Vitesse aiming to grow its social involvement in Arnhem
The Vitesse Betrokken Foundation, which was founded in 2007, has in recent years changed it’s focus to social programs dealing with inequality among young people aged 4 to 27 years. In order to have more impact on the youth, and with the support of the whole club, they have set a number of concrete objectives.
“Vitesse is a real people’s club,” says Martijn de Wild, manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Vitesse. The club feels a responsibility to be involved in the city. “Arnhem is a relatively poor city where unfortunately many people live with debts and poverty, so you can say as a club: we do not do anything with that, but in the end, you also suffer from it. The better we do, the more we can help the city, socially and economically, which is better for the club.” says De Wild.
Social problems
For Vitesse, the bond with Arnhem goes further than just around matches and the first team. “We want to try to bind people with the strength we have as a club.” From experience with previous projects from Vitesse, De Wild sees that the club can help mitigate social problems. “You do not have the pressure of” I’m unemployed or I’m too heavy. You participate in a Vitesse project, without any participants noticing that they are participating because something is not going well, they are now very proud to be do something with their favourite club.”
Focus on youth
Not everyone in Arnhem is a football fan or a Vitesse fan. Will they also be reached? “With our Vitesse GOALS program, we focus on the primary schools, so you can reach all children in the neighbourhood. It is not our first goal to make people Vitesse supporters, but it is more from the sincere intention to mean something in their lives.” Since the club have identied that it can make the biggest difference by focusing on youth, Vitesse Involved will focus entirely on younger age groups in the coming years. “With adults, it is somewhat more difficult to change something and young people are more open to it.”
Responding to backlogs
Vitesse are specifically targeting Arnhem youth from the ages of 4 to 27 years old, “We therefore consciously opt for a phased and structured set-up of the programs, in which we respond to the issues they are most interested in and where they can experience backlogs because they often grow up in poverty.” With Vitesse GOALS the youngest group (4 to 12 year olds) are made more aware of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, food and exercise. Vitesse has the Hattrick program for the the middle group (8 to 17 year olds), which is aimed at structurally training young people. In the oldest group (18 to 27 year olds) the Vitesse Werkt! is mainly aimed at combating youth unemployment with the acquisition of employee skills.
Ambitious
According to De Wild, this broad approach is reasonably innovative in how Eredivisie clubs deal with their CSR policy. “I think that PSV, Feyenoord and Vitesse are at the forefront of CSR. At Vitesse we see a bond with society as our club’s raison d’être, instead of seeing or using it mainly as PR, many clubs do a lot of separate activities with little impact.” On the other hand, Vitesse has a multi-year plan for the impact they are aiming to achieve through their CSR programmes, “We were able to make that happen, we work ambitiously, and we work at the front with objectives instead of saying what we have achieved afterwards.” De Wild is now busy supporting the entire club from the fans association to the business club behind these ambitions, “It has to become an integral program. Our management also explains this as an objective. It is therefore no longer something that only comes from Vitesse Involved, but is worn by the whole club and community. “
Together with the municipality of Arnhem
The social objectives of Vitesse are realistic, says De Wild. “We believe that if you want to do this in a serious way, you also have to commit yourself, we want it to be supported by the whole organisation and the city, and it’s easier if you agree on concrete objectives. with the municipality of Arnhem. We already notice that quite a few people are getting excited because it is ambitious and that it fits in with what is happening in Arnhem. ”
Vitesse Werkt!
