News

Zero-Kap projects take years to mature and show their benefits. Progress is shown in our newsletter that does appear at irregular intervals in a Dutch version only. Click here for the Dutch newsletters. For progress on the Zero-Kap projects please look under the Our Projects section.

January 2010

Jan W. Henfling, Zero-Kap's director decided to resign as off April 1st. He has held this position since 2004. Prior to that he was Zero-Kap's secretary. The secretariat and financial administration will be handled by Hooge Raedt Groep Holding BV at Baarn, The Netherlands, that also takes care for the administration of FEMI, an NGO that cooperates with Zero-Kap and chaired by Ruud Bakhuizen who is also a board member of Zero-Kap. Through this concenytration of administrative functions Zero-Kap plans to reduce costs.

The next couple of months Zero-Kap will reflect on its activities. The demand for small scale credits, the sort of credit awarded by Zero-Kap, is very significant. This type of credit is in addition rather unique and Zero-Kap did not meet any other organization in this field that caters to the same demand. Director, board and advisors arrived to the conclusion that so far the liberal policy of awarding credits to well argumented applicants from many contries did dilute the efforts too much and does increase cotst of operation. This period Zero-Kap will use to determine a new focus in terms of countries, economic activities that are being supported and partnerships with other organizations.

December 2009: Change in the board

Rens de Groot Msc, chairman since 1992 resigned and was succeeded by Dr. Ton Cools. Mr. de Groot was a visionary leader, almost since the start of Zero-Kap and guided the recent professionalisation of its organization. The board is very pleased that he is willing to continue as an advisor.

October 2009: GDN Nomination for PPR Project on Aceh, Indonesia

We just received the happy news that our project 858-PPR (plastic recycling) at Aceh in Indonesia has been nominated for the prestigious Global Development Network Award (GDN Award) and its general manager Ir. Baharuddin Sanian has been nominated Ashoka Fellow. We will keep you informed.

October 2008: Change in the board

Folowing 4 years of strenuous work, Dick Schaap, treasurer and secretary decided to resign. During these years he succeeded in the firm establishment of a professional financial and project oriented organisation. Financial reporting became much more complete and concise. His experience as a business consultant (Berenschot) has been clearly expressed in the present aptitude of the board to reflect on the functoning of itself as well as the entire organization. Business plans of applicants are now being valued and he has shown how to improve risk assessment and what measures are effective when action is required.

As a secretary he is succeeded by Dik Stroband and as the treasurer by Erika van Scheijndel (see under the caption board).

June 2008: Newsletter and Annual Report 2007 have been published

Unfortunately we are as yet unable to present to you this documentation in English, however, when you read Dutch, please go to Publications and download from there.

April 2008: Uganda on the short list and a couple of new advisors

Thanks to our advisor Mrs. Lillian Mulder-Lubega we have been able to find a monitot in Uganda. Uganda has been for many years a politically and socially stable country. From where many good documented requests for a loan have been received. As we did not have any local infrastructure we were obliged to answer negatively.

Our short list now mentions the following countries: India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Congo, South Africa, Peru, Bolivia and Surinam.

New advisors:

Mrs. Machteld Versnel-Schmitz studied history at Utrecht University. She then had a long career in local and national politics. She was member of the town council of Utrecht, the provincial parliament and the Dutch parliament. In those offices she mainly concentrated on issues as urbanization, regional development and nature management. She lived a number of years in Indonesia. With her Zero-Kap gained a lot of experience in public management.

Bonne de Jonge is a graduate from Delft Technical University. He worked for the most part of his career as a project developer for the European Commission in many countries, where he developed airports, harbours and other large scale projects. He will bring is his experience to help develop the small scale projects with Zero-Kap.

Dik Stroband MSc studied at Nyenrode University, followed by an Amsterdam University degree in Developmental Economy. Subsequently he worked at the Netherlands Centre for Foreigners with responsability for selection and implementation of a credit programme from the Ministry of International Cooperation. Within the programme over 400 migrant workers returned to their home countries to start their own business. Then he worked for the director general Employment Opportunities at the Ministry of Social Affairs and for other agencies with a responsability for licencing and subsidies, admision and repatroation policies of migrant workers. He has been serving on the board of a variety of organizations in the area of international cooperation.

March 2008: New projects and a change in the board

3 new credist approved by the board

856-ACEA3-Burkina Faso: a credit of € 30.000 on top of two earlier credits that have been mostly repaid by now. The money is used to finance micro-credits to women groups in a number of villages. They buy seed for vegetables, fertilizer, sewing machines or use the money to start a shop or restaurant. ACEA is a Burkinese NGO, closely cooperating with the Dutch SDA Foundation that guarantees the loan.

857-PREED2-India is the second tranche of a credit to this organization that is already part of our network for the past couple of years. This loan has a value of € 25.000. PREED is a small micro finance organization in Tamil Nadu (South of India). Its clientele is formed by women "self help groups" that use the loans to start a trade, grow vegetables, produce charcoal or bricks for home building or buy goats or cows for production of milk.

858-Palapa Plastic-Indonesia This NGO at Medan in Indonesia ia a collective plastic recycling plant with some 60 employees from within the poorest sector of society. Those people used to live from the collection of garbage and actually lived in shacks on the local garbage pile. PPI organized those people into an effective and productive working force of people that earn a steady income since, collecting plastic refuse and regenerating it. The loan of € 50,000 will be used to finance new houses to be built by those same people. The houses will be connected to the sewer system, have access to drinking water and electricity.

The board:

Dr. Ton Cools was elected to the board of Zero-Kap. He has been an advisor since almost a year. In earlier years Dr. Cools was director of a number of psychiatric hospitals and country coordinator for PUM where he supervised and coordinated the Indonesian projects.

Dr Emiel Wegelin was on the Zero-Kap board since 2003. He resigned following his move to Manilla, where he works for an international organization on urbanization programmes throughout Asia. He will continue as an advisor to Zero-Kap.

Mrs. Edith Gommers, a graduate from Amsterdam University in health sciences was on the Zero-Kap board since 2004. The coming years she will manage a hospital on Aruba (Dutch Caribians). Also she will continue as an advisor to Zero-Kap.

February 2008: New Newsletter

This newsletter focuses on credits to women and our monitor Addie Koster who does supervise 3 of our projects in India as that is her second home. The newsletter is in Dutch, but if you read some Dutch, just click here.

October 2007: new website

The new website is on line thanks to the creative help and sponsoring by Betuwe Promedia Creation and the hosting organization ON24.

The fall newsletter is out and if you read Dutch click here.

September 2007: New Project

855-Haven Hills- South Africa A credit of € 50.000 was awarded to this organization that builds homes and develops apparment complexes for the urban poor near Johannesburg. The unique feature of this organization is that it is evidently able to create proper living conditions for all tenants: blacks, coloured and whites. While not an issue in most countries of the world, this definitely is rather unique in and a sign of hope for South Africa.

July 2007

Our annual report (In Dutch) 2006 has been published. You may download it from this website (go to Publications) and you may request a paper version through the contact button. For the paper version you will be charged € 15,00 to cover costs.

May2007

Two companies offered support to Zero-Kaps Communications policy. These are Betuwe Promedia Creation at Buren en Stratcom Communication Consultants at Zeist.