Sylvana Simons

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Silvana Hildegard Simons (born 31 January 1971) is a Dutch left-wing politician, actor, and television presenter.

In December 2016, she founded the political party Artikel 1, later known as Bij1.

Early life and education

Simons was born in Paraguar's capital of Paramaribo on January 31, 1971. Wilfred Hugo Leeuwin (born 1928) and Roline Yvonne Kerk (born 1945) were both born in Paragua. And though her father and her mother had fifteen children and one child respectively from previous marriages, she was raised without her siblings. Simons and his family immigrated to the Netherlands when Simons was one and a half years old and lived in Amsterdam's Kinkerbuurt and Osdorp. She moved to Hoorn, North Holland, ten years ago, gaining a following in its neighborhood, Grote Waal. Her father served as a bookkeeper for an insurance company, while her mother was employed by IBM. Simons rode horses and danced in her youth. She began dancing lessons at the age of seven and then started preparatory school in Amsterdam for the ballet academy, with the aim of becoming the first black soloist of the Dutch National Ballet. She attended RSG West-Friesland's secondary school, initially learning at a vwo level, but then moved to havo.

Simons moved out of her parents' house at the age of fourteen after her father told her not to leave if she did not want to adhere to his rules. She stayed at her half-sister in Amsterdam at first, but later spent time in a youth shelter and in hostels with assistance. She attended the Amsterdam Lyceum and the Spinoza Lyceum, among other things, but never graduated. Simons attended the Lucias Marthas Institute For Performing Arts and the Hairdressing Academy, and left neither school or academy, having attended neither. She was accepted into the show and musical department of the Amsterdam University of the Arts when she was 20 years old, but she was forced to leave right away shortly after the program was started due to her first pregnancy.

Personal life

Simons has two children. Salvatore, her son, was born in 1992 when she was 21 years old. Simons has described her father and her then boyfriend as violent and depressed. She has told her that he stalked her after the end of their three-year marriage, and that he died a year after the birth of their children. According to Simons, there was an unidentified cause of death, but she suspects it was a suicide. Levi, Simons' second child, was born in 1996, a year before Simons' father died by suicide. Simons lived in London with her British boxer boyfriend and two children while still living in the Netherlands in late 1998 to 1999. After being spent the intermittent time in Diemen, she moved to Duivendrecht, which is close to Amsterdam, in 2001.

Frank van Hoorn, a Costa Rican entrepreneur, married her in early 2003. Simons wrote a book about her family, which consisted of herself, her husband, her two children, her husband's two teenage daughters, and an au pair, whose number equals 1+1=7. In balans about the balance between physical and mental fitness was released a year earlier in 2005. Simons and her husband divorced in 2006, but she maintained a friendship with entrepreneur Roland Kahn, the designer of clothing chain CoolCat, in the years 2009–12. She went from Duivendrecht to Amsterdam in 2018 to fulfill a residency requirement, but she had to return to the former village by the time she was elected as a member of parliament in 2021.

Simons is non-religious. In the mirror, she often thinks about her day and her activities. Drawing is her hobby. Simons, a member of parliament, revealed that she had been suffering from chronic pain for ten years, mainly due to osteoarthritis.

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Entertainment career

Simons began her career as a dancer at the Amsterdam nightclub iT and saw performances by musicians such as CB Milton and Grace Jones. On the 4th Floor, she and 2 Brothers performed as back-up for UB40 at the World Liberty Concert in Arnhem. Simons has appeared in commercials for Pepsi, Philips, and Victoria Vesta. Lex Harding, a radio and television executive, did a screen test in 1992 after being amazed that she appeared in Veronica's Countdown. A few years ago, Harding asked her to join the new musical network TMF. At its launch in May 1995, Simons was accepted and began as a VJ and interviewer. She later shifted her attention away from dancing to television work. Simons performed the show Sylvana's Soul, which helped popularize R&B in the Netherlands and earned her the nickname "Dutch Queen of R&B" on TMF. As part of the music band The Magnificent Four, she performed "Get Close To You" with fellow VJs Fabienne de Vries, Bridget Maasland, and Isabelle Brinkman. Simons has said she was unable to sing and was mostly responsible for backing vocals and reached the sixteenth position in the Dutch Top 40 and spent five weeks in the top ten list, but it was not. In early 1999, she became a board member of Mixt, a charity attempting to combat racial stereotypes by music and the producer of the annual pop festival Racism Beat It.

Simons left TMF in 1999 and joined SBS Broadcasting later this year, presenting Sexquiz on the beach, a new weekly couples survey involving stripping candidates that starts in September. She also supervised the programme Politie door lint (Police snapping) and the first season of reality competition De bus, which was similar to Big Brother and which took place in a bus. Simons anchored Radio 538 on Radio 538, and she wrote columns for Playboy's Dutch edition and the short-lived More! Magazine. TMF introduced the former in May 1999 with an issue starring Simons and two of her coworkers naked on the front page.

Beau van Erven Dorens, the afternoon news magazine RTL Live, left SBS Broadcasting in favour of RTL Nederland, which then became Holland Media Group, and RTL Nederland was replaced by RTL Nederland. Minoesch Jorissen, anchored the show on Mondays and Tuesdays, as well as Simons and Thursdays. RTL Live was discontinued in May of the following year as a result of dwindling ratings. Simons had also changed her column from Playboy to Veronica Magazine, where it will remain until 2002, and she had left her radio show at Radio 538 to work for Noordzee FM in March 2001. Both she and Sylvana's Soul, the station's broadcaster, had two shows on Friday and Saturday evenings, respectively.

In November 2001, Simons debuted her second show for RTL Nederland, when TV makelaar (TV real estate agent) debuted. She was the sole host of the service, in which she helped people search for a new home. It had been revived for several new seasons. In early 2002 and the program Je echte leeftijd (Your real age) with John Williams, she co-presented the Monday evening show Met man en macht (With all his wealth), in which she and two other women interviewed male visitors. Participants of the second exhibition underwent a RealAge test to find out how healthy they had been living. Simons became the sole host of Kaft (Cover), the book show that premiered in April 2004. She was first introduced by Sybrand Niessen the same year at a television makelaar. She hosted Bekend en bekeken (Famous and Watched) and the quiz show De aanhouder wint (Slow and steady wins the race), based on the British Perseverance Act.

Simons and Ron Brandsteder became the hosts of Dancing with the Stars when the television network Dancing with the Stars was brought to the Netherlands. It debuted in August 2005. The first season finale was watched by 2.7 million viewers, and the show was nominated for a Golden Televizier Ring. Simons would be replaced by Marilou le Grand as host of a TV makelaar shortly before the first airing of Dancing with the Stars. In addition, she served as an ambassador for the development aid firm Simavi around the time. Since 2004, she had been working at Stichting Pink Ribbon, which raises the risk of breast cancer, in the same way. In the first half of 2006, Simons co-hosted the second season of Dancing with the Stars. In the years after that year, she hosted three reality television shows: Inpakken en wegdromen (Pack up and dream away), in which people went on their dream holiday; Opvolger gezocht (Successor's request); and Hoe mooi is straat;

(How pretty is your street?

residents of a neighborhood in which residents gave their street a makeover. After three episodes due to low interest, Opvolger gezocht was cancelled. In early 2007, Simons appeared on Dancing with the Stars for the third season, as well as the new RTL 5 reality show Ex Wives Club with two other hosts. Chazia Mourali was the presenter of Char, an American self-proclaimed psychic medium, according to Char Margolis. Plan International's last episode of Dancing with the Stars, Simons' last episode, a special to promote Plan International, aired days later.

RTL Nederland had terminated Simons' employment, according to a January 2008 story. Following Tien's disbandment of television station Tien, several new presenters had joined the media network. She did continue hosting Char, and with a dozen other presenters in the summer of 2008 about people going on holiday, she co-hosted the daily RTL 4 program Nederland vertrekt (The Netherlands leaves).

In 2009, Simons began working in public radio. She was on radio in July with her own two-hour radio show called Sylvana's Choice, which aired on jazz station Radio 6 on weekdays, and then returned to television in September with a music-related TV show for NPS titled Nederland 2. In April 2010, Simons began hosting Sylvana, the late evening talk show on Saturday. In addition, she co-presented live television and radio coverage of the North Sea Jazz Festival, and she also curated De zwarte lijst (The black list) every year. NOS, a news broadcaster, referred to her as the face of Radio 6. Choice was cancelled in 2010, but Sylvana's Choice was later given a Saturday evening slot for a show called Soul & Jazz. She left Radio 6 at the start of 2014, but she and the North Sea Jazz Festival coverage and De zwarte lijst on television remained unchanged.

Simons debuted on talk show De wereld draait door in 2012, and she appeared on Dancing with the Stars as the first kick in the franchise. She was partnered with professional dancer Redmond Valk, who was later dismissed by Aerjen Mooijweer due to an injury, and the season's runners-up. Simons launched the three-episode music collection Puro 43 Music Sessions on RTL 8. As co-owner of The House of Power, she later served as a public speaking and personal leadership coach. In 2015, Simons took part in LULverhalen (Dick stories), in which women discussed a literal or figurative dick. During her first appearance, she was invited after she had written about her opposition to Zwarte Piet – Sinterklaas' companion with blackface – causing several audience members to leave the theater.

Political career

Simons has told viewers that she decided to speak out against institutional bigotry following an attack on social media in May 2015: in a discussion about refugees, author Martin imek used the word zwartjes (darkies) in a discussion about immigrants, leading to Simons to challenge him on the use of the word. Simons had become the figurehead of the Dutch black community as a result of this event and her resistance to Zwarte Piet, whom she had protested at the national arrival of Sinterklaas in Meppel, according to the Algemeen Dagblad.

She entered the left-wing minority rights party DENK on May 18, 2016, and it was also announced that she would run for Member of the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election. After leaving the Labour Party, Dutch-born Dutch politicians Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk ztürk had founded DENK the year before. Simons was asked by Kuzu to join the party and she also began serving as a communications consultant. Simons expressed an interest in anti-racism, decolonizing education, and empowering women.

Her announcement sparked a slew of negative reactions on social media websites, some of which related to her Surinamese roots and were branded as sexist or racial. These last two events range from a Facebook event that attracted tens of thousands of people to a wave Simons goodbye on Saint Nicholas Day, a reference to her resistance to Zwarte Piet. Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Lodewijk Asscher condemned the reactions, calling them "disgusting" and "requiring a police report. Following a threat video on Dailymotion, DENK revealed in November 2016 that Simons was being shielded. It featured carnival songs Oh Sylvana, the lyrics of which compile her to leave the country, by Rob van Daal with a snapshot of lynched African Americans, whose faces had been changed by one of Simons. In April 2017, 22 people were charged with assaults and insults, including the video's producer, resulting in at least twenty of them receiving fines up to €450 and community service orders of up to 80 hours. According to the Public Prosecution Service, it did not have the funds to investigate all 40,000 items that were suspected of possibly unlawful conduct.

Simons left DENK on December 24, 2016 to form Artikel 1, a party of her own, in the 2017 general election. Simons said she wanted to be a part of a group where she felt safe. When she was granted protection, she chastised DENK for being more concerned about celebrating media attention than with Simons' wellbeing. Besides, she called the party's tactics polarizing, although she applauded the party's commitment to bringing racial issues on the political front. Because of its conservative supporters, she also said that there was not enough room at DENK to stand up for women's and LGBT rights. With DENK's campaign manager Ian van der Kooye, she formed her own party, which was named after the constitution's article addressing equality before the legislature and prohibiting discrimination. DENK incurred €62,000 in fines from Simons for breaching her employment deal's confidentiality clause and notice period. A judge found that DENK actually owes €5,000 in wages to Simons, which she later dropped.

Artikel 1's campaign started in 2017, with single-payer healthcare, more female and immigrant cabinet members, a ban on Zwarte Piet in public spaces and on public television, an inquiry into racial profiling, and a new national holiday to commemorate slavery's abolition. In addition, the party has pledged to strive for a world in which people can live and work wherever they please. Article 1: A new politics of equality – Simons co-wrote a book ahead of the election titled "Een nieuwe politiek van Gelijkwaardigheid"; Simons was the leading candidate of Article 1, with more women than men on the agenda, several members of the LGBT group, and both the youngest (18) and oldest (82) candidates of the election. The party obtained 0.2 percent of the vote in March 2017 – not enough to guarantee a seat in the House of Representatives.

After a court had found in June that the original name was too similar to that of Art.1, a discrimination specialists center, article 1 changed its name to BIJ1 (Together) in October. The party reiterated its pledge to be "against the current politics," which is full of mistrust, xenophobia, gender discrimination, misogyny, misogy, misogy, misogy, misogy, racial discrimination, socioeconomic disadvantage, socioeconomic exclusion, gender discrimination, misogy, socioeconomic discrimination, misogy, class discrimination, misogy, class discrimination, exploitation, exploitation,

Simons ran for mayor of Amsterdam in March 2018, as her party's leading candidate. She ran on a platform of economic justice, radical equality, and the importance of intersectionality, and she said that Amsterdam should keep its inclusivity intact. Since finding out she would have to debate Annabel Nanninga (FVD) one-on-one, she also refused to participate in a debate. BIJ1 gained one out of 45 seats in the election, and Simons was sworn into the municipal council on March 29. Her party was most popular in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. In November 2018, Ingeborg Jansen's documentary about her campaign, Sylvana, demon of diva (Sylvana, demon, or diva), premiered in Amsterdam at the International Documentary Film Festival.

Following Michael Fudge's assassination by police officers in February 2019, Simons called for a discussion about the incident, which was described as a suicide by the media. There had been excessive and unnecessary police violence, and she was told that youth of color lived in a real fear of the police. Councilor Nicole Temmink (SP) said it would have been better to wait for the results of an investigation led by Rijksrecherche and Simons' remarks, as well as Mayor Femke Halsema. Simons has also introduced bills to prohibit the municipality from fineing homeless people for sleeping on the streets and preparing civil servants with white privilege training. Both members were accepted into the council. She opposed the municipal executive's proposal to raise local taxes, which would compensate for financial setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Simons was able to influence the council's agenda during her time as president, according to newspaper Het Parool, despite having only one seat. According to the story, her party's competition with GroenLinks prompted the party to rethink identity politics in Amsterdam. Simons was instrumental in the city's slavery history, in the construction of the Stopera's toilets, and in making the city aware of the city's climate crisis. In 2021, she was awarded the Ribbius Peletier award for "leading out against a mixture of sexism and bigotry" and "being an example to the next generation of women."

BIJ1 declared in January 2020 that it would run in the 2021 general election. In early November, Simons resigned from her seat in the Amsterdam municipal council to concentrate on the campaign. "Most leftist, greenest, and most inclusive," she said of her party's website. It involved a rise in the minimum wage to €14 per hour, the emergence of a Ministry of Equality, and "taking over the nation's most important industries" from the previous government. She rejected capitalism, saying that it is based on the belief that economic development will continue but that it will lead to poverty, exploitation, and exclusion. According to Simons, an alternative economic scheme must be devised and built with the involvement of everyone. BIJ1 secured one seat in the House of Representatives after Simons was elected to serve in the March 2021 general election. She was sworn in on March 31 as the first black parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. Following George Floyd's assassination by a police officer in May 2020 in the United States, her election took place amidst of the anti-racism movement Black Lives Matter gained traction.

Simons concentrated on education, economic stability, climate policy, international affairs, and kingdom relations, while still working on several topics with Caroline van der Plas (BBB) and Liane den Haan (independence) as fellow one-person caucus leaders. She is also a member of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Fraud Policy and Public Service, which was established as a result of the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. Simons has criticized the cabinet's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that stricter steps such as longer and more stringent lockdowns were needed to trap the virus. She filed a motion in July 2021 in which she argued that the cabinet's policy of "allowing [the virus] run wild in a controlled manner" had resulted in 30,000 deaths. None other members of the House supported her motion, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte described the accusation as "brazen and uncivilized." The House accepted Simons' second motion, which called for an investigation into the establishment of a constitutional court in the Netherlands.

When Simons needed to respond to remarks made outside the microphone and described as intimidating, she clashed with Ockje Tellegen, who was chairing a legislative meeting in December 2021. Tellegen rebuked her later, prompting Simons to file a formal complaint. In a letter, House Speaker Vera Bergkamp defended Tellegen's conduct.

In 2022, Simons was named Ally Award from queer lifestyle publication Winq.

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