On Friday April 1st, 2016 the EuroClio Secretariat had a special visit. A group of 20 students from Utrecht University, came talk and learn about EuroClio with EUROLIO director Jonathan Even-Zohar and EuroClio Trainee Joyce Schaftlein. The group came as part of one of their courses in the Masters ‘Cultural History’. This course required the organization of several excursions to possible future employers. EuroClio was one of these places and the first NGO they visited. This made it an interesting and eye-opening experience for all students.

The morning started with an introductory presentation about what EuroClio is, what we do and how we work. Following this introduction, Jonathan told about EuroClio’s work and the competences that are needed to be able to do this work successfully. The students had many interesting questions and were very curious in how to deal with different partners on controversial topics.

The second part of the excursion was more dynamic and involved a small workshop. Jonathan explained how EuroClio projects take shape, how they start and what the role of EuroClio is in these projects. This fit well with the work the students had prepared before the excursion. It was arranged that the students would agree on several topics that might be difficult to teach. They came up with four topics: (1) Colonial History, (2) The Armenian Genocide, (3) The Holocaust, and (4) The Israel – Palestine Conflict. To give them a good insight in EuroClio, we asked the students to split up in groups and make their own project proposals on one of the topics. The results were divers and very interesting. Some of the ideas might even become options for future projects. Maybe one of the students will develop his or her project idea further and maybe, we will help them start up their own project one day. The excursion ended with a joint lunch with the complete Secretariat Staff. They were very pleased with the presentations, the workshop and the networking possibilities. The students all left very enthusiastically about EuroClio and NGO’s in general.