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isabelbonnet@gmail.com
The Amsterdammer
Ending its second year, The Amsterdammer seeks to understand the development of student journalism in the Netherlands by taking a look at the past.
Since their inception in the beginning of the 19th century, student magazines quickly gained importance around the country and today, there are roughly 45 university publications in the Netherlands. The Amsterdammer was able to talk to 17 of them.
On November 16, 2019, the first Saturday after Sint Maarten, 25,000 people enthusiastically welcomed Sinterklaas in Apeldoorn. For a couple of years, the arrival of the Dutch St. Nicholas and its traditions, brings with it, the ever-controversial debate of Zwarte Piet.
Since 1945, Sinterklaas has been accompanied by multiple “Piets”, his helpers—or servants. Commonly known as Zwarte Piet (“Black Pete” in Dutch), they are represented with blackface, red lips, gold earrings, and dark curly hair.
On Monday, October 14, at around 4 p.m. a HÉMAN truck crashed into a house across Roeterseilandcampus. The catering company told local news channel AT5 that the driver had a sudden epileptic seizure, an incident which had occurred for the first time.
Thank you ASIF Ventures and Study Association Sefa for selecting The Amsterdammer as part of the P!TCH x SEFA event. I feel humbled to have had the opportunity to present my newspaper to the audience. All the start-ups were inspiring and definitely showed us the power of ideas, motivation and dedication.
© P!TCH x SEFA
During National Banana Day on Wednesday, the Banana Bar popup store opened its doors for one day, only to promote the recently-funded organisation SUNT. Visitors were invited to bring banana leftovers in exchange for banana bread. By 4pm, about 40 people had already stopped by at the Banana Bar to drop off their leftover fruit. The term “Sunt” means ‘waste’ in Dutch and ‘tasty’ in Norwegian.
He was allegedly mocked by several police officers and sexually harassed.
Rudolf Valkhoff, 65, worked as a History and Philosophy teacher at the University of Amsterdam for 30 years. In 2015, he participated in the Bungehuis and Maagdenhuis occupation during the student protest against the lack of democracy and spending cuts at the university. He was fired a year later, based on “substantive grounds,” according to the university.
The end of his working contract at UvA marked the beginning of his involvement in the rallies to reach, as he describes it, academic freedom. Valkhoff is an active participant of Humanities Rally UvA. Last Friday, he joined “Outraved,” the dance demonstration march around the city alongside the DJs and about 100 students, which ended with his arrest.
Around 100 merrymakers attended the Winter Charity Gala hosted by the UNICEF Student Team Amsterdam and Enactus VU at CREA Café on Saturday, February 9.
Two board members of the UNICEF Student Team introduce the sponsors of the gala on Saturday evening. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer
The donations given for the event will be sent directly to a school in Aleppo, Syria. With CREA’s music hall successfully filled for the event, the event raised up to 801€ that evening.
“We feel privileged and lucky that we can contribute to this cause” said Lena Hoffmann, a 22-year-old German PPE student at the VU and the chair of the UNICEF Student Team in Amsterdam. “There’s a lot of things you can do without a lot of means with other organizations.”
Last Wednesday, members of the ISN committees and volunteers welcomed around 500 exchange students to Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport. About 850 students participated from Thursday to Saturday in the Winter Introduction Weekend, or Wintro, which is the largest introduction week ever organized by ISN. Last year, the Wintro received 750 students.
The three-day event included a canal boat tour, workshops, Dutch crash courses, a sports day at USC, as well as parties in Coco’s Outback, Q-Factory and Radion. The activities aimed to connect international and exchange students upon their arrival in the city.
Personal anecdotes and laughs echoed at CREA Café on Monday evening during the performances of 8 university students. Moderated by one of the founders, Lara Ricote, about 60 people attended the Comedy Crea Open Mic for free.
Twice a month, Comedy Crea gives students the opportunity to perform their 5-minute stand-up routines.
On Saturday, about 100 Venezuelans living in the Netherlands gathered in Dam Square to join the international day of protest for democracy. Organized by the association Multicultureel Viva Venezuela, protesters stood in support for the Interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, and against Nicolas Maduro.
After the Venezuelan protesters took a group picture with the flag, they marched around the Dam Square on Saturday afternoon. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer
On Saturday, January 19, 2019, Netherlands’ celebrated its eighth National Tulip Day. This year’s celebration saw more than ten thousand tourists and Amsterdam locals gathered in Dam square to pick their own bouquets of flowers. Over 200,000 tulips from colors across the spectrum were available for free, as part of the annual celebration, with the theme “Flower Power,” this year.
While Saturday saw 30,000 people celebrating their official arrival in the Netherlands in Zaanstad, 400,000 gathered on Sunday in Amsterdam. “I like to call the other arrivals the ‘fake ones’,” said Pam Evenhuis, spokesperson for Sint in Amsterdam, which organises the Amsterdam event. The arrival of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam is the largest one in the world. However, the main celebration will be on December 5, his birthday, one day before Sinterklaas’ departure.
Last Thursday, Amsterdam councillors voted to remove the Iamsterdam letters from Museumplein as part of the budget plan for 2019. The sign will be removed in the next couple of weeks.
© Isabel Bonnet
My grandparents or great grandparents on my mother’s side did not all stay in Venezuela their entire life. My grandfather had Italian origins and studied in both Spain and Mexico. His adoptive mother spoke several languages and had lived in the Netherlands, Curaçao and Trinidad before going back to Venezuela. They were citizens of the world in a time when traveling was not as common as it is today. On my father’s side, my grandmother had to travel to different countries in Europe during World War II, and kept traveling later in life, when she raised her children with my grandfather around Africa.
Tomorrow, the 2018 FIFA World Cup will begin- without the Dutch football team. In light of this news, some of the most iconic places in Amsterdam have decided not to continue their tradition of showing the tournament this year. Sadly, among them are Vondelpark3 and Radio 538 Oranjeplein, who showed the tournament in 2014 but will not do so now.
June 7, 2018 / The Amsterdammer
The director announced the results of this year’s Student Council elections on May 24 at Maagdenhuis. Every Spring, students from the University of Amsterdam are invited to vote for the new Faculty Student Council and the Central Student Council members. The newly elected council members will commence their positions on September 1st, 2018.
On Thursday afternoon, the ASVA student union offered candies at Roeterseilandcampus in exchange for the signature of a letter addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven. The initiative was part of the National Action Week, which took action from May 22 to May 25.
Three members of the ASVA student union offer candy in exchange for a signature on Thursday afternoon. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer
A normal family WhatsApp group spams everyone with jokes, holiday pictures, and maybe some voice-notes, mistakenly sent by their grandmother. Mine essentially consists of political matters, text messages notifying others that there is milk in the supermarket or that electricity is gone. When it’s someone’s birthday, we send voice-notes. When someone is traveling, we send a text message saying we’re boarding the plane. When a newborn joins the family, we send pictures. We are living a virtual family life because our country is facing a terrible situation that has spread us around the world. As a family we are united, but we are physically apart from each other.
In Venezuela, everything is okay. Or at least, that is what the government keeps repeating to the population. On average, 1 person is murdered every 21 minutes. The average salary is under 10 dollars a month in the black market. Hyperinflation is expected to rise up to 13,000 percent this year. But for the government, most of these numbers are created by American imperialism. Because everything is okay.
Venezuelans protest in Caracas on April 2013 the day after Nicolas Maduro was declared President. His opponent, Henrique Capriles, demanded a recount of the votes. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer
