{"id":481,"date":"2018-04-16T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/04\/16\/rehabilitation-through-coffee-at-heilige-boontjes-in-rotterdam\/"},"modified":"2018-04-17T12:13:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T22:13:30","slug":"rehabilitation-through-coffee-at-heilige-boontjes-in-rotterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/04\/16\/rehabilitation-through-coffee-at-heilige-boontjes-in-rotterdam\/","title":{"rendered":"Rehabilitation Through Coffee At Heilige Boontjes In Rotterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

\"Heilige
\nImagine being convicted of a crime, sent to jail, serving your sentence, and then being released back into the world to find work. Would you take a job in a former police station, with holding cells intact and graffiti of past detainees still etched on the steel doors? This is the scenario some Rotterdam residents are finding themselves in. Whether you call it an\u00a0ironic twist of fate, dark comedy, or proof of Northern Europe\u2019s cool-headed, constructive criminal justice system, this social enterprise is called\u00a0Heilige Boontjes<\/a>. Locals can appreciate the double meaning: heilige boontjes<\/i> is the Dutch expression for \u201cgoody two shoes\u201d and translates to \u201choly beans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

Established three years ago by a cop and a social worker, Heilige Boontjes has been helping economically and socially disadvantaged individuals by training them to work at a coffee bar. The majority are young ex-cons who have been selected for the program by city authorities. Pulling espresso shots, clearing tables, or ringing up orders, they are meant to develop skills deemed necessary to return to school or secure long-term employment, ultimately reintegrating into society.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the success of its <\/span>first cafe<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Heilige Boontjes opened a second, more <\/span>centrally located<\/span> space in September 2016. Now its<\/span> flagship cafe and roastery, the stately white and blue-trimmed building was a police station from 1945 right up until 2016. That history adds another remarkable layer to <\/span>the <\/span>story, though the property\u2019s main draw was its mere vacancy, says <\/span>Rodney Van den Hengel<\/span><\/a>, head of reintegration at Heilige Boontjes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

Showing Sprudge<\/em> around on a visit there in autumn 2017, Van den Hengel starts by outlining the Netherlands\u2019s general prison population:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cYou\u2019ve got the bad, the mad, and the sad,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first group makes a real business model of criminality; you won\u2019t get them in here. Then you\u2019ve got the mad; these people have real mental problems: schizophrenics, psychopaths, those with OCD\u2014we\u2019re not equipped to counsel them. So we don\u2019t take in these two groups, but we\u2019ve got the remaining 70 percent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He explains that the \u201csad\u201d category often includes delinquents who have committed larceny and done so while suffering from substance dependence, poverty, and\/or peer pressure. By the time participants arrive at Heilige Boontjes, however, some sadness has been channeled into proactivity.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThese kids, they have to say to us, \u2018I want to change my life,\u2019\u201d Van den Hengel says.\u00a0<\/span>Incarcerated for four years in his early 20s, the 46-year-old speaks from experience. As he puts it: \u201cI used to be the kid that we try to help here now.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

He readily recounts his own turning point. \u201cMy mother was dying when I was in jail,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cShe got a massive heart attack. And I would have to wait 23 hours a day to go out to make the call to ask: \u2018Is she still alive?\u2019 So it fucked up my mind. I went really mental in there. You\u2019re sitting in a room three meters long, two meters wide. These security guards would be walking around your cell door, bashing the keys on your door.\u00a0<\/span>Then I made a deal with good or God, however you call it. I said: \u2018You leave my mother alone; I will clean up my life.\u2019 \u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Behind bars, his self-education began: he read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, Buddha\u2019s writings. When he was free, he enrolled in a program to address his cocaine and heroin abuse. Afterward, having found a home in Rotterdam, he was given not welfare, he emphasizes, but a job. Decades later, as a professional social worker, Van den Hengel helped diminish a Rotterdam chapter of the Crips by creating labor opportunities for the gang members.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

Suddenly, he witnessed how \u201ca whole group accesses money without using criminality.\u201d \u201cThat sparked something in my head\u2014that you don\u2019t use counselors to solve problems,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to use commerce.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>He stuck to that belief when Rotterdam police officer Marco <\/span>den Dunnen sought his expertise to design some scheme that could keep local youth out of crime. Although Van den Hengel says that\u00a0<\/span>Den Dunnen \u201cwas really into coffee\u201d while he was \u201cdrinking shite,\u201d the two came together and wrote a project plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after, Den Dunnen became <\/span>Heilige Boontjes\u2019 director. He is supported by a board of volunteers, as well as investor Dick de Kock, famous for having cofounded the Netherlands\u2019s most influential specialty chain, <\/span>Coffeecompany<\/span><\/a>, and the person Den Dunnen <\/span>credits as <\/span>\u201cour coffee mentor.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>In its first year, Heilige Boontjes saw 10 participants complete the program. Last year there were 20, which became the annual target. Van den Hengel is unaware of cases of r<\/span>ecidivism among graduates so far.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

He describes the rehabilitation as taking place in three stages.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe first phase is just like: \u2018Shut the hell up and go work. You don\u2019t have to tell us about your problems because we\u2019ll see them show up in the work,\u2019 \u201d he says. <\/span>During this period, participants receive assistance in managing their income and securing housing and health insurance. Once \u201cskills and personal problems are in tune, we go a step further,\u201d he says of the second phase, which might lead to work as a roasting assistant or a busser. For the third and final phase, participants are taught how to be a barista. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not an easy training,\u201d he adds. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On several visits to the flagship, right around its one-year anniversary, some half-dozen workers rotating shifts were racially diverse young men and women. Though most were unavailable to be interviewed or photographed for this article, they conveyed plenty in their barside manner. They all seemed professional and conscientious.<\/span><\/p>\n

Heilige Boontjes relies on a three-group\u00a0<\/span>La Marzocco Linea Classic<\/span><\/a> and two\u00a0<\/span>Mahlk\u00f6nig K30 Vario<\/span><\/a> grinders for the house Sumatra and the house Ethiopian-Brazilian blend. These coffees are sold by the bag, as are two single origins and a Brazilian-Colombian-Guatemalan blend called 010, for Rotterdam\u2019s area code. One of the most popular drinks is a <\/span>Moccamaster<\/span><\/a>-brewed <\/span>bakkie pleur<\/span><\/i>, which is a colloquialism for \u201ca cup of coffee\u201d (and more fodder for Dutch city rivalry\u2014<\/span>Rotterdam<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>The Hague<\/span><\/a> both claim coinage).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

Besides roasting for its own customers and some business clients around the city, the company won a contract to supply middle-segment coffee to the city council. The order is so huge that it is handled off premises by a larger roastery. Yet Van den Hengel is quick to clarify: \u201cIt\u2019s not our wish to make lots of money. It\u2019s not our wish to drive Maseratis. Our wish is to make the best coffee possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The sense of humor that Heilige Boontjes has about itself is on display<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too. Labels on the house brand\u2019s soap bottles read: \u201cWash your hands in innocence.\u201d Crime is not a joke, but the playfulness has a disarming effect. The bookshelves are rainbowed with spines of Agatha Christie novels. Guests have various seating options, from the cushy leather sofa near a wall inscribed with \u201c<\/span>boontje is ons loontje<\/span><\/i>\u201d (roughly: \u201cbeans are our means\u201d), to utilitarian communal tables, ideal for groups ordering breakfast or lunch. The omnipresent staff portraits are by L\u00e9on Hendrickx, a photographer recently acclaimed for capturing drag queens in and out of drag and creating a <\/span>series<\/span><\/a> that conjoins his subjects\u2019 two separate images to become an intimately acquainted couple.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upstairs is the roasting wing. Guard-like, the <\/span>Giesen W1M<\/span><\/a> stands outside the corridor of holding cells. These units are currently used for storage: one cell contains the sacks of green beans, which are supplied by <\/span>Trabocca<\/span><\/a>; another holds buckets of fresh roasts; next door, cupping spoons. Across the floor is the <\/span>luchtplaats<\/span><\/i>, essentially a smoker\u2019s cage, functional to this day though no longer requiring a push of the red security button to let a break-taker back in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heilige<\/p>\n

Spending much time on this level is Robin Scholten. He was among the program\u2019s first graduates and began as one of three roasters at Heilige Boontjes.\u00a0\u201cThey saw that I was the most consistent\u2014in Holland we call it being Pietje Precies<\/em> [\u2018Precise Petey\u2019],\u201d the 27-year-old says. \u201cI took it very seriously and they said, \u2018Well, if you keep growing in that way, you\u2019re going to be the master roaster.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Today the title is his. Lately, he has also been coaching a junior colleague in roasting. Asked if he ever foresaw coffee in his career, Scholten is straightforward.\u00a0\u201cI was a drug dealer. I was a crook,\u201d he says. \u201cBut a couple of things happened, which I prefer to keep private, and that\u2019s why I came here: to work on myself. Now everything is good. It\u2019s a balanced life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>As for the familiar job setting, \u201cAaah, it\u2019s good,\u201d says Scholten. \u201cThese younger people wouldn\u2019t have wanted to be in a police station in the past. But now they\u2019re working in one, toward their future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In October, Heilige Boontjes received the Hein Roethof Prize<\/span><\/a>, issued biannually by the Dutch Centre for Crime Prevention and Safety to an organization that creatively and effectively deals with a social security issue. In November, it won the 2017 Tinnen Ananas award, <\/span>recognizing Heilige Boontjes<\/span><\/a> as nothing less than Rotterdam\u2019s most hospitable enterprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Heilige Boontjes is located at Eendrachtsplein\u00a03, Rotterdam<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a><\/span>, Instagram<\/a><\/span>, and Twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more\u00a0Karina Hof on Sprudge<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Rehabilitation Through Coffee At Heilige Boontjes In Rotterdam<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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