CSR and UvA Green Office Host Library Night at UB Singel

March 13, 2019

By AISHWARYA KOTTAPURAT

On Wednesday, March 13, the UvA’s Central Student Council (CSR) and Green Office hosted a library night at the Universiteit Bibliotheek Singel. The event ran from 10 pm Wednesday until 2 am Thursday. The night consisted of a variety of workshops, a silent disco, a clothing swap, and a stand-up comedy show.

Students participate in a workshop on sustainability organized by the UvA Green Office in the University Library at the Singel on Wednesday’s Library Night. Sofia van den Donk / The Amsterdammer

Sat Kathpalia, a UvA student and the manager of Green Office, stated that his organization planned the clothing swap and the sustainability workshop, while the CSR organized the rest. During the clothing swap, students could bring clothes that they no longer wore or needed and could exchange it for a “new” piece of clothing. Whatever was left at the end of the night was donated. The sustainability workshop asked students to divide into groups, create their own company and come up with ways to make it sustainable. At the end of the workshop, each group gave a short pitch of their ideas on sustainability and the group with the best pitch won a reusable bamboo coffee cup.

There was also a workshop given by members of Turtle, a mental health company which provides a platform for people who are facing psychological challenges. According to their website, they do this “by matching people who have the same struggles, the same fights and the same scars.” In the workshop, students were asked to discuss what they thought were the most common psychological challenges that people between the ages of 20 and 35 face and why. The most recurring answers were: depression, burn-out and loss of a family member.

Fleur van Andel, a 20-year-old Political Science student at the University of Amsterdam walks late at night through the empty parts of the University Library at the Singel on Wednesday’s Library Night. Sofia van den Donk / The Amsterdammer
Fleur van Andel, a 20-year-old Political Science student at the University of Amsterdam walks late at night through the empty parts of the University Library at the Singel on Wednesday’s Library Night. Sofia van den Donk / The Amsterdammer
Students participate in a workshop experimenting with staged photography in the University Library at the Singel on Wednesday’s Library Night. Sofia van den Donk / The Amsterdammer
Students participate in a workshop experimenting with staged photography in the University Library at the Singel on Wednesday’s Library Night. Sofia van den Donk / The Amsterdammer

Other workshops included ones on CVs and LinkedIn, photography, venture philanthropists NESsT, and UNICEF. There was also a stand-up comedy routine. The clothing swap and the silent disco ran for the whole night, while there were specific time slots for the workshops. Fleur van Andel, a 20-year-old Political Science student at the UvA, described how “walking through the silent disco was the pinnacle of the night.” There were two different workshops happening at any given time, so students could pick and choose where they wanted to go according to their own interests.