Lune van den Berg • 20-01-2023 • Student Experience
EVENT MANAGEMENT— Vital’nya is not only a living room for Ukrainian refugees, it is a safe space and authority for Ukrainian parties and events. They organize national holidays, parties, lessons, and many more. Luckily, they don’t have to do it alone. Students from the minor event management help them where ever they can.
The last event organized by Vital’nya and the students of the minor event management is the soccer tournament. This tournament was not only accessible for Ukrainian children, but also for children from the Utrecht neighbourhood Leidsche Rijn. Eventually there ended up being nine soccer teams and one team was completely made up of Ukrainian children.
John was one of the students organizing this event. His own background is a major in business administration, but in order to try something new, he participated in a minor event management. During his minor, he needed to find an internship for only ten weeks. His original plan was to find a spot to work in Human Resource Management, but since these are all incorporated into a bigger business, he had to find a different solution. His teacher was already in contact with Eelco, and she recommended him to take a look into Vital’nya, which ended up being a good choice.
During the tournament, it was about respect for one another, making connections and just having fun. John saw that the Ukrainian children were still a little shy and stuck to their own teammates. He even remembers them being a little competitive, but they had fun nonetheless.
As for his own experience with in the HU Ukraine project, John tells reporter Lune that he has learned a lot, but he had one thing in particular that stood out to him: he got to work with a lot of different students. The halls of Vital’nya are filled with students from Social Legal Services, Biology, Commercial Economy and Pedagogy. This gave John a little look into the real world and not just his own classroom.
When asked to give feedback, John explains he was particularly pleased with the way students are treated by the teachers and Anna herself. With this, John means the fact that students get a lot of freedom within their projects. This does mean that there is no teacher breathing down your neck and handling the organization, everything is on the students. John actually loved this and thrived on the responsibility.
The soccer tournament is not the only event John helped organize. He also helped Vital’nya with their Christmas celebration and the job market for Ukrainians. The soccer tournament might have been his favourite, but every event was great to help organize and participate in. John now has to turn in his internship report and will then go back to his major, with a lot of new skills and more experience with refugees. He hopes this gives him a little head start in the world of Human Resource Management.
The name used in this article is a fake name. The actual name and information of the source is known to the editorial office and organization.