 WASHINGTON, D.C., 12 May 2006 | Recently Knighted Dutch Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Drs. Jacob Gelt Dekker and his business partner Drs. John Padget (also previously Knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands) have been presented with The Netherlands-America Foundation's 2006 Ambassador K. Terry Dornbush Award.
Named for and endowed by the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands from 1994 to 1998, the award was created in 2003 to honor individuals whose marked contributions in the fields of philanthropy, education or culture in the Netherlands or the United States have served to strengthen relations between the two countries.
Founded in 1921, the NAF is the leading bilateral foundation initiating and supporting high-impact exchange between the Netherlands and the United States, including the NAF/Fulbright Fellowships and programs in the arts, business, public policy and historic preservation. NAF activities provide donors and recipients with access to a broad network of educational, cultural and business organizations that exemplify Dutch and U.S. excellence in a number of disciplines.
The 2006 NAF AWARDS DINNER was held on Friday, May 12, 2006 in the Hall of the Americas of the Organization of American States building on 17th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.. The Hon. Peter Hoekstra, U.S. Congressman and Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, received the Wilkins Award.
The Hon. Pat Roberts (R-KS), U.S. Senator and Chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, was the keynote speaker. The black tie event was held at the Organization of American States building on 17th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.
The citation reads as follows: "Presented by Amb. K. Terry Dornbush
John Padget and Jacob Dekker helped to define the field of venture philanthropy. Both inserted their enthusiasms, energy, and leadership---in addition to financial support---for diverse causes such as educational programs, job creation, public housing, historic preservation, humanitarian relief, and cultural policy research.
Jointly, Jacob and John, through the Jade Foundation, financed the urban reclamation project in Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles. Stimulating additional widespread urban renewal in the capital city Willemstad, the reconstructed Dutch and Spanish colonial buildings are the showcases for Willemstad--UNESCO world heritage city, and the Museum & Hotel Kura Hulanda.
JACOB GELT DEKKER. Jacob designed and created the museum and hotel, restoring all the 18th- and 19-th century buildings in an 8-block drug- and crime-infested city slum, called Otrabanda, the "other side" of Willemstad. He continued with the Kura Hulanda Lodge and Beach Club--together with a nature preserve--built on the ruins of a 1600-acre plantation and abandoned Free Slave lots at Westpoint. Conde Naste Traveler recently ranked the Kura Hulanda complex as number four of all Caribbean resorts.
Museum Kura Hulanda, erected at an historic slave-wharf, memorializes and documents the horrors of indentured labor and slavery as an accepted economic reality together with the consequent trans-Atlantic slave trade that lasted over 200 years until the late 19th century. Countless items document the slavery and the trade, the Civil Rights Movement and the Harlem Renaissance.
The museum houses Jacob's collection of over 1500 pieces of antiquity beginning with Mesopotamian clay tablets, Amlash artifacts, Luristan bronzes, and Roman glass. West African, Sub-Saharan artifacts from 2000 years of Niger river kingdoms, Tellem and Dogon cultures, and Benin bronzes highlight the rich cultural heritage of African migrants in the Americas.
Born in 1948 in Oterleek, the Netherlands, Dekker trained to become a dentist and obtained degrees in dentistry and philosophy from the University of Amsterdam, and later his MBA degrees from the University of Rotterdam and the University of Rochester. During the 1980's, he became a Partner in Padget Associates B.V., focusing more on business activities, and his hobbies—archeology and reader of history.
In 2001, Dekker opened the Jacob Gelt Dekker Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies in Curacao, a cooperative program welcoming graduate students from 16 universities in North and South America, Europe, and Africa to study amidst the 60 nationalities residing in Curacao.
Dekker's board services include Anne Frank Center U.S.A.; the U. S. National Slavery Museum, an initiative of Governor Doug Wilder and Dr. Bill Cosby; TREUB, one of Netherlands' eldest foundations for scientific research in the tropics; MOWIC, Monuments West Indish Company; Curacao Sail; Curacao Welcomes Pensionados; and EARTH, a cutting-edge Antineutrino Geonuclear physics research project of the core of the earth.
Two years ago Jacob was named Chair of Amsterdam-based ChildRight International, succeeding Nobel laureate Jan Tinbergen as president of the charity launched by the Nobel-prize winners to fight present-day child slavery and exploitation.
Although Jacob officially resides in Curacao, he is also a frequent traveler to Florida, New York, and Amsterdam.
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Lions International recognizes outstanding individuals by bestowing on them an award that is named for its founder, Melvin Jones. This Fellowship Award (LCIF) is the highest form of recognition and embodies humanitarian ideas consistent with the nature and purpose of Lionism. The recipient of this award becomes a model because of the exemplary service to his club and the community for which it serves.
