The Friday session started with a big thanks from Dolf to everybody for the nice collaboration. Then the participants were asked to present the results of the seminar to the board. First, Karen showed how we went to work during the week using the many flipover notes that had been created. Mukta started with the presentation, called “Frans Seda Foundation 2.0; Bring it to the next level”, by showing the process we went through as a group to come to the conclusion of what the Frans Seda Foundation represents for us, which is “A community of friendship and building on trust”. Subsequently, Patrick took over and showed the board how we think we should move forward with the foundation. He showed that we should work on the exposure via use of social and traditional media and used the newly-created LinkedIn page as an example.
Furthermore, the foundation should also think about new activities, such as symposia on specific subjects and social activities with FSF alumni (i.e. charity work or a gala dinner). He also stressed that it would be important to install a day-to-day executive body, to monitor the progress. Last, but not least, Patrick showed how we should restructure the seminar to get even more out of it. The seminar should, for example, include some introductory lectures on Frans Seda and cultural differences between Indonesia and the Netherlands. In addition, there should also be a social assignment (i.e. visiting a school and let the participants teach the children for a couple of hours) so there is more balance between thinking and doing. Furthermore, there should be one body selecting both Indonesian and Dutch participants and the participants should be well-informed about the topic of the seminar and prepare something beforehand. The topic of the seminar can come from focused group discussion with FSF alumni, which could be held 3-4 times a year.
Then Marjolein showed the mini-movie she made about a Dutch war-veteran telling about his time in Indonesia during 1945-1949. This emotional video showed why we think it is important to put more focus on this subject. Tara and Anindta (‘Nindy’) then presented our Flagship project called “Ayo, our history is alive; decolonizing Dutch and Indonesian history”. They described how, during the week, we came to the conclusion that it is important to tell history with facts and that it should be open to interpretation and debate using the 1945-1949 period as an example. We came up with a plan to organize a traveling festival HI-stories (Holland Indonesia stories) focused on the period 1945-1949 to create more awareness about this period in society. We identified some timeline opportunities in 2016 (such as the Indonesian independence day, the 90th birthday of Frans Seda and the visit of the Dutch prime-minister to Indonesia) that we should focus on. Marjolein already started with this, so we could build on her project.
Mahendra concluded the presentations by mentioning that he thought this would be a great way to move forward with the foundation and asked the board for questions and comments. Mikhael mentions that he really liked the presentation and that for the approval of this project we should stay in the spirit of Frans Seda, i.e. “it should be based on friendship and not on enmity”. Steve was fully behind us and he was almost speechless. He highlights some of the things we proposed, such as the 1 day seminars and help of selection of participants and mentioned that he fully supports our history project. Jaap is very emotional and expresses how happy he is with what we presented. However, he stresses that it is important for us to stay committed after the seminar; “action is the most important”. Dolf agrees with all said before and feels ‘charged’ for the coming years.
Finally, Reza showed the movie he made during the week, which is welcomed with great enthusiasm by the participants and the board. With that, the seminar is concluded.