EUC Takes Part is a platform aiming to connect university students in Rotterdam to selected volunteering opportunities in the city. We strongly believe in the power of volunteering as a space where people meet, exchange stories and life experiences, work together and grow from one another, all the while helping build a better tomorrow for our society. We specifically chose to target university students as we fall under this demographic and thus have a better grasp on how to approach the project. Moreover, by speaking to larger-scale initiatives with a similar mission, it became apparent that students are notoriously difficult to reach and involve in volunteering initiatives. Tackling this glaring gap became one of the motivations for our projects. We also aimed to address a societal problem concerning international university students' integration in the Netherlands (see next text box for extensive look into this). Today, not only do we have an active website with volunteering opportunities posted weekly, we also have an enthusiastic community of over 250 people centralized in a 'WhatsApp Community'. We also created a documentary that covers our journey from early conception to full-on establishment with in one academic year (2024-2025). Our goal is to continue to connect students to the city and people of Rotterdam, hoping to reach as many as we can along the way!

As a group of international students in the Netherlands we have experienced first hand the national issue regarding the massive overflow of young adults: 1. Moving here for a degree 2. Not making an attempt to integrate with Dutch residents and culture 3. Leaving within just a few years. This problem impacts both sides of the coin. For international students this often results in feeling constrained to your small international bubble and lacking the feeling of being at home in your city of study. With your late teens and early twenties being a time of instability and uncertainty for most, lacking this kind of grounding can be impactful to one's experience. As regards the rest of Dutch society, we have witnessed many residents resent these large masses of disconnected students which has had noticeable impacts over the past decade. Some of these include the significant changes in the housing market and government initiatives to cut funding for higher education and attempt to reduce the inflow of internationals. So how do we fit in this equation? With EUC Takes Part we aim to bridge this very important missing connection between university students and the rest of Dutch society/cities through volunteering. Having over 20 events under our belt to show for, we can attest to the fact that creating a platform through which students and the many communities in Rotterdam can unite by working together (volunteering) has been a positive force in striving for greater unity and connectedness.