Stichting Veteranen Search Team (VST)

The Veterans Search Team Foundation (VST) aims to provide added value to government services in cases of missing persons or when collecting evidence in criminal investigations. The organization combines the strength and expertise of veterans and other uniformed service personnel.

Approximately 90% of the foundation’s members are active or former military veterans, while the remaining members come from other uniformed services.

Information from 2023: 

We are pleased to refer to a news article (in Dutch) that appeared in several online publications.

Informatie from 2022: 

During the Dutch TV program Op1 (June 2022), it was mentioned that an alert to 2,300 volunteers was issued through MultiBel during a missing person search.

Informatie from 2020: 

Before using MultiBel, volunteers were contacted solely via SMS messages, which led to high costs and no clear overview of who would or would not respond to a callout.

With MultiBel, over 1,600 people can now be alerted easily. The system provides real-time insight into who registers to support each search. The use of MultiBel is aimed at increasing the efficiency of volunteer mobilization. Different specialized units can be called up depending on the situation — such as drone teams, underwater teams, or tracking teams.

Mariska van der Kraats,co-founder of the Veterans Search Team, explains the choice for MultiBel:

Previously, we alerted our 1,600 trained veterans via SMS, which always required a laptop to start a callout. We are now deployed 50 to 60 times per year by the police, and the costs of our previous system had become significant.

No longer dependent on a laptop

Mariska continues

Thanks to this new collaboration, we are no longer dependent on a laptop. The deployment of the Veterans Search Team often requires immediate action. With MultiBel, we can alert our volunteers with just one simple step via the app. We have already defined the message that the team receives — we only need to enter the assembly point location and start the alert. The reporting functions allow us to quickly see how many people are responding. The efficiency of the system is extremely valuable to us.

As reported in Gelderlander (Dutch newspaper):