About VoorleesExpress Den Haag

The VoorleesExpress The Hague

The VoorleesExpress is a national project in which volunteers read to children between the ages of two and eight with a language delay at home. This usually arises because they use Dutch as a second language or because their parents do not speak Dutch at all. At the VoorleesExpress, a volunteer visits a family once a week for six months (twenty weeks) to read interactively, play language games and talk together. We also give parents a role in this.
The main purpose of the VoorleesExpress is to stimulate the language development of children. In addition, we offer parents tools to enrich the language environment at home. The volunteers of the VoorleesExpress reduce the language delay of children between two and eight years significantly and early. Children get excited about reading (language) and books. After the VoorleesExpress, parents take responsibility for their child's language development and develop along with them.
In addition to interactive reading, all volunteers who come home to the families are trained to pick up on signals of family needs that lie beneath the surface, for example hidden poverty, neglect, financial problems or health problems. Depending on the signal they receive, we can refer families to, for example, an application to a Social Fund, or a referral to low-threshold assistance in the neighborhood such as the Opvoedingsteunpunt.

VoorleesExpresss The Hague started in 2010 with 11 families in the Centrum district, but we now read citywide to 200 families a year. Our team consists of 3 permanent employees in addition to more than 200 volunteers. Every year we have 4 starting moments, namely in the month of September, November, February and May.