Exchange to Change January 2017 | Page 26

26 AT IOB

In the meantime...

Kick off weekend

The beginning of the IOB academic year for the students is always marked by the‘ kick off weekend’. This year’ s edition was again a combination of getting to know each other while at the same time having lots of fun. Of course, just having arrived in Belgium, a tourist visit is also an essential ingredient in the success of the kick off weekend. A guided tour through the city centre of Bruges is a good place to start your discovery of Belgium!
Have you ever seen the movie‘ Pay it forward‘( click on the link to see a little trailer;-)
A real feel good, naïve, tear jerker … The main message is that if everyone would help out only a few people in need, without expecting anything in return,( i. e. paying it forward) eventually the world would be full of people‘ doing good’. At a certain point in time, you yourself would then eventually be surprised by the kindness of a stranger.
Well, in December IOB students were paying it forward …
Each year the University of Antwerp organizes a Christmas market and the proceeds are donated to charity. The university selects two projects. Once again, one of those projects is a project( co-) founded by an IOB alumna, Gemma Piñol. Volley 4 change is a project, seeking to encourage health, gender equity and empowerment through sports in Vanuatu.
The current IOB students – despite being exhausted from exam and assignment deadlines – were so kind to organize a Christmas market‘ booth’ to sell food to support these projects! They sold delicious international food, such as Vietnamese spring rolls, Bangladeshi Biriany, Palestinian home-made hummus wraps and Belgian Christmas Cookies. Thanks!

Paying it forward: IOB students for

Volley4change

Exchange to change January 2017