Beyond Social:Review ONSbank

Review ONSbank, Het Instituut

By Juliet Ulehake

Logo ONSbank

ONSbank is a project by Het Instituut. It will start with a pilot, and if it succeeds it will grow to become an independent initiative. It offers youngsters with problematic debs the chance to escape the vicious circle in which they got stuck. In this programme, the participants are faced with their problems, discover their qualities and are helped to find a job. Experts, licensed coaches and artists help the youngsters in this programme. The collaboration between artists and coaches is one of the preconditions of ONSbank, as artists are very competent to visualise the different dimensions of life, debts included. Artists can show new perspectives on how to handle these debts. Artists working on this project are Cesare Pietroiusti, Domenique Himmelsbach de Vries, Don't Hit Mama, Ghana Think Tank, James Beckett, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Paulien Oltheten. Art plays a very important role in this project. However, the debtor is not the only party involved. The other party is the creditor, because a change of mentality is also necessary from them. Involved creditors join a number of meetings in which they get to know the youngsters and their problems. The creditors will also play a crucial role in the financial model that will be used in this pilot to ensure a new start for the youngsters. The core of the programme is the acknowledgement that the chance people will pay back their debts will not be enlarged by sharpening the rules, but rather by understanding, investment in the mutual relationships and a helpful context.

By helping the youngsters on multiple levels (finding their identity in art, finding their position in society and how to handle and pay back their debts), this project contributes to a cultural, social and economical transition. The project acknowledges the youngsters have a debt, but do everything in their power to help them rather than let them figure it out on their own.

As said before, art plays a very important role. Like no others, artists and designers are able to crawl into the skin of these youngsters and humanise the problems with debts. ONSbank is convinced of the idea that debt is a human issue on which human factors should be normative. The artists help the youngsters to find their identity. For many of the youngsters, this has been the first in depth contact with contemporary art. In this project, they got a chance to get away from their debt for a bit and focus on art through which they got to know themselves. The artists positively influenced the life of the participants, but they also had the chance to work on a social issue themselves.

This project is participatory, as it works with several different groups of citizens. Also, it involves multiple institutions and systems of society.

ONSbank has created new images. They show that these people with debt are just like all of us. Almost all of us have debts ourselves, all of us have a chance of getting a debt. The project humanises debt. It also developed the idea of an organisation in which the creditors are obligated to register the debt before being able to cash it. This is the other way around of how it works now and by doing this the responsibility of a debt lies with the creditor which touches the core of the problem.

The project has definitely created new relationships. ONSbank itself now has an intensive collaboration with Delta Lloyd. They enable the debt of the youngsters to be stopped for a period of time. There are also new relationships between the youngsters and others. The project created a connection between youngsters and their social coaches, youngsters and the artists and youngsters and their creditors. All these relationships contribute to the start of a better life. ONSbank has learned new competences to the participants. They have learned how to handle their debt and prevent more debt, but also how to function in society and get to know themselves through art. From the six participants of the pilot, four have already found a job that they are still working in nowadays, one is following a new studies and the last has found an internship.

I think the collaboration in this project is a very strong point. All parties worked with the urgency to help these people, which lead to a great result. As the results are still being gathered and worked on, it is not entirely clear what the effect of this project is. Personally, I think this is a great project. It not only helped young people to financially stabilise, it also gave art and design an opportunity to contribute to our society. A weak point is that not all collaborations worked. ONSbank admitted they had some trouble with the organisations for help with debts. In practice, they offered less than ONSbank had hoped for. This gave art a dominant rule in the project, when they should have been equal. Also, the project only lasts for four months. I think many of these participants will need some form of support in the future, as this is not a problem that can be fixed in only a few months. All in all, I think this is a great start for ONSbank. I am very curious what the future will bring for them and all young people in need of help because of their debts.

Sources The art of impact Het Instituut Youtube Video Delta Lloyd