About the speaker:
Our speaker, Bright Richards is a writer, actor and theatre maker. He came to the Netherlands in 1993 as a refugee who left his homeland Liberia due to the civil war at the time. He followed professional training at the Theater Academie in Arnhem. He is well known in the Netherlands for his theatre productions and for his engagement with (especially young) refugees. The organisation that he founded ‘New Dutch Connections’ works and engages in different ways for the integration of migrants into Dutch Society. In 2015 the foundation got the Royal award ‘Appeltje van Oranje’, an award of the Oranje Fonds, a foundation in the area of social welfare.
About the presentation:
Bright Richards informed us that the foundation tries to create a community with young refugees to get personal value and dignity again. They use interaction to re-discover who you are. The young refugees need caring and empowering which will help with their personal branding. The refugee image and label is not who they are as a person. Volunteers and companies help the foundation.
Bright showed us a movie telling and showing us what they do. One of the projects was at IT company Accenture. They help the young refugees with training and the refugees learn who they are, what they can do and who can help you to achieve your goal. New Dutch Connection connects to companies and approaches them.
Bright hopes that we as a Club and us as individuals with our network are able to get to know each other and help the foundation. Elisabeth will soon be in touch with him about possibilities and thoughts and Bright will think about what they do need and what we could do for them.