In a spacious apartment in the east of Amsterdam we are welcomed by Luus (74) with coffee and a bog box with toys for our son. Luus is one of the elderly people we meet who do not feel old, or stop living because they have reached the right age for pension. During the week she takes care for her grandchildren, and goes to a choir. Coming sunday they are performing opera in the Muiderkerk.

Luus tells us about her three children, and all the grandchildren she has. Her husband never got to be a grandfather, he died of leukemia before their first grandchild was born. Luus says that her working, being busy, seeing friends, helped her to live on after he passed away. Talking about the new Dutch policy for elderly, being taken care of mainly by their family, she says she can not imagine living in the same house as her children, being intimately part of their families. During her last job she worked in the centre of Amsterdam, doing a project to support elderly in their homes. She is proud of their pioneering work in these days, that has been an inspiration for many other initiatives in Holland.

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Streetart V. Dhaka, Bangladesh

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Streetart IV at demarcation of zone 1 (Dhaka, Bangladesh) Photography by Martijn Crowe