Why I'm not going to the opening reception of the Descendancy Center tonight

It sounded sincere and promising when I was approached 1.5 years ago to work out the content of the ancestry center's application for recognition. In retrospect, I think the main reasons why I was recruited by some of the members of the core steering committee at the time was because:

I was the only one who had ever officially been part of Vandeurzen's working group on parentage information and therefore had a lot of information as knowledge > 1 of the recommendations that we put forward as a working group at the time was the establishment of a parentage center

the group of donor children needed to be represented and I have a large following, expertise and built-up credibility

Other members of the then core steering committee were Jacqui Goegebeur, Benoît Vermeerbergen, Miranda Ntirandekura Aerts and Atamhi Cawayu. Foster care was approached to submit the application together with us, as only an organization with a recognition or license within the policy area Welfare, Public Health and Family could compete for the recognition.

In May 2020, we started working diligently, we worked out the project proposal, and Foster Care submitted it. At the end of August 2020, we received the good news from Growing up that our file had scored best based on various criteria and was therefore awarded the recognition.

With full courage and (too?) blind faith I committed myself for another 4 months to fill in the empty box of the descent center and to fill in building blocks so that different target groups could finally count on a solid initiative from the government. Always with the interests of the groups in the foreground, and the bigger picture in mind, I thought I would take the initiative with like-minded people. At the end of December, the sum of a number of incidents made me decide to leave the steering committee.

I'll list a few:

At the start, Foster Care lacked leadership, a clear structure and framework, so we as the steering committee tried to take up and work out things without direction for a while. This caused frustration both within and outside the steering group.

In the end, some agreements were made and tasks were divided. One of those agreements was about compensation. Here it was stated that only demonstrable/detailed tasks could be invoiced, tasks that were assigned to someone in advance and with the approval of Foster Care or the general steering committee. Important detail: the available budget for 2020 was 100,000 (3/300,000).

No one at Foster Care could take on the role of project leader or coordinator, the proposal that a number of members of the steering committee would temporarily take on this was rejected by Foster Care and 1 member (*) of the steering committee. This meant that people still drifted about without direction and that it was not always possible to work efficiently or professionally.

The vacancy for a coordinator was published in October. The members of the steering committee not only worked out some of the application questions, we were also involved in the evaluation of the candidates.

When evaluating Ankie Vandekerckhove's written application, 4 of the 5 steering committee members separately noted that their answers contained matters that were almost literally in our (non-public) application file. That finding was brushed aside by Foster Care: Ankie was elected and appointed from December.

In December we were allowed to invoice for the work delivered for the first time because the government had finally paid the subsidies. When it turned out that 1 (*) of the steering committee members had billed enormously out of proportion and Foster Care as the new coordinator failed to set limits, made me finally take the plunge. I decided to leave the steering group and, by the way, I wasn't the only one.

In January I squeezed one last time for information and network data. Those who know me know that I have no problem sharing things, if it benefits the bigger picture and everyone. Unfortunately, I have had to conclude that there are people who only take to show themselves better at the expense of others. I was also asked if I could still get another donor child from the stable for them so that a new diverse steering group could be deployed to the outside world. I declined that request.

A center that aims to support and help vulnerable target groups and organizations should aim for inclusion, connection and collaboration. Until now, every initiative towards us (Donorkinderen vzw and Donor Detectives) has not come from their side.

The center is now said to be handling 100 cases, of which 10 are donor children and 7 donors (or their relatives). I already know about that specific group that the center:

mistakenly contacted a man with the same name as a sperm donor (infringement of the actual donor's privacy)

having 2 donor children registered in the DNA database unnecessarily as the donor had already indicated at the start that he did not wish to be registered > registration of the donor children (and the associated costs) are meaningless as they can never be matched with him in that DNA database because he simply will never be in it

Tonight there is the official opening reception. I hesitated for a long time about going down, but in the end I decided not to accept the invitation. Reflecting on the past and the lack of concrete actions, it makes no sense at all to have me put in front of an empty box to give the impression that they are doing a good job.

Greetings,

Steph

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