ABOUT YOU
Foundation YOU – Young Optimistic Urbanists is an initiative of De Zwarte Hond and is led by Ellen Schindler, partner at De Zwarte Hond. The foundation aims to promote cultural and architectural education among the city’s young residents. With the project METRO O1O, the foundation wants to engage with young people about the city, in a different way.
Stichting YOU was formerly Stichting Ken Je Stad Maak Je Stad (KJSMJS). In 2024, a different name was chosen. The reason for this is that the book is now also getting a lot of attention internationally (especially in Germany) and Ken Je Stad Maak Je Stad is not an easy title to take across the border. Therefore YOU: Young Optimistic Urbanist was chosen.
Mission
Foundation YOU – Young Optimistic Urbanists sees it as its mission to promote young people’s ownership of their urban environment through layered educational projects in the form of a book, manifesto and/or activities. Personal responsibility leads to an active attitude in experiencing the city and its social and structural potential; the book and educational materials provide a “tool” to experience this personal responsibility and from there help shape the city and its future.
Vision
By providing and/or mediating bottom-up materials (book, teaching materials, workshops and workbook for schools and schoolchildren) and developing top-down tools (manifesto and handbook for professional city makers), we aim to increase young people’s ownership and interest in and for their own city on the one hand, and on the other hand to encourage professional city makers to involve young people in processes of urban development. This creates a two-way stimulus that should result in processes in which young people become a more active and structural part of “city making”.
Target group
The primary target group of our foundation is seventh grade students, age 11-12. This is the group that, instead of taking the scooter around the corner, goes to school further away from home and starts to explore the city more and more on their own. But what do they know about the city? The book METRO O1O tells in a visual way about moments in the city’s history that have made the city spatially to what it is today. Through economic wealth, through innovative developments, through city rights or simply through a little boat in a dam. Why is the city the way it is? That’s what the book’s stories are about.
Secondary, we also serve students from higher grades with the book, namely second year and beyond. Each school has also received copies for the school library so that other classes can also use the book.
In addition, the book reaches even further: to some secondary vocational schools, schools outside the city, residents of Rotterdam and interested parties far beyond, even abroad.
The team
A foundation like YOU, with a project like METRO O1O is never done by one person, you need a good team. A team that believes in the project and goes above and beyond! We would like to introduce the team involved in YOU from day one.
De Zwarte Hond
YOU is powered by De Zwarte Hond. De Zwarte Hond, office for architecture, urbanism and strategy, works daily on the (European) city. The urgent need to make cities inclusive and climate adaptive is growing, while space for this is limited. Solutions in mobility, living, working, and green space are therefore becoming increasingly important, but also more complex. These changes require much of the understanding of city residents.
De Zwarte Hond therefore asks itself how we can talk about the city in a different way and how we can involve young people, the future city makers, in the development of their city. The office does this through (design) research.
Within this research, the book METRO O1O and the manifesto make a valuable contribution to the discussion about the identity of the city, and they touch topics everyone can identify with. The book offers a collective narrative to better get to know and understand the city. The manifesto is an invitation to professional city makers to involve young people more serious, concrete and structural in urban development processes.
Board
Chairman
Carolien Dieleman
Secretary
Ronald van Raaij
Treasurer
Ruud Visschedijk
General board member
Karim Amghar
Board members receive no remuneration other than reimbursement for expenses incurred.
ANBI
If a charity is designated as an Institution for General Benefit (ANBI), no gift tax or inheritance tax needs to be paid on a gift or inheritance because a general exemption, which has been included for ANBIs. However, a foundation with ANBI status must serve the public interest. In this way the donation or inheritance will fully benefit the objectives of the ANBI.
Foundation YOU – Young Optimistic Urbanists (formerly Ken Je Stad, Maak Je Stad) has the ANBI status (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling).
Adress:
Westblaak 37
3012 KD Rotterdam
RSIN nummer: 863332729
Annual reports
2021/2022
2023