"I've been wondering, for so long, but now especially in recent weeks..." told Tineke, and while speaking, she briefly interrupted herself: "and it's because of Anneloes' articles, which show that from an inner urge, a desire from their heart, people decide to support other people or organisations financially... and I wonder, if it could ever be so, that that could become the only financial security in the world, that everyone follows their inner self and no one is short of money? I've thought about that so many times in the past, tried to think of solutions, but at the same time I've always known it wouldn't work because I can't manage to give all people that same desire. Oh yes, lofty desires, I had those already as a child! But now, so now we see it happening here and there. That anonymous man who gave the discovery centre so much that they could pay for the building and its furnishings, and who continues to give, whenever they need stuff for the discoverers. People who give money to us, soul-journalists with no source of income, so that we can live and work. And I experience that there are more and more people who do this not from some kind of moral obligation, but from their hearts. Patricia and Jonathan regularly receive donations from people who have been healed through their contact. Patricia and her partner Anton are better off financially than Jonathan and Joke. Should the latter two get into trouble one day, Patricia and Anton will not hesitate to help them. I have a bit of a feeling that more and more of a natural life is becoming visible, no longer frenetically doing everything for me me me, but more relaxedly letting the money come in, receive it, and if necessary pass it on to others. And since I am rather averse to all kinds of fuss around fixed systems and institutions, the desire emerges more and more strongly that people will increasingly assist each other from within. Imagine if all systems could be jettisoned, because people were there for each other. Imagine if no one had financial problems any more, not thanks to institutions, but thanks to people helping them get on their feet. Am I dreaming too big?"
Tineke looked expectantly at her colleagues. Chantal, whose focus when digging through information was mainly on government leaders and directors, looked at her smiling. "I recognise your desire, and I also see things emerging here and there that feel so right. Remember, a year ago already, when those energy prices went up so idiotically? What a panic among a lot of people! On social media, I saw solutions popping up, super handy, but not always feasible for someone in a panic. On the other hand, there were also people who started helping each other not only with advice but also with practical implementation. Simple things like people who cooked way too much and brought that into other people's homes. People who made all sorts of things in their spare time that would at least allow people to keep their living room or their workplace warm. And I don't mean primarily that they did this to make money from it, but to really help people concretely. I noticed last year that more and more was getting started in that regard. So yes, I can totally understand Tineke's desire, I actually want to see more of that too! Is it an idea, when we come across such activities, to put those messages in a separate file and collect them like that? Just adding the link... is that something for you again, Anneloes, to start a new investigation into that?"
Anneloes grinned: "In my mind I was already pulling it towards me! Yes, these are, in between making cartoon drawings, the kind of studies I think are really cool to do, so if it's OK with you guys, I'm going to work on that!"
Her colleagues signalled with cheers and claps that they were totally behind her. "And we'll help you, supplying all the information we come across! Then you can make it one big file with all the info together!"
"Super! I'm looking forward to it!"
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Anneloes started using hashtags on Twitter and Facebook to search for keywords like benefit, poverty, food bank. She noticed that there were still many people struggling, going to the food bank, unable to pay their energy bills. Through social media, she came across articles by fellow journalists, reports about food banks, energy companies, benefit agencies. Messages from bailiffs and people working in debt restructuring who were still far too busy. Through all those reports, she visited sites of all those organisations and collected information.
To her feeling, her collection, combined with everything she was fed through her colleagues, became a huge jumble of data, barely manageable. When she got to that point, she started splitting her notes into a kind of sub-files about the different organisations, as well as a file about solutions that citizens created themselves. This splitting up gave her more insight into what was going on.
Thus, she struggled through information for days, until she reached a point where she did not feel that she was really finding any new information. So she started putting what she had into a summary overview and shared it at one of their get-togethers around the coffee table.
"I spent days gathering information. I will try to give a bit of a summary of it.
What stands out, and what we do know, is that there is still a lot of poverty. There are still children going to school without food and fainting there. People are still being evicted from their homes because they have been unable to pay their bills for far too long. As long as I searched on the hashtag 'poverty', I really tended to get depressed because it seemed so hopeless.
I also searched on agencies, organisations.
Benefit agencies are incredibly busy, paying out a lot of benefits, but also indicating that they are too low, so people can't make ends meet anyway. And that frustrates employees more and more.
Food banks still receive new applications every week and cannot really handle the supply. What is available is distributed, and that is not infrequently too little to really live on properly. It actually feels like just keeping people alive. Therein also lies a source of frustration for employees. By the way, I did come across some reports of food bank volunteers also starting to help people themselves, either instead of their voluntary work or in addition to their voluntary work. Like Chantal said the other day about people deliberately over-cooking, which allows them to hand out food. Or people who do more shopping than they need for themselves, and hand out from that. Notable in that were some posts from people who knew from the inside exactly what to buy for those people. They shared their joy when it turned out that they had brought just the right thing.
I came across messages from banks, from mutual funds. That world seems to be collapsing considerably as fewer and fewer people have money to save or invest. And... also because people who do have the money are starting to use it to help others. So it is already happening, Tineke's big dream is starting to come true. We have not got there yet, not by a long way in my opinion, but there is a start!
I think this is the most important of what I found. Shall I write an article about it afterwards?"
"I think that's a good idea," Christian said, "and I'd love to get a copy of your summary, because I kind of feel like I could do some cartoons with it. Would you like that?"
"Yes, please! Those cartoons of yours would underline the story perfectly," Anneloes thought. "I'll send it to you in a moment first."
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While Anneloes worked on her article, Christian quietly bent over her summary data. It may be summarising, but it was still an immense overview! He did not understand how she managed to get an article out of that. He shrugged. Oh well, Anneloes had been working on it for days, and he was only just diving in.
Christian started again at the top, got to the section on benefit agencies and pictured his first cartoon. He drew a building, with the name of the benefit agency on the facade, and showed streams of money coming out of the windows, streams that went through the streets like rivers. The only text he wrote with it was: 'So much, and yet too few'.
Yes, that was kind of basic: a lot of money was being distributed through benefits, but it was too few. He decided to continue looking for solutions, as mentioned in Anneloes' summary.
He drew a man and a woman with a kitchen apron on and a hefty pan in their hands, walking towards the neighbours. A man who was busy making simple little stoves that people could put on the table they were sitting closest to. A young lad, putting an envelope with a euro sign through someone's letterbox. A thrift shop, with a sign saying 'everything for 10% of the price'. A girl knitting scarves and hats.
At the end of the day, Christian showed his cartoons to his colleagues. The enthusiasm was great. Anneloes beamed and said, "My article in itself is boring, I couldn't quite manage to make it into a fun story, probably because I feel the burden of misery so much. Well, in itself it did become a clear overview of the data I collected, but rather boring so to read. But if I can use those cartoons of yours with it, it will be a beautiful whole! By the way, I conclude my article with a call for ideas. So you'll be busy again, Tineke!"
"Never mind, I'm happy to read and respond to them, and I'll channel things back to you for any follow-up research!"
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And that follow-up research came! While for Anneloes the top priority remained that it was important for every citizen to live more and more from within, which she continued to put as a motto above her research and follow-up articles, she did pass on tips and experiences that came in through Tineke on the website. Together with the team, they decided to make a separate page for it, so that only every now and then, when she posted an article on the subject, she could make a reference to that page.
The nice thing about that was, as a result, new responses came in. And there were more and more responses among them, showing that people read ideas and experiences on that special page, let a lot pass by, but then suddenly had a click with a specific tip, which made them know they could do something with it.
"So it helps people gain experience in feeling, in determining what suits them, what they can start doing," Anneloes told her colleagues. "As a result, I have the impression that this page is very important for citizens to initiate fun, good actions on the one hand and, at least as important, to learn to listen to their inner self, to learn to feel what suits them. So it works both ways."
Anneloes, as she had done before, collected all the responses in a handy way, which allowed her to clearly see that more ideas and experiences were coming in every week. It was like an oil slick spreading across the country. And that was what they had longed for together!
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The old system of benefit agencies, food banks, savings and investment systems and the like did not disappear overnight, of course. It would be nice if people could arrange everything from their souls, for themselves and for the people around them, but you could never manage that overnight!
But… things began to change!
Anneloes discovered the first changes at the food banks. Not many new applications were coming in anymore. And eventually, regular clients even turned out to stay away. Since staff often did know many people, especially in the smaller settlements, they started making enquiries. It happened not infrequently that people referred to the site of 'Soul-Journalism', to all those tips, and that they worked, that people were helped by others and that they enjoyed it together. People who had always had to hold up their hands, got courage to start tackling things themselves. Sometimes they were just simple things. Babysitting some small children for a day every week. Nothing official, but just as a favour. And as people increasingly did such things because it suited them, they began to feel that their lives still had meaning.
Here and there, food banks were closed down because there were hardly any clients left for them. Staff decided to approach those few clients who were still there personally, see what was needed, and look for solutions. And so, too, joy grew, a sense of satisfaction.
What amazed Anneloes most, and she shared this with much joy over coffee, was that people who had been stuck with their possessions, their money, were starting to break free from it. And as they, too, slowly but surely began to participate in handouts, poverty alleviation was happening faster and faster.
Team members discovered messages and articles from bailiffs and people working in debt settlement, that the enormous pressure they had experienced for so long was off. They could now guide people who still needed help much more easily, and not infrequently helped them find opportunities to get help in other ways to get rid of their debts faster. More and more bailiffs and people who ran debt settlement companies were looking for other work…
No, this too did not happen in a few days. It took months. But it was noticeable that the pace of this process accelerated and accelerated!
So there came a day when there was a gratifying report on benefit agencies. Employees knew that fewer and fewer people were in need of benefits and thus layoffs were going to happen. Many of these workers no longer enjoyed their jobs very much anyway, as desires for something else, an old hobby or a totally new idea surfaced. They were looking for opportunities to get on with that and resigned from the benefit agencies. The article showed, that several offices could be closed as a result, that buildings, or parts of buildings could be rented out.
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There was another such office in the Bloemenhof area that was due to close. Simon got it into his heart to take a look at it. Like most office buildings, it was not very pretty, but he realised how many people still needed housing and started puzzling out what the possibilities might be. He applied for permits and converted office spaces into flats.
Jeroen and Eric had heard rumours about it and went there, interviewing him and following him through time. They made short film recordings about the whole process, which they put on the site under the heading 'Living in an office building?' It became a fun series, especially when the rebuilding was finished and new residents were willing to show how their flat had become.
Simon's example was followed here and there around the country, including at bank buildings that were closing.
.
Yes, a lot of time had passed, but the country was quietly being built up in a special way. More and more, soul impressions became the basis of what people did, both for themselves and for others.
The end result was, small villages became more and more self-supporting, cities in a way broke up into villages. Yes, before, they were just neighbourhoods of the city, but they came apart in a way and formed villages where people lived side by side, lived with each other and did what their hearts told them to do.
Jeroen and Eric decided to visit such villages in the wider area and ask people about their experiences. They enjoyed the enthusiasm of the people, of people who themselves indicated how their lives had changed, had been enriched, how they started each day feeling good and enjoying what they were doing. They no longer worried, there was no need to. They did what needed to be done and what suited them, and enjoyed the things they truly experienced as their heart's desire.
In the second village they visited, they discovered a group of people, men, women and older children, quietly digging holes, into which they planted trees and shrubs. Asked how they had organised this, they told them that they had got this desire, consulted with the municipal administration and, with a large personal contribution from an anonymous person, had been able to buy all these trees and shrubs. Together, young and older, they had discussed what type of trees and shrubs they liked to brighten up the village. And the result was a very varied set of evergreen shrubs, trees, plants that would flower at certain periods. Basically a bit of everything. One of the younger children took Jeroen and Eric to a field down the road. She told them that they had scattered bird seed and flower seed there and were so curious to see the results.
One of those children lived on a farm a little way down the road. She told Eric and Jeroen that her father and mother had gotten a desire to make a kind of big vegetable garden for the village. A place where people could take care of the garden themselves and harvest what they needed, either for themselves or for the neighbourhood.
"Aren't your parents afraid then that some people will take a lot, leaving others with too little?"
"No way, there is more than enough! And the people are not as greedy as they used to be. That has changed so much!"
Jeroen and Eric had an incredible amount of fun making such village tours and editing their recordings so that there was another episode on the website. They put those episodes with the articles, tips and experiences Anneloes had put on it, so that together they formed a nice whole that people got ideas from and, above all, enjoyed.
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