Universiteit van Nederland/Theater Tour 2023-2024

Making science accessible for everyone. That is exactly what the University of the Netherlands does. Online, but also in old fashioned theatres. For the 2023-2024 theatre tour I prepared scientists for their interactive lecture.

Wetenschap toegankelijk maken voor iedereen. Dat doet de Universiteit van Nederland. Online, maar ook in het ouderwetse theater. Voor de theater tour van 2023-2024  heb ik samen met wetenschappers hun interactieve theatercollege voorbereid.

Al Jazeera English 2023

Researching and producing different stories for Al Jazeera English. An international independent news and current affairs channel. Broadcasting in English to over 350 million households around the world. For a full 24 hours a day.

 

 

  

  

De Afhaalchinees

International adoption: such a sensitive subject. Only a few things touch the human core as deeply as the desire to have children. Or the feeling of wanting to do something good for someone else. For a child, a mother, a father. But when is 'doing something good' in who's best interest?

More than 40,000 international adoptees live in the Netherlands. Dutch people started massively adopting children in the early 1970s mainly from South Korea, but soon after, children worldwide were adopted and taken to Dutch shores.

But in the 1980s, it became clear that love alone was often not enough to create happy families. After the first international adoptees came of age in the 1990s, other, more painful sides of international adoption emerged.

These included alleged abuses such as child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical conduct by officials and the transfer of adopted children under false pretences.

These charges were thoroughly investigated by a Dutch government-appointed commission, which published a highly critical report in 2021 which found that in all the countries they looked into serious abuses did indeed take place. The report concluded that the adoption system could never be watertight.

Given that, the commission’s report was unequivocal: suspend international adoption and eventually stop it altogether. The Netherlands halted all cross-border adoptions in 2021, but a year later suddenly decided to continue international adoption in a new system with a limited number of countries.

But what are the consequences of cross-border adoption? What is the adoption system like in the Netherlands? What does it mean to grow up in a completely different culture—with people who often don't look anything like you. Only someone who has lived as a cross-border adoptee can answer some of those questions.

And that is exactly what Kelly-Qian van Binsbergen does in her documentary, De Afhaalchinees (Chinese Takeaway). In her own idiosyncratic way. Authentic, brave and passionate.

We worked together with: Larissa Biemond, Nathalie Crum, Tjerk Hermsen, Marco Hogenboom, Tijmen Koelemeijer, Robin Luyckx, Miriam Rossewij, Li Sha Tan, Vincent Wilkie.

It was three confrontational, conflicting, but above all hysterical fun months. And, as I and all my colleagues move on with the rest of our professional lives, Kelly-Qian will forever remain an adoptee.

Watch: De Afhaalchinees from Tuesday 29 August weekly at 9.10 pm on NPO3, Omroep Zwart.

Many thanks to all the people who, sometimes only on background, have guided me through the complicated issue that is adoption.