Community development through the sport canteen

Currently, we are experiencing many changes in the way that the state is trying to organize society in The Netherlands. Under the construction of a participation society, policies around welfare are getting a more activating character. In line with these policies, projects arise that attempt to develop more active citizens as well in an employment environment as in the environment of the community. Lately, sport and the sport club are seen as an ideal basis for this development. One of these projects that is active in this field is the Vital Sport Club (Vitale Sportvereniging; VSV). VSV is a project aimed at deploying the sport club as a dynamic center of the neighbourhood. They attempt to achieve this by opening the facility during the day to offer activities to the local residents, study places, (sport-)internships, and through a reintegration project for long term unemployed people. This study is centered around this last part of VSV, the re-integration of long term unemployed people. This study is not only focussed on evaluating the goals of the program, because unintended but important outcomes would then not be addressed. This research attempts to show the other side of the project: the subjective, experience-based side. This is done by the following question: What are the perceived intended and unintended effects of VSV on ‘new’ and old volunteers and to what extent do these effects align with the VSV policy objectives?