Vitaal Pendrecht

Vitaal Pendrecht is a residents' initiative that originated in 2003 in response to the many negative reports the media were publishing about the neighbourhood. This reporting reached a low point in the summer of 2003 when the debate erupted in Rotterdam about the dispersal policy of underprivileged migrants. Here, Pendrecht was always cited as an example to make the need for such dispersal clear. Pendrecht had pretty much become Rotterdam's drain and, according to the media, was fast becoming the worst neighbourhood in the Netherlands. Stories of complaining residents and pictures of rundown streets were supposed to give newspaper readers the impression that things were really very bad. The sad murder of Sedar Soares a few months earlier had not done the neighbourhood any good either; the whole of the Netherlands had seen Pendrecht on the news then, which only reinforced the bad image.

Vitaal Pendrecht, which has now become a foundation, also tries to generate positive publicity with the activities it undertakes to adjust the neighbourhood's negative image. The idea for the neighbourhood's two mayors came from Vitaal Pendrecht.