ABN AMRO for the world of tomorrow

Youth Sports & Culture Fund

On 1 May 2024, ABN AMRO became a partner of the Youth Sports & Culture Fund (Jeugdfonds Sport & Cultuur). The fund gives children and young people the opportunity they would otherwise not have and introduce them to sports and culture close to home. In this way we offer equal opportunities for everyone. The Youth Sports & Culture Fund pays their fees and pays for equipment and clothing for children and young people from financially disadvantaged families. This support helps us create equal opportunities for all.

Poverty is a structural and persistent problem in the prosperous Netherlands. According to the CPB, more than 7% of children grew up in poverty in 2023. Children who grow up in poverty feel anxious, dependent and unhappy more often than their peers. Because there is not enough money at home, the children and young people from these families cannot participate in activities that their peers take for granted. This means you fall behind and it is almost impossible to catch up. The effects are often long-lasting and irreversible.

To break that circle, it is essential to give children as many opportunities as possible. These activities help children develop to their full potential physically, mentally and socially. This has an impact on the development and future of the children themselves, but also on their families and ultimately on the whole of society.

Esther Vergeer Foundation

ABN AMRO and the Esther Vergeer Foundation are working together to create a world where all children with mental or physical disabilities have the opportunity to play sports at regular sports clubs, just like any other child. We do this by sponsoring the Esther Vergeer Foundation, and specifically as a partner of the Esther Vergeer Foundation Sport Clinics. The clinics were set up in 2021 and 2022 in every academic children’s hospital in the Netherlands and offer children and their parents a tailored process to find a sport in line with children’s needs. ABN AMRO has also set up a ‘Club van Morgen’ programme in partnership with the Foundation. The programme helps turn tennis clubs into the clubs of the future, open to all wheelchair tennis players and offering appropriate facilities and coaching.

In 2008, we launched the ABN AMRO World Wheelchair Tennis Tournament and combined it with the ABN AMRO Open to raise awareness of wheelchair tennis. This international tournament, of which Esther Vergeer is the director, is unique in that it provides the players wherever possible with the same facilities as those taking part in the regular tournament. In 2023, a women’s wheelchair tennis tournament is being introduced to offer top female athletes the same opportunities.

Only Friends

Everyone should have the opportunity to do sports, which is why we have been a partner of Only Friends right from day one. In 1992, Colinda and Dennis Gebbink, a keen amateur footballer, had a son: Myron. When Myron was two, it became clear that he had a physical disability. Nonetheless, Myron inherited his father’s love for football and wanted to be out on the pitch kicking a ball around as much as possible. But where?

Such a pitch simply did not exist, and so Dennis decided to set this up himself. The result was the Only Friends sports club and its home base and sports facility the Friendship Sports Centre.

In close collaboration with Ajax and our ABN AMRO Foundation, we organise activities for children with a physical or mental disability to help accelerate the switch to a world of equal opportunities in sports together.

Fund for Special Needs Sports

The Fund for Special Needs Sports (Fonds Gehandicaptensport) is committed to opening the doors to sports permanently to everyone with a disability. As a founding partner and the first 1% FairShare partner of the fund, we can accelerate their ambition to make sports for people with special needs accessible to everyone.