Our hub has already held two meetings: the 5th of January and the 18th of January. The first meeting was attended by 14 people, where we introduced our project. People answered our questionnaire about what they need or want to improve their life experience here in Denmark, and it seems that the most important thing for young people is communication and organized meetings to find new friends and build connections! This was the moment when we realized that we are doing the right thing, and that these hubs are the beginnings of something powerful, useful, and important!

Our hub already has a Book Club, which is coordinated by two passionate members: Anastasiia and Yaroslaw! (They already have a group chat with 15 interested people from our community!) During the first meeting, we also discussed future plans and ideas, created a group chat on Telegram, went through a schedule created by Crossing Borders and agreed to meet a second time soon. Between these two meetings, members of our hub told their friends about the project, and by the time of our next meeting, we already had 31 member! The majority of participants are Ukrainian, but we are keeping our project international, and we already have a couple of Polish friends in our Aalborg Hub!

18th of January:

20 people attended—new faces, new connections, new emotions, and new memories! We welcomed our new members and gave them a small intro presentation about the project. Together, we discussed the rules we created for our hub to make it safe and avoid any possible misunderstandings in communication. We also planned the next two meetings and played board games afterward! Our meeting was filled with joy, warmth, and happiness—things everyone seemed to lack!

Our Planned Meetings in February/March

We have an upcoming event on February 16th. It will be a cooking/dining together event, board games, and a quiz with a prize for the winner, provided by Anastasiia. Since February 16th is just two days after Valentine’s Day, we decided to have a dress code for this event! It looks like we’ll have a themed party at the end! After our second meeting, we made a huge effort to find more people and invite them to our hub. As a result, we have 10 more participants from nearby cities (Hobro, Holstebro, Viborg, Hjørring), and they are so excited to be a part of this project. Hopefully, they will join our next gatherings!

Our Connections with Local Organizations:

We have an amazing opportunity to host a workshop from Dutch/Syrian university student Emad in March. Emad is very excited to host a workshop about Diversity, Immigration, Adaptation, and Equality. The workshop is currently in progress, but we are sure it will be very useful for all international people in Aalborg, as it will be conducted in English.

Our next supporter is a Ukrainian certified psychologist—a woman who is really interested in organizing a workshop for anyone who needs it! Hopefully, we’ll become partners in the future because help from a specialist is a very important part of our hub! We are discussing when/how we can organize this event, but potentially, it’ll fit into our February schedule!