AMSTERDAM- For the tenth time, the city of Amsterdam is taking in a new batch of students from Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius. This year, the grand welcome will take place on Thursday, October 21. The 2020 event could not go ahead due to COVID-19 restrictions. That is why students who started university, HBO (University of Applied Sciences) or ROC (regional training centre) in 2020 are just as welcome.

The municipality of Amsterdam has been organising this official welcome since 2011. So, this year is the tenth anniversary, and it’ll be an extra festive edition. By organising this meeting, the municipality aims to give the students a good start. It takes quite some guts at such a young age to choose going abroad to study in the Netherlands, far away from home. It comes as no surprise that this is hard, but the students are very much looking forward to it and appear to be optimistically confident.

Diverse

Amsterdam is offering the young people a diverse welcome programme in the council chamber of Amsterdam City Hall. A delegation of the Amsterdam city government will be present, as will be Cabinet representatives of the Ministers Plenipotentiary of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. There will also be an info market for the students, where they can get help with all their queries on housing, studying and living in Amsterdam.

The Amsterdam City Council is hoping for the students to settle in and that they will contribute to the typical traits of Amsterdam. It’s wonderful to get something from the city, but it’s even more wonderful to give it something in return. It’s people who give the city its character: a place where everyone feels at home and likes to live.

Sign up

Are you a student from the Caribbean who started studying in Amsterdam in 2020 or 2021? Sign up now via this link (students only!): https://welkomstudenten.evenementenorganisatie-amsterdam.nl/