Labs of Contextualized Urban Social Work
In Amsterdam the Amsterdam University for Applied Sciences (AUAS) works together with Eigenwijks. Eigenwijks is one of three community building organisations operating in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. Their main focus is facilitating and helping residents with contributing to their own neighbourhood in different ways. Residents know best; they live and breathe in their neighbourhoods 24/7. Eigenwijks has approximately 10 community builders operating from four different community centres.
About Nieuw-West
Students of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences did their research in the residential neighbourhoods of Amsterdam Nieuw-West. Amsterdam Nieuw-West has approximately 160,000 inhabitants and was built after the Second World War. It consists of the city districts: De Aker, Geuzenveld, Nieuw Sloten, Osdorp, Slotermeer, and Slotervaart.
The architecture is not beautiful like in the city-centre, but functional and extremely sober, with most often repeated identical houses. The architect Van Eesteren didn't think that was a problem, on the contrary, he thought that it would give a nice and quiet atmosphere.
Amsterdam Nieuw-West is often in the news as one of the most problematic districts in the Netherlands, with problems such as poverty, unemployment, and crime. Most of the inhabitants in Nieuw-West are of foreign (mainly Moroccan and Turkish) origin.
Student activities
Students undertake multiple activities in the five city districts. They go out on the street to take surveys with the inhabitants. This leads to quantitative data. On top of that, each student also holds an in-depth interview with an inhabitant in the neighbourhood.
Besides gathering data from inhabitants, student should also complete a photo-assignment; they take pictures of the neighbourhood to show the atmosphere in the city district and student should complete a video-presentation where they present their findings. At the end of the project, students present their research-findings to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and also to the social workers of the field partner; leading to interesting discussions about their findings.
