Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited by Happietaria Rotterdam

The Board of the Rotterdam Happietaria branch made smart use of their contacts to arrange a visit with Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday. The members were able to explain exactly what Happietaria is, as well as offer the Prime Minister a tasty salmon.

“The contact was made by the daughter of Elbert Dijkgraaf, SGP Member of Parliament. She knows several Happietaria Board Members from her student association and Dijkgraaf put in a good word for us. Everything was then arranged quickly”, explained a proud Thamar Kievits from Happietaria.

Tasty salmon

Together with the rest of the Board, he was given a tour of the Ministry of General Affairs. Kievits: “We then went to the Torentje. Mark Rutte was extremely enthusiastic about our project when we spoke to him. He was also impressed with our ‘drive and professional approach’. One of our Board Members works in the fishing on Urk and he brought along a nice, tasty salmon for the Prime Minister.”

Kievits hopes that the visit to the Prime Minister will mainly result in a lot of publicity for Happietaria. “We hope that this will help us become more well-known and that the media will pay more attention to us.” We certainly already succeeded in the latter.

Happietaria was established in 1994. Every year, the restaurant opens for a month, each time in a different location in the city. This year’s location isn’t yet known. Students work voluntarily in the restaurant with the profits going to a good cause. This year’s good cause is the ZOA foundation, which works for clean drinking water in Burundi.