to deal with customers and colleagues and develop a work ethic.

After the program, the foundation helps the youths finding a job and everything that has to do with that. Once you’re a Heilig Boontje, you’re part of the family; but it does require you to really put in the work and effort!

The coffee and lunch place is located in a forme police station; on the fourth flour where they brew their coffee, they brew it near former police cells.

The reintegration project could have been a great number of things, but in the end coffee is something that brings people together and gives the youths a chance to learn in an active environment. the most important thing to founder Rodney however, was that the business had to make its own money.

Heilige Boontjes isn’t subsidized. Coffee is a product many Dutch people are fond of: they drink an average of 150 liters a year, and there’s plenty of money to be made with that.

Holy Beans can be found at eendrachtsplein 3 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Source: BrightVibes

Source: BrightVibes