How is… Tim Hofman | Issue Award winner 2019: “Winning the Issue Award definitely gave us a boost.”
Two years ago, presenter and program maker Tim Hofman received the Issue Award 2019 for his initiative of a petition for a broader Children's Pardon after his #BOOS documentary 'Back to your own country'. He tells us what winning this award meant to him and what issues concern him at the moment.
What happened to your initiative to petition for a broader child pardon after winning the Issue Award?
“We ultimately collected 250,000 signatures with the petition. Partly due to this political pressure, 730 children and their families were ultimately allowed to stay in the Netherlands, including the main character of the #BOOS documentary: Nemr. After this success, we worked with #BOOS to help an Amsterdam boy who had to leave the country. We have set up an online statement of support for him. In addition, together with the team with which we filed the petition for a broader child pardon, we lobbied behind the scenes for this boy and paid legal fees. Things turned out fine for him in the end.
How did you feel about winning the Issue Award? What did that mean to you?
“We have already won prizes with #BOOS and although this is always nice, this prize represented something completely different from previous prizes we received. The Issue Award is much more about putting the political agenda on the agenda and the social impact we had with it. During the period of the award ceremony, we were at a tipping point with #BOOS. While we used to be a real consumer programme, we noticed, through the success of 'Back to your own country', that we could also make a difference on a political and social level. The fact that we received the Issue Award at that moment definitely gave us a boost, it was confirmation that we were on the right track.”
What new initiatives are you currently working on?
“I am currently focusing a lot on Article 6 and Article 23. We emerged here a number of years ago with #BOOS, and I am now also committed to this in my private life. This file is about elevating the rights of people who are religious. The corona crisis has brought this issue to light. For example, churches do not have to adhere to some rules when it comes to corona. Minister Slob's statements about the disapproval of homosexuality within reformed schools also fit within this theme. In response to these statements, I set up an email campaign, encouraging people to send him an email. Shortly afterwards, the press discussed how he reconsidered his position due to pressure from colleagues and a full mailbox. So those kinds of actions do help.
I am also committed to coalition Y. Just after the children's pardon, I set this up together with Gert-Jan Segers. In 2019, we wrote a manifesto in collaboration with a number of youth organizations, where our focus was, among other things, on the design of the loan system. Coalition Y has now become a kind of campaign apparatus, to which a number of think tanks are also affiliated. You can actually see it as a link between different groups – young people, millennials and politicians. With coalition Y we want to keep the distance between these groups as small as possible.”
Do you have any tips for successful issue agenda-setting? How do you make an impact?
“I sometimes give lectures about that and I could talk about it for an hour and a half haha! An important tip is that you should not keep it too general. For example, when you talk about the climate, take a small part of this. Be specific and provide examples. The more you funnel the issue, the clearer you are. This way more people can join in.
In addition, it is important to ensure that people know that it is about them. Often things that feel far from your bed are not so far from your bed in reality. By making it clear that people are indeed involved, there is a greater chance that they will also join your initiative.”
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