Many more parents ask for help with paying for their children’s sports or culture club. Those who do not have enough money for contributions or tuition can turn to the Youth Fund Sport & Culture. In the first six months, the fund paid membership for 49,541 children and young people. That is 20 percent more than in the same period in 2022.
The organization itself thinks that the increase can be explained by the fact that the fund has become more known.
Inflation
In addition, the youth fund cites the higher contribution prices as the cause. Last year, then director Monique Maks already warned about the high costs. Due to inflation and high energy bills, many sports clubs were forced to increase their membership fees. At the same time, Maks saw that families also started to cut back on sports and culture for the same reasons.
About 830,000 people in the Netherlands live below the poverty line, just over 200,000 of whom are children and young people.
You do not have to live below that limit to be eligible for compensation from the youth fund. According to director Petra Bosman, the criteria are somewhat more generous. “Think of 120 to 130 percent above the minimum income. And those are not hard percentages either, if our intermediaries assess that a family needs help, we go along with it.”
However, there are differences between municipalities that provide the subsidies to the fund. “In one municipality there is room for culture and sports and swimming lessons. But some municipalities have less money, so it is either sports or culture,” says Bosman.
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