The year 2023 was a year full of beautiful events at Romanian Library Netherlands! We recall some of these below.
The BiebROțeilor Workshop
In January 2023 we resumed our weekly online meetings in the BiebROțeilor Workshop. The workshops had two modules: a spring-summer one from 31 January to 6 June and an autumn-winter one from 14 September to 21 December.
In addition, there was a physical meeting on 24 June on the occasion of the Iei Dayand the participants also met and connected during Kinderboekenweek: Children's Book Week 6th edition and during the workshops conducted by Emi Balint on 11 November.
The aim of the meetings was to help children to:
- develop their Romanian vocabulary, contributing indirectly to the development of expressiveness in everyday language
- connect with elements of Romanian culture; discover remarkable personalities, classical and contemporary authors, as well as various customs or historical events important to Romania
- develop their critical thinking and their understanding of texts
- (where appropriate) to make progress in reading Romanian.
The workshops were free and open to any children in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (and beyond). The content and activities of the workshops are mainly aimed at children between 3 and 10 years old.
On 24 June on the occasion of the event "Celebrate together the Day of the Ii" the Romanian Library organized a workshop of the physical BiebROțeilor in which Ana Maria read a series of books and then the children drew together.
Project "My name is Courage"
"My name is Courage" is a cultural education and creativity programme for children from Romania and the Romanian diaspora in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, run by the cultural association "Câte-n lună și-n mansardă" with the support of the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN).
The project is initially aimed at children aged between 10 and 16 years old. The aim was for them to learn storytelling techniques, being guided by specialists to work with in an attempt to discover what it means to have courage and when they have acted courageously. Now in its final phase, the project now targets children in the diaspora. The Dutch Romanian Library joins this initiative as a partner. In April we ran 3 online workshopsevery day of Monday of the 18:30, in collaboration with the author Victoria Pătrașcu.
By participating in this project we aimed to improve communication skills in the mother tongue for children of Romanian origin in the Netherlands. We also wanted to establish collaborative relationships between Romanian children in the Netherlands and those in Romania and in the Romanian diaspora in other countries.
AIVI Media Hub Diaspora Workshops: Netherlands
There were four days and four online communication courses created by young volunteers and AIVI Media Centre specialists. Young Romanians in the diaspora were able to sign up for these free courses by Storytelling with Iulia Dromereschi and Social Media with Rahela Ulici.
Painting workshop with illustrator Emi Balint
Emanuela (Emi) Balint has been drawing for as long as she can remember. She likes to work in tempera, pencil and ink. She loves doodles, objects, houses, nature, cats, paper bags and the smell of books and pencils. She created the image of the kitten Dar Motan, the hero of the series of adventures imagined by Cristina Andone and published by Nemira. On 11 November Emi came to Amsterdam to St. Nicolaaslyceum to give two illustration workshops for children. Together they built and decorated cheerful and playful little houses, perfect for welcoming the winter holidays.
The children had the opportunity to explore in detail the universe of the characters created by Emi, but also to let themselves be guided by her in making their own creations. In addition, the little ones were able to interact with other children of Romanian origin from the Netherlands. The parents, some of them at the first library event, discovered the great things that are happening through this project and promised to come back for more activities. In total there were 35 participating children. The children ranged in age from 2 to 9 years.
Kinderboekenweek: Book Week 6th edition
Since 2018, Book Week is our way of joining Kinderboekenweek - the series of events promoting children's literature that takes place in the Netherlands every year in October. Initiated by Maria Dicieanu and organised by the Romanian School Amsterdam together with the Romanian Library Netherlands, Kinderboekenweek: Book Week has so far had three physical and two online editions. On 14 October, we met again at the headquarters of the Romanian School Amsterdam (St Nicolaaslyceum) to celebrate children's books. We had authors Simona Epure and Ioana Chicet-Macoveiciuc as guests.
This year's theme of Kinderboekenweek was Bij mij thuis / At my home inviting an author from our "home" in the Netherlands to our "home" in Romania. Simona Epure presented on this occasion to the Romanian community in Amsterdam and its surroundings her books "The little mouse and the surprise in the garden" and "The little mouse and a wonderful friend", published by DPH.
Because the topic of "home" is a complex one for Romanians (big and small) living abroad, we invited author Ioana Chicet-Macoveiciuc for a discussion about changing "home" and what it means to be a Romanian author in the diaspora.
Exhibition "Travellers" (24 July - 12 November)
The exhibition "Travel" carried out by the Dutch Romanian Library in collaboration with Illustrators Club proposed an incursion into the world of 40 contemporary Romanian illustrators. Each work represents an opening to the creative universe of an artist, an invitation to a fascinating journey to different worlds and techniques, a chance to discover new possibilities of combining text and images.
Biebro on Wheels
Launched in October 2021, the project Biebro on Wheels continued in 2023. The number of volunteer librarians in various cities of the Netherlands has reached 12, some of whom have developed their own reading community. A total of 5 exchanges took place, 50 pack mailings took place, 120 books were rolled and over 550 loans were made.
Stay tuned for more events in 2024!
