“De Schildershoek”, a nursing home in The Hague which is well-known for its intercultural way of working. This interculturalisation started about fourteen years ago and is now well established. This is a story about a practical situation, in which diversity plays a leading role.

The homes for the elderly “Om & Bij” and “Rivierenbuurt” and the nursing home “De Schildershoek” are three homes at a stone´s throw from each other, right in the centre of The Hague. They form one single organisation. Besides the three homes, the organisation has 300 units for assisted living. In total we care for about 600 clients and employ some 400 staff.

Many of the organisation´s residents and its employees originate from  a large variety of ethnic backgrounds. To give you an idea of how varied these backgrounds are, here is a run-down of all the different cultures:

People from every section of the Surinamese population:

Hindustani, African Surinamese, Javanese and Chinese, Bushland Creoles but also the original inhabitants: the native Indians.

From around the Mediterranean: Turks, Kurds, Moroccans, Berbers, there is also the odd Italian, an Irishman and some Portuguese. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of employees from former-Yugoslavia.

Our Chinese residents are from Hong Kong, the Republic of China, Indonesia and Surinam. Apart from that we have Vietnamese, Cape Verdeans, employees from the Dominican  Republic, White Russia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq. There are people from Pakistan, Afghanistan,Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sumalia, Eritrea and India, as well as from South Africa, Togo, Liberia, Germany and Colombia.

65% of “De Schildershoek´s” clientele and 70% of its staff are not from a Dutch background.

 “De Schildershoek” was founded fourteen years ago, when three former nursing homes joined forces. It soon became clear that its future clients would be people originating from all parts of the world, as expected because “De Schildershoek” was the nursing home built for the inner city population of The Hague. . . . . . . . . . .

<Download>: De Schildershoek, the history of Interculturalisation

<Download>: Intercultural Experience-based nursing home care in the centre of The Haque