{"id":56101,"date":"2016-04-18T21:42:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T19:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e52.nl\/?p=56101"},"modified":"2016-04-18T21:42:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T19:42:35","slug":"making-the-expats-feel-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/making-the-expats-feel-at-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping the expats feel at home"},"content":{"rendered":"

After moving\u00a0from one country to another, it’s always a question if the new location offers everything you were looking for. The more\u00a0you feel at home, the greater the chance that you’ll stay there. And\u00a0the more you will want to tell the rest of the world about it. That’s exactly what the “Living In<\/em>” plan for the Brainport region is all about: making the\u00a0expats feel at home. And equally important: helping\u00a0their partners and children. Because Eindhoven knows by now:\u00a0if\u00a0the spouse\u00a0is alright, the chances of a long stay in the region are much higher.<\/p>\n

Ed Heerschap is\u00a0coordinator Living In. He operates – obviously\u00a0– from the Expat Center at the Vestdijk in Eindhoven, since this is already the-place-to-visit for international residents in\u00a0the Brainport region. The Expat Center offers help in getting a\u00a0residence permit, a\u00a0Social Security number and all other required information for a pleasant stay. Moreover, the Expat Center is neighbour\u00a0to The Hub, where many social encounters take place.<\/p>\n

Heerschap\u00a0is one of the ten people who were appointed last week in the municipal Acquisition Team, a group of employees to foster contacts between the international business community and the city. Heerschap\u00a0knows what he is talking about: the Dutchman was once himself an expat, in Belgium. “Of course Belgium\u00a0is just around the corner, but still, as a stranger you’ll have to adapt to\u00a0a totally new culture and lifestyle. For my ex-wife, from\u00a0Australia, it was even more difficult. So I can imagine very well what is going on in the minds of the internationals\u00a0in the Brainport region.”<\/p>\n

Heerschap’s special attention goes to\u00a0accompanying spouses. “They are almost always highly educated people who travel with their partners and have\u00a0sacrificed their own careers. Connecting with their new city\u00a0is more difficult for them, because they have the ability and ambition for all kinds of work here, but they do not speak the language and, in addition, they encounter all kinds of restrictive legislation. You can’t imagine how important the work of the Expat Spouses Initiative is in this matter, for example for\u00a0paid or volunteer work.” In addition to this private initiative Heerschap is working on a spouse support program, which is to support employers in the selection of relevant services for spouse support.<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/a>Heerschap feels at home in his role of enabler and connector. “Whenever possible, I help with the implementation of good ideas, but identifying them is also part of my job.” Heerschap for example helps organizing the International Festival at the VDMA on June 12, including the\u00a0I am not a tourist fair<\/em> and the Spouse Career Event<\/em>. “In addition to organizing these events, I make sure that all the initiatives that are already there, such as\u00a0in Meerhoven, at Fontys and TU\/e, are\u00a0linked to the city. For example, the university has a very successful get-in-touch<\/em> program. This can serve as inspiration for the rest of the region.”<\/p>\n

We should not see the expats as a homogeneous group, Heerschap says. “It’s just not so. For example, there’s a group of\u00a0temporary workers who move on after a while, but there’s also a growing group of internationals who have decided to stay in the region and therefore\u00a0can’t be called expats anymore. Also, origin and culture of the internationals is very different from one to another. This requires a specific\u00a0approach for each expat.”<\/p>\n

“You do not want to have an international community, you\u00a0want to be one.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The city really ants to make Heerschap’s job a success, both for the internationals\u00a0and for the city itself. “The better the integration, the better it is for the companies they work for, of course. But the acceptance by the Eindhovenaren<\/em>\u00a0will also be easier when\u00a0the internationals here feel at home. Bottom line: you do not want to have an international community, you\u00a0want to be one”<\/p>\n

In the picture of the entire acquisition team Ed Heerschap is in the\u00a0rear, far righ<\/em>t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After moving\u00a0from one country to another, it’s always a question if the new location offers everything you were looking for. The more\u00a0you feel at home, the greater the chance that you’ll stay there. And\u00a0the more you will want to tell the rest of the world about it. That’s exactly what the “Living In” plan for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":55419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[496,482,6478,3520,2519],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-56101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-culture","tag-economy","tag-ed-heerschap-en","tag-expats-en","tag-tue-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Bart Brouwers","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/brewbart\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Schermafbeelding-2016-04-12-om-20.29.01-1-300x201.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Culture<\/a>","economy<\/a>","Ed heerschap<\/a>","expats<\/a>","TU\/e<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Culture<\/span>","economy<\/span>","Ed heerschap<\/span>","expats<\/span>","TU\/e<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 years ago","modified":"Updated 10 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 18, 2016","modified":"Updated on April 18, 2016"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 18, 2016 9:42 pm","modified":"Updated on April 18, 2016 9:42 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=56101"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=56101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}