Dream enormous, achieve huge

If your dreams don’t scare you, you’re not dreaming the right dreams
If you’re the smartest person in the room, enlighten the rest of the room
If you’re in the minority in a room, you represent the majority not in the room

I live by these ‘ifs’

I was born in Suriname (formerly colonized by the Dutch in South America), but through my Caribbean work I ended up on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, also colonized by the Dutch.

Here I spent my previous life working for newspapers and magazines in the Caribbean and internationally, reporting on crime, tourism and social matters in the region.

These days my focus lies on education, as I firmly believe that education is our most important tool in all efforts to leave this world as a better place than we found it.

We have this place on loan from our children, so while I revere the ancestors, I always keep in mind that I will once be an ancestor too … do I do enough now for my descendants to revere me too?

A LIFE IN SERVICE

I have worked in service for more than 30 years; be it in service of journalism providing news and thought provoking insights to communities, or in service of companies and organizations for whom I provided communications consultancy services or in service of the community as I ran educational support activities and other social programs.

I was born in the disadvantaged neighborhood of Ramgoelam in Suriname. Growing up with close to nothing made me understand and loath from early on the systems that have kept neighborhoods like this disadvantaged.

I believed from the get-go that journalism was not just a mechanism for news; my goal, thus, has always been to bring the story behind the news.

I focused on matters of development, reporting on other disadvantaged communities in Suriname; I won awards with articles I wrote about endeavors to prevent mass tourism from taking over in the Caribbean islands and with articles that looked at how immigration tactics were creating a generation of undereducated migrant children; I started a media platform (DevSur) to write the untold stories of Suriname in English which would bring them to an international audience. Then I moved to the Netherlands.

AFRO Magazine

I launched a media platform AFRO Magazine (.nl and .eu) that solely focused on telling the underreported stories and opinions of Black communities in the Netherlands and Europe. It includes the largest directory of Black Owned Businesses in the Netherlands. AFRO Magazine remains the only one of its kind

WEEKEND COLLEGE

For the past ten years I have managed Weekend College and StudieMAX, educational support activities at MBO College ROCvA Zuidoost. I have taught diversity and I am a frequent speaker on inclusion in education and journalism. I have written countless opinion pieces about these matters as well, in a fullhearted bid to share my views and influence people.

BIGI BON

In 2020 I launched foundation Bigi Bon, which means Big Tree in English, in honor of the ancestors; they watch over us all, just like every Big Tree provides shade, food, protection and housing to beings it towers over and just like the current generation should provide protection and care and guidance to the next. That is the Bigi Bon mission

BROOS INSTITUTE

In 2021 I launched The Broos Institute, named after my great-great-great-great grandfather, the slavery resistance fighter Broos, who led a group of rebels in mid-1800’s Suriname in fights against the colonizers. In 1862 the then Governor of Suriname invited him for peace-talks, where he was granted the land where his camp stood. It was then that a historic picture was taken of him, which is the only known photograph of slavery resistance fighter from Suriname; in 2021 I travelled to Ghana where I mounted this picture in a museum … Ghana, because his grandmother had been born there.

Broos Institute aims to establish Decolonized Educational Institutes in Europe; from secondary schools to university-level.
We are aligned with an international university based in Jamaica and this year we will start a series of masterclasses on topics that concern the Black community. People who work with people of African descent can only do their jobs better if they are also taught who people of African descent are, how they look at things. What is our psyche, what makes us tick?
To facilitate this we will soon launch Broos Campus, a virtual campus that will be the first Afrocentric Academic institute in Europe.

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IN DE PERS

Welternaehrung

I was approached to write an article for the online journal Welternaehrung in Germany, that dealt with migration and I slipped in some of my views on how Governments should take responsibility.
And I took advantage of the opportunity to express how proud I still am with Amsterdam Zuidoost where adults banned together so the -mostly migrant- young people from the neighborhood, did not participate in violent and ignorant conspiracy driven anti-COVID-measure riots that shook the Netherlands a few weeks ago.
The Germans then translated my views to German.

Ich bin stolz darauf, dass ich dazu aufgefordert wurde

Voice of African Migrants

Two weeks ago I spoke briefly at a GFMD webinar on migration and racism. I spoke about my work with AFRO Magazine and Weekend College. Next thing you know, a journalist in Nigeria tells me he wants to interview me for the Voice of African Migrants. Honored to be featured by them.

“How did the developed world become the developed world?”

OneWORLD

Op 1 juli vieren we dat de kolonisator zich bewust werd van de menselijkheid van zwarte mensen, stelt Marvin Hokstam. “Ik heb niks met Keti Koti.”

OneWORLD

Het maakt niet uit of Ron Jans een ‘goeie vent’ is, zijn gedrag moet worden veroordeeld, schrijft Marvin Hokstam. ‘Het is best mogelijk om stil te worden tijdens je bezoek aan Robbeneiland én een blinde vlek te hebben voor racistisch taalgebruik.’

NUJ

Marvin comments in the upcoming issue of the union’s magazine:

“This is about journalists being aware that the way they approach a subject is how it is perceived by their communities. The fact that there is still debate about this in 2019 is concerning, especially when journalists and newspapers appear to take sides in favour of those supporting black Piet.

NLTimes

The motion passed by the British journalists’ union originated from the NUJ Black Members Council, on the initiative of Marivn Hokstam, Founder and Managing Editor of the Dutch publication Afro Magazine. Hokstam is a member of the Dutch branch of the NUJ.

Zwarte Piet is Racisme.nl

Journalisten die verslag doen van het zwarte Pietendebat dienen zich te houden aan de journalistieke regel dat “van journalisten geen materiaal dient te komen dat discriminatie op basis van ras en kleur bevordert”. Dit staat in een motie die vandaag werd aangenomen door de National Executive Council (NEC) van de Britse Unie van Journalisten NUJ in London. De motie was aangezwengeld door Marvin Hokstam, uitgever van AFRO Magazine, in reactie op wat hij onethische verslaggeving over de zwarte piet demonstranten door Nederlandse journalisten noemde.

Guava

Marvin Speaks – A conversation with Marvin Hokstam

ParBode

Marvin Hokstam, opgegroeid “in een klein dorp in Suriname, op de rand van het oerwoud”, zoals hij het zelf lyrisch uitdrukt, is journalist, schrijver, publicist en communicatieconsultant. Hij begon als student journalistiek aan de AHKCO in Suriname, en behaalde in Engeland een postgraduate degree in mediastudies. Tegenwoordig is hij in Nederland actief als schrijver en uitgever van het online platform AFRO Magazine, en als projectleider van het onderwijsondersteuningsproject Weekend College van Amsterdam-Zuidoost.

721-News election to NUJ/BMC

Former The Daily Herald journalist Marvin Hokstam has been elected to the Black Members Council of the British National Union of Journalists. After he shared news of this on his Facebook page last week, we asked him about it.

Interview door Socialisme.nu

Marvin Hokstam is redacteur van het Afro Magazine. Al vijfentwintig jaar is hij een journalist die schrijft over onderwerpen die de internationale Afrogemeenschap aangaan. Hij sprak met Mark Kilian over de nasleep van de Caribische orkanen, koloniaal racisme en climate justice.

Opiniestuk in Parool

Een museum over zwarte geschiedenis moet geschiedenis, emoties en nuances vertellen vanuit een zwart perspectief, schrijft Marvin Hokstam.

Dream enormous, achieve huge

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