[Music]
[Soft piano music]
>>Like most of us,
I’m afraid of getting old
and of the loneliness
that seems to come with old age.
But maybe things don’t have to be that way.
Jordi is a young artist.
>>Hello. Come in.
>>And he lives in a unique old folk’s home
in the Netherlands.
He paints and creates craft projects,
like this table he made from a piano crate.
And you do that a lot with the residents;
you make crafts and things.
>>Yeah. I try to do it.
>>And is that a picture of your family?
Can you show me?
>>My grandfather and my grandma
when I was younger.
>>It’s adorable.
>>Yeah. I love them.
I love them a lot.
>>Is it . . .
Is the relationship with your grandparents
that helps you be so good with the elderly here?
>>I think also because they . . .
they teach me so much good things,
how to go around to people that uh . . .
Yeah. Nah. Everything.
>>Not long ago,
the Dutch senior citizens who live at Humanitas
invited Jordi and five other students
to move in rent-free.
The students all told me that living here
is nothing like you’d expect.
>>One of Jordi’s favorite ways
to spend time with his neighbors
is by taking them around the town of DeVanter
by a specialized tandem bicycle.
It’s just one of the ways that Humanitas
tries to make life in its community
a little more fun.
>>It was CEO’s Gea Sijpkes idea
to offer these students rooms at Humanitas.
And all she asked in return
was that the students spend
at least 30 hours a month
acting neighborly to the senior residents.
Jurrien Mentink says that Humanitas’ offer
couldn’t have come at a better time.
Many Dutch students
in and around Amsterdam today
can’t find a room to rent at all.
>>Now I have to cook dinner.
>>Yes.
>>Jurrien is 22 years old,
and his neighbors, like Joke Van Beek,
are in their 80’s and 90’s.
Despite the age gap,
Jurrien and Joke’s friendship is a dynamic
that often seems like it’s between two teenagers.
>>Friendships like this one
are exactly what Humanitas is trying to nurture.
How Jurrien spends his 30 hours a month
of service is up to him.
His official title isn’t staff or volunteer.
It’s good neighbor.
>>At Humanitas,
good neighbor somehow means being part local,
part friend,
part grandchild,
part social worker,
part healthcare provider,
and some days it means teaching
an 84-year-old woman to play beer pong.
[Rock music]
>>I noticed early on that the students here
often talk with a sort of calm beyond their years.
They don’t often seem much of a hurry.
Jurrien says that is one of the most
important life lessons
the students have learned
from their elderly neighbors.
The students all talk about Mrs. Hofsteede
as a role model
for living a full and happy life in later years.
She moved in a few years ago.
She lives on the seventh floor
in a spacious room overlooking the park,
and she says she feel younger
than her 88 years.
>>Hello.
>>At lunch time, the most social time,
every day at Humanitas,
Mrs. Hofsteede always sits at the same table.
You see, the Humanitas dining room
is a lot like a high school cafeteria.
Mrs. Hofsteede is quite popular,
and so she always sits
with the other popular girls,
like her best friend Antonia,
whose nickname is “the trash compacter.”
>>Appetite.
>>Yeah?
>>I like that.
>>And like high school,
lunchtime is when the rumor mill
really starts to turn.
Outside of the time they volunteer,
the students are free to live
without any special restrictions,
going out or bringing people home
just as they like.
>>And there’s a lot more flirting
that goes on than I expected to find
in an old folk’s home.
>>The students all like
teaching their senior neighbors a lesson
from time to time.
Everything Mrs. Middelburg knows
about the internet she learned from Jurrien.
>>But Jurrien says that none of this feels
like some community service.
He and Mrs. Middelburg just like hanging out.
>>And how do Jurrien's own family
feel about him living here at Humanitas?
His parents have been as surprised
as he has been to find that Jurrien
seems very happy here indeed.
>>There is, of course,
the unavoidable loneliness
that accompanies dementia.
The dementia ward is equipped
with everything you could expect.
But it has little of the warmth
of the rest of the residents.
Jordi feels an added responsibility
to help those suffering dementia.
>>Lucius is this man’s stage name,
but I was never given another one,
and I never got the chance to ask.
We didn’t get to talk for very long.
Lucius lost the ability to talk much
about the here and now.
>>I saw in Lucius immediately
the kind of kindred spirit,
and it was like a glimpse of a possible future self
set adrift in my own fading memories.
Having exchanged barely a word with him,
meeting Lucius affected me a great deal.
The hardest thing about living here,
old or young,
is how often death comes to call.
Some of the seniors are still racked
with intense longing for lost loved ones.
While many others, like Mrs. Middelburg,
seem almost unfazed by the realities of death.
A few of the students had never seen death
up close before living here.
For them, facing death has been the hardest
and maybe most valuable lesson
that Humanitas has taught them.
Jurrien is about to graduate
from a degree in urban planning,
but he is now considering devoting his career
to old age care instead.
No matter which direction
he chooses from here,
Jurrien won’t forget the importance
of being a good neighbor,
like he has been to Joke Van Beek.
That day he told me
that he had started to see the signs
of Joke slipping away,
and then only a few weeks later,
Joke passed on.
And I know that Jurrien has missed her
since she’s been gone.
It took me a litttle while to grab hold
of what makes this place different
than anywhere else I’ve been.
Humanitas hasn’t somehow
cut out the hard realities of aging.
It’s just that it lets so much more than that
through its front door.
As I went to say goodbye
on the last day of my visit,
I passed by the weekly wheelchair dance recital.
[Clapping and music]
This was the other moment
that really stayed with me.
[Upbeat Dutch music]
Again, I could see myself
reflected back years on from now,
and for that moment,
I really didn’t mind the idea of getting old.
[Upbeat Dutch music]