Student Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives - Grant Winners Announced

Project organizers: Neurodiversity Working Group (Alice Haywood, Aoife O’Mahony, Dagmar Boer, Elise Benard,Sam Skultety, and Vera Schroten) 

The Neurodiversity Working Group at Campus Fryslan organized Neurodiversity Celebration Week from 20-22 March 2024. Several events were held to raise awareness about neurodiversity. They wrote:

“Our event, held the whole week except Monday, brought discussions and events that can raise awareness and mainly bring space to talk about still "taboo" topics. We are aware that on our campus, there are people who are neurodiverse. Some are diagnosed, some are not; therefore, this was a great way to show support and how people live with neurodiversity. On Tuesday, we started with a movie, "Temple Grandin," which is a biographical movie about a famous woman with autism, and it shows how hard but also colorful life with autism can be. At this event, there were approximately 15 people, including some staff members and students; we used the money for snacks and the movie. Also, during this movie, people could draw and do some creative drawings, so we also spent some money on pencils and coloring books.

On Wednesday, we had an online- guest lecture/talk with a researcher from Penn State University, Stephen Foster, about how parents perceive their children with neurodiversity. He talked about the research he did on this topic and answered many questions from the audience. At this event, there were around 20 people from our Faculty, and we used the money for snacks and we will use the money to pay for his lecture. On Thursday, we had "stage fright," which was something like open mic, when people could express themself; there were around 20 performances, from slam poetry to singing, and many of these performances were poems or "stand up" or monologues of people with experiences of neurodiversity, on this event attended around 50 people, and it was a really successful event, we spent money on this event for snacks. On the last day of this successful week, we had just talked at the pub with people who wanted to join our group, or just wanted to chat about this topic; we also received much feedback that this week was helpful for some people to understand this, or it was just great support or way to express yourself freely. Also, this event convinced some students to join our working group and work on later events like discussions or art events, which can help raise awareness of neurodiversity. Our campus always tries to open space for inclusivity, so we really appreciate this opportunity from the university because it is always great to have Faculty as a safe space for people who are afraid but feel free at campus, and the university should also be "shelter" for students to just freely express themself.”

Project organizers: Ganymedes Board XV

Ganymedes, an LGBT+ student association, utilized funds from the Grassroots Grants to host a workshop focused on the LGBT+ community in Groningen. The workshop was held on May 28, 2024. The event brought together staff and students for a presentation on the history of the LGBT+ community at the University of Groningen. This was followed by discussion rounds on key topics, including safe spaces at the UG, UG's policies, and the university's role in fostering a more inclusive environment.

Participants engaged in dialogues that examined current knowledge and practices at the UG, while also exploring areas for improvement and proposing potential solutions.. The workshop aimed to provide a welcoming, judgment-free space, encouraging open sharing of thoughts and experiences. The D&I Office will be working with the LGBTQ community to further work out some of these suggestions.

Ganymedes wrote:

“Due to budget constraints on the side of Ganymedes as well as the rising inflation, Ganymedes did not have the budget to organise an educational/discussion event like this with a proper venue and drinks/snacks present as well as other materials. Therefore the help of the D&I office was asked and we are really grateful that the D&I office was willing to support Ganymedes in organising this activity.

We hope that with all this input from the community and its allies helps foster inclusion and we hope that attendees felt that they were heard without any judgements from other attendees.”

Project organizers: Café de las Lenguas

Café de las Lenguas is a weekly language café that is organized every Thursday evening at the Harmony building. The vision is to facilitate people from different backgrounds meeting each other through practicing languages together. Café de las Lenguas also organizes themed evenings during which participants dive deeper into a specific culture/language. These events are invaluable in further promoting the message of celebrating cultural and linguistic diversity. The Grassroots Initiative Grants went toward organizing three of these themed events: one about the Netherlands, one about Brazil, and one about India. The event organizers wrote:

“We also gain plenty of enjoyment by organising these events. But, we realised that to have more of these events in the future, we would need to have some more funding to make them more frequent (as these were mostly volunteer-funded) and to make them more complete such as by even having drinks and snacks. Indeed, a year had passed since our Spanish event and we truly wanted to organise them more frequently.

The Diversity and Inclusion Grassroots Grant hence allowed us to plan and conduct three events: the Dutch evening (for King’s Day), the Brazilian evening, and the Indian evening. For all these events, we had a presentation and interactive session on the respective culture, and the funds were then used for some snacks, drinks, and fun activities for people to enjoy! It was great to also be able to provide a regional snack for people to enjoy and get to know the culture more intimately. Around 50 people attended each event, and the money was also used to decorate the venue for every event.

People could be seen actively participating and engaging with one other at each event. During the Dutch event, the event provided a safe and fun path for foreigners to learn more about the Dutch culture and King’s Day without feeling excluded. The Brazilian and Indian event were both tremendously eye-opening experiences that allowed people to look at the two countries beyond their stereotypes and they could revel in the rich diversity of the two nations. The attendees were surprised and astonished to learn new facts such as the Japanese diaspora in the world being the largest in Brazil, and how India has languages from four different language families entirely within its borders.

We were also able to provide a small taste of the cuisine from each highlighted region with snacks such as ontbijtkoek, drop and stroopwafels (Netherlands), pão de queijo, brigadeiro, and the guarana drink (Brazil), and vadas, onion pakodas, and carrot fudge squares (India). The funding greatly helped us source the ingredients for these snacks and drinks and they were savoured by all the attendees.

We would like to thank the Diversity and Inclusion Office for granting us the funds for organising these amazing events and for their continuous support during this process! We thoroughly enjoyed the events and hope to organise more of them in the future.”