Tips from and for the Samen Hier community
Due to all the measures taken surrounding COVID-19, it has become far more challenging for our Samen Hier participants to stay in touch with each other. Luckily, there are many digital options available to communicate and do activities together! To inspire you, we have collected some fun and creative tips from the Samen Hier community on how to stay in touch with each other digitally!
Another platform for each day of the week?
In the digital world we’re living in, there are countless great programs available for online communication. Which one is your favourite?
- Facetime
- Jitsi Meet
- Skype
- Houseparty
Samen Hier tip: The Justice and Peace team celebrates birthdays of team members on Skype now!
Breakfast, coffee, lunch, and diner
Each meal or coffee break, is an opportunity for a digital get together!
- To start simple: It’s beneficial to agree upon a standard time each day or week to meet online, preferably also using a webcam. Our team drinks coffee together each morning, and being able to see and hear each other, is a great start to our day! Moreover, this gives all of us extra structure and is an incentive to get up early!
- Cooking and eating together is also viable online. Pick a nice recipe, give each other tips on seasoning, and enjoy your home cooked meals! Moreover, selecting a long and challenging recipe is a rewarding way to spend any extra time you might have now.
Welcome group tip: Last week, Coen and Joke from the Zuiderstrand Welcome Group went over to Mahdi and Parvaneh to bring them a self-baked cake. A great opportunity to socialise (from an appropriate distance) and to express your fondness for each other. As you can see, the cake was received very well!
Language coaching over a distance
Learning a new language is very challenging. But having a social network with whom you can speak and practice that new language, is a great benefit and significantly helps the learning process. It thus makes sense that matched Welcome Groups and newcomers often practice Dutch.
It might seem difficult at first, but there are a lot of options when it comes to language training from a distance. Of course, talking Dutch during video calls is a great base, but there are many additional things you can do to work on language!
- Van Dale offers a series of free coaching methods: SpreekTaal1en SpreekTaal 2. These methods contain hundreds of audio files suitable for practicing Dutch together digitally.
- Write each other letters or mails in Dutch. You can agree upon sending each other a weekly letter in which you tell about your day, how you are feeling, about your hobbies, or about your job: the sky is the limit!
- We mentioned the importance of a standard time for video calling before. This of course also applies for language training sessions.
Welcome Group tip: Most of our Welcome Groups primarily use WhatsApp for language training. A logical choice, considering its options to chat, send voice memos, and video call, while also being an app with which almost everyone is familiar.
Culture and media
Even from your couch at home, there still are many cultural activities available to do together!
- Tivoli Vredenburg goes live every day to broadcast old concerts: https://loom.ly/ki5go2w
- It’s possible to visit multiple famous museums digitally for free: https://loom.ly/bUn5aMg
- Whoever just want to watch a movie can use the ‘Netflix party’ extension available on Google Chrome. This allows you to watch a movie together from your own houses: https://loom.ly/k89EjWE
- Do you feel like watching a documentary? The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has put over 300 documentaries online for you to watch for free: https://www.idfa.nl/nl/collectie/gratis
We are eager to hear some of your ideas to stay in touch with each other!