On Monday 17 December it was finally time for the charity concert organized for the UAF Foundation for Refugee Students – the official end of the Language Centre’s 30-year anniversary celebrations. A great turnout, generous donations and a varied programme ensured a successful evening.

The concert quite rightly carried the title ‘My language is your language’. Songs, instruments and languages from all corners of the world came to the stage and the musicians – and a poet – combined them in a wonderful concert that managed to surprise everyone. Firstly, a musical trio kept the audience glued to their seats by effortlessly mixing Eastern and Western classical music styles. They played in different formations, playing the piano, cello, trumpet and daf (an Iranian percussion instrument). Next, it became clear that the Language Centre’s Dutch courses paid off: The New Life Groningen Choir, consisting of refugees who have only been in the Netherlands for a few years, performed a fantastic repertoire of songs in Arabic and Dutch. Finally, a poet from Eritrea mesmerized the audience with his poem about ‘Drenthe birds’.

After these impressive performances, the Language Centre presented a € 2,000 cheque to Hugo Stekelenburg from the UAF. The Language Centre and the UAF share a passion for connection and development, which is reflected in what the UAF does for refugee students. And that is what the evening was all about: putting our differences to use in order to establish mutual connection in different languages.