 So welcome. Good morning. My name is Jeryon Mentink, 23 years old, living in a home for elderly people in the Netherlands. 23 years old, so I'm pretty young, so hands off who's older than 23. So this would be walking the park for me then. It's the same back home. No, I'm just kidding. I want to start off with a fact. Did you know that the Dutch English accent is one of the most understandable English accents in the world? So if I'm tending to speak more Dutch than English during this presentation, it doesn't really matter because everyone is still able to understand me. Great excuse, isn't it? It is. You also have something which we call a bad excuse. I think everyone in the room knows what these kind of excuses are. I think especially all the men knows these excuses because when your girlfriend asks who is she, you have to come up with something very quickly to just get the right answer because oh gosh. Speaking of my girlfriend, she's also here and that's because when I told her that I was speaking in Brighton or was invited to speak in Brighton, she immediately said, well, we should make it our holiday and that's really great. So that's what we are doing actually today or actually this week. But that's not even a bad excuse nor a great excuse. That's just smelling opportunity. But what has this to do with my talk? Well, I would like to ask you to remember the difference between a bad excuse, a great excuse and opportunity, but also what it means to you and how you could possibly change it for yourself. And in the meantime, I will tell you my story and how I did it because my story also starts with an opportunity. Four years ago, as a 19-year-old boy, I was looking for a place to stay or searching for a place and I was searching, like after a very long time, I was searching on the internet, looking at websites which weren't up to date, where I had to pay only to see myself being placed at the back of some very long queue to eventually get a room or something like that. Until I came across this great deal and the deal made me able to live at a wonderful place called Manitas. Yes, this is Manitas. The deal was actually pretty simple. I have to do 30 hours a month volunteer work and in exchange I can live there for free. So this is my room. But what does it really mean to be a student in the midst of elderly people and what do you do exactly? Well, in general, it means being a good neighbor, the will to help, to pay attention in an honest way, but also sharing your youthfulness with elderly people because they tend to get lonely sometimes. That could be also very bad. So that's really nice. We also serve coffee once in a while, which doesn't have to be considered as work as long as you make it fun. The same goes for the rest of our activities. We as students live in Manitas. We invite our elderly to our parties. We're also going to the zoo with this elderly woman and her daughter. But also serving bread meal, doing the bread meal. Everyone is welcome to join and everyone is welcome to share their stories, including me, of course. But what is wrong with this picture? What do you see here? I've served them food and drinks. I've dressed the table. I literally took care of them. Actually, you could say I'm the perfect son-in-law. But here's the thing. At the moment, actually, I was watching them from above instead of joining them. So in my opinion, you could compare it to today's society where we all think we are very social but taking care of our elderly. But what we are actually saying instead is, thank you for everything. Here's your money and here's your care. So we don't know exactly what they need. And more importantly, we don't know exactly what they still want to contribute to today's society. And that's really a shame, I guess. I also tend to forget something, but this over here. Back home, it wouldn't be a problem because everyone does it. So as a result, I began to join them and I tried to see the faces behind the old facade. So what I got in return was the greatest amount of experience, stories and also a big interest in me. Superficial thoughts of one another just vanished only because having a good conversation with each other. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the same way to reduce that personal odor. The experience, the friendship itself, which took a long time, was great. But it doesn't mean that our activities were just as slow. You probably think Max Verstappen, like the Formula One driver of the Netherlands, is the fastest one we have. Watch this. That nearly went wrong. It did went wrong one time. But it's fun. She showed me actually how to live your life to the fullest. She also, yes, she was very important to me. And what I thought about is that she didn't have that many bad excuses despite her age. And she also, I remember the time when I brought her a small bottle of Greek liquor from Crete. She immediately saw an opportunity to have a great time. So as a result, she drank the whole bottle. But you could have a big argument about who's responsible, is it the organization, is it me, is it she? And in my opinion, of course, it is she and I believe it is actually. I think that's also a good thing. I think despite her age, she was really a responsible woman, even besides her hangover. And she didn't drink and drive either. So that's really what goes. I'm actually talking about her in the past. And that's also because she recently passed away. And that's also what's happening. During my life or during my stay in your mind, over 60 people passed away. That's one third of all the people in the mind of us. So there was a big relation. What I try to say is that the importance of it or what I've learned from these elderly people is that because of their age, because of their mental and also psychological pain, which comes in the same way, but also reaching their life's fulfillment, it's a good thing. And I've learned from them that death could be a satisfying tool to enter a wonderful life. And besides mourning, what I do now is also joke about it because it helps me keeping their memories alive. And also because all the other elderly people who are still alive, you don't help them with mourning. You have to help them with staying alive and not thinking about that cue because they're also always thinking about that cue when I'm next. So that's not really, yeah. So that's actually what we want to help. Yes, by mutual interest, my neighbors and I began to see each other as equals. We do not take care of each other because of some organization or society tells us so. But because we generally, because we plain and simple want to help each other. During the first year living at the Mainters, I tried to help them by making them go faster in this high-speed society. Instead I felt that they grew under my skin by letting me go slower. Often I can be very busy and I tend to forget everything. And as a result, I just lose perspective. Therefore, it's a good thing. This is how we could be equal and also a good thing. How it could have like a neighbor like Harry. He often invites me for a chat, which helps me down, slowing down. Is this a good thing? I believe it is. Because he also helps me joining perspectives with his experience and with my experience. So eventually my perspective is becoming much wider. This is very helpful for me. It has been very helpful for me, but it also has been sometimes really a bit of pain in the ass because. Although I think urban design is a very, very interesting study and I still want to do something about it. It did not really give me the satisfaction as being in a community or being part of the elderly healthcare system. And I think eventually it just turned me 180 degrees back around. So after a year of making difficult choices about what I'm going to do. Am I going to do urban design or am I going to do something else? I changed my mind. I started the new study, business management, and I'm working very hard now to get the skills, knowledge and experience to eventually improve the elderly healthcare system after all. And this is actually the way how I changed or how I improved my great excuse, which I often used for not always being the best urban design student. It's an opportunity. Watch yours. Thank you.