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Sarai Adriana Vélez Ramírez is originally from Mexico. Before coming to the Netherlands, she also lived for several years in India. Her life has been shaped by different countries, cultures and quite a few professional reinventions. She moved to The Hague in October 2022 as an accompanying partner. She arrived excited about this new chapter, but she quickly discovered that building a life somewhere new is about much more than unpacking your suitcases. She realized that you have to find your community, understand a new culture and, sometimes, rediscover who you are professionally. Volunteering became a very important part of that process for her. Which organisation did you volunteer for? What is their mission? I volunteer for ACCESS, which has been supporting internationals in the Netherlands for 40 years. Their mission is very close to my heart because I understand the experience of the people they support. Moving abroad can be wonderful, but it can also be lonely and overwhelming. Suddenly you have questions about things you never had to think about before, and even very capable people can feel completely lost. ACCESS helps internationals find reliable information, support and connection while they build their lives here. I think there is something very powerful about internationals who have found their way helping those who are still finding theirs. I discovered them in November 2023. At the time, I was struggling to find a job. I had arrived with years of professional experience, but because my background was multidisciplinary, I didn't seem to fit neatly into the boxes employers were looking for. So I began looking at volunteering opportunities. Not only as something meaningful I could do while searching for work, but as somewhere I could use my skills, keep learning and hopefully rebuild some of the confidence I had lost.That eventually led me to the Volunteer the Hague Mix & Match Volunteer Job Fair and then to ACCESS. What volunteer role do you have and what tasks do you perform? I became ACCESS's volunteer Social Media Manager in November 2023, despite having no formal digital marketing experience at the time. The role requires around eight hours per week, but when I started, I chose to dedicate closer to 20 because I wanted to learn as much as possible and give the opportunity everything I had. Today, I dedicate around eight hours per week. I manage our presence across LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, including strategy, content calendars, campaigns, scheduling and performance analysis. I learned the technical skills along the way. I discovered that many of the skills I needed most such as curiosity, creativity, adaptability, and determination, were already there. What were your goals when you started volunteering for them? That sounds very simple, but at that moment it meant a lot to me. When you have worked your entire adult life and suddenly find yourself sending application after application without anyone giving you a chance, it can slowly affect how you see yourself. I wanted to learn and gain experience, of course. But more than anything, I think I needed somewhere where I could contribute again. ACCESS gave me that. What do you currently enjoy about volunteering? I started volunteering hoping to gain experience, keep learning and feel useful while looking for a job, but I found much more than that. I love knowing that our work has a purpose: behind every post there might be someone who has just arrived in the Netherlands looking for information, support or a sense of belonging.What I value most are the people. Many of those I met through ACCESS have become some of my closest friends, and ACCESS became part of my community when I was still trying to build one. Some of them believed in me at a time when I was struggling to believe in myself, and that is something I will always carry with me. What do you find challenging? One of the biggest challenges of managing social media for an NGO is balancing limited financial resources with sometimes very high expectations, particularly from external parties. I strongly believe that supporting an NGO should come from believing in its mission, rather than from expecting something in return. NGOs simply don't have the same resources as commercial organisations. Another challenge is helping people understand that social media is not only about selling something. For an NGO, it is a way to make its mission visible and reach the people who need its support. What is typical of your own culture (values, mindset) that you bring to your volunteer role? Warmth. In Mexico, relationships matter enormously. We connect through conversations, stories, humour and genuine interest in other people. I think that follows me into my work. Even when I am thinking about strategy or analytics, I never forget that there is a human being on the other side of the screen. That is probably why storytelling became such an important part of the way I communicate. I am always looking for the person behind the information. Anything that pleasantly surprised you about how things are done by your Dutch colleagues or recipients of your volunteer services? What surprised me is that, despite living in such an international country, they can still be driven by stereotypes and assumptions about other cultures. I appreciate their directness, but I think they still have a lot to learn about customer service, small talk and different ways of seeing life. When working with internationals, they also need to understand that their way of communicating will not always be well received. Sometimes they need to adapt too. Finding that middle point is, for me, the best scenario. Have you ever learnt something from volunteering that became useful for your studies or paid work? I think the biggest thing I learned was something about myself. Before ACCESS, my career looked disconnected even to me. I had been a veterinarian, a translator and a fraud investigator. Then suddenly I wanted to work in social media. For a long time, I thought every change meant I was starting again. ACCESS helped me realise that I wasn't. I brought research from veterinary medicine, language and cultural understanding from translation, analytical thinking from fraud investigation and creativity from many other parts of my life. Social media simply became the place where all those pieces finally made sense together. The experience gave me the confidence to start AMARA Digital Solutions and build my own clients. And in 2026, after almost four years and more than 500 job applications, I became a Social Media & Digital Content Specialist at The British School in the Netherlands. ACCESS gave me the opportunity to prove to myself that I was still capable. Photo credit Vinita Salomé Photography What piece of advice would you give to people who are considering volunteering? Don't underestimate what volunteering can give you, especially if you are rebuilding your life in a new country. When I started, I thought I needed Dutch experience and something to fill a gap in my CV. What I actually needed was confidence, community and an opportunity. So find something you genuinely care about. Bring the skills you already have, even if they don't seem to fit perfectly, and be open to discovering abilities you didn't know were there. And please don't assume that because your career has paused, changed direction or looks different after relocation, you have somehow lost everything you were before. You haven't. I walked into a Volunteer Fair in November 2023 at a time when I was questioning whether I still had something valuable to offer. ACCESS gave me the space to find the answer for myself.

Fireside Peace Chats: Who makes peace? with Ilya Shcharbitski 21 September @ 17:00 - 18:30 On the International Day of Peace, Hope Box, The Hague Humanity Hub, Leiden University College and Amare come together for an evening of art and dialogue as part of Hope Box – Piece for World Peace This link opens in a new tab. The programme opens with the hanging of a Hope Box Kite for World Peace, followed by a Fireside Peace Chat exploring the many ways peace is created, through international institutions, communities, artists, activists and individuals. In this special edition of the Fireside Peace Chats This link opens in a new tabseries, we welcome Ilya “Admiral” Shcharbitski, a Belarusian community organiser based in The Hague. He believes peace is not something that arrives; it is something people make. Drawing on personal experiences from conflict-affected environments, the conversation asks us to look beyond diplomacy and politics and consider the role each of us can play in building peace, solidarity and understanding. Join us to listen, reflect and ask: Who makes peace and what can I do to contribute? Practical information: Location: Tribunetrap, Amare, The Hague Date: 21 September Programme: Hope Box: Piece for Peace art event and dialogue 17:00 – Hanging of the additional Hope Box Kite for World Peace 17:30–18:30 – Fireside Peace Chat at the Tribunetrap The hanging of the kite provides a visual and symbolic opening to the programme, followed by a one-hour public conversation. What are the Fireside Peace Chats? The Fireside Peace Chats aim to create a space where practice, research, and policy in the field of peacebuilding come together in an informal way through the experiences of people on the ground. By sharing personal stories from peacebuilders and other figures with extensive experience in conflict areas, we want to contribute to a locally informed paradigm shift in liberal peacebuilding. The Fireside Peace Chats originally emerged as a joint initiative of Leiden University College (LUC) This link opens in a new tab, the Knowledge Platform Security and Rule of Law (KPSRL) This link opens in a new tab, and The Hague Humanity Hub (THHH) This link opens in a new tab. Read more about previous editions here

Little Time, Real Impact: Why Flexible Volunteering Fits the Expat Lifestyle Ask an international resident of The Hague why they haven't started volunteering, and you'll usually hear some version of the same answer: "I'd love to, but I don't know how long I'll be here." Or: "My schedule is unpredictable." Or: "I can't commit to something every single week." These are reasonable hesitations. Life as an expat in a city built around embassies, international courts, and global organizations often means short postings, shifting work hours, and a constant sense that you might be relocating again before you've properly unpacked. Committing to a rigid volunteer schedule can feel like one more obligation you're not sure you can keep. But a look at what's actually available through Volunteer The Hague tells a different story. Volunteering here isn't a single, fixed shape. It's a spectrum of time commitment and there's very likely a version of it that fits into the life you're already living, whatever that looks like this month. The myth of "all or nothing" The assumption that volunteering means a standing weekly shift for the next two years simply doesn't hold up. Many roles listed on the platform specify commitments as light as zero to three or three to four hours a week. A volunteer cook position at Haags Ontmoeten, for instance, asks for just a few hours weekly cooking for seniors in Benoordenhout. A hostess role at a women's shelter asks for one fixed half-day per week. These aren't token gestures: they're genuinely useful contributions that happen to fit around a job, a language course, or childcare. Even roles labeled "long-term" frequently come with the word "flexible" attached. Gardening at a care home, hosting activities for seniors, cooking neighborhood meals; the frequency and timing are often left to the volunteer to shape. Long-term, in other words, doesn't have to mean locked-in. If you truly can't commit weekly, there's still a way in For internationals who genuinely can't promise anything recurring, after all maybe your contract ends in three months, maybe your work travel makes weekly planning impossible. Then one-off opportunities exist precisely for you. Volunteer The Hague's vacancy platform is full of single-day events that need volunteer hands: hosting visitors during Heritage Weekend at the Grote Kerk, marshaling runners at The Hague Marathon, joining the crew at the International Film Festival, or helping run a fundraising stand for the food bank over a single weekend. These aren't consolation prizes for people who "can't really volunteer." They're valuable in their own right, and they offer something else too: a low-stakes way to test what volunteering in a new city actually feels like, without the pressure of an ongoing promise. Show up once. See how it feels. Decide from there. A spectrum, not a ladder It helps to think of these options less as a hierarchy, where one-off events are the "beginner" version and weekly commitments are the "real" version. Some months, a single afternoon at a marathon water station might be exactly right. Other months, when your schedule settles, a few hours a week cooking or gardening might feel welcome and grounding. Roles that can be done from home, like social media content creation for a local organization, add yet another option for people juggling unpredictable hours or caregiving responsibilities. The point isn't to find the "right" level of commitment. It's to recognize that volunteering can flex with you, rather than demanding that you flex around it. How to actually find what fits Volunteer The Hague's own search filters make this spectrum easy to see. Before assuming nothing on the platform matches your schedule, filter opportunities by hours per week.This way the site lets you narrow results from "up to 2 hours" all the way to "16 hours or more," plus a separate option for one-off events. A few minutes of filtering often reveals far more options than a first glance suggests. If you'd rather explore in person before committing to anything online, the Mix & Match Volunteer Job Fair on November 28, 2026, is designed exactly for this. It brings internationals together with local NGOs and organizations in one room, with no obligation attached. You get the chance to ask questions, get a feel for different causes, and find out what a realistic level of involvement might look like for you specifically. The takeaway You don't need certainty about how long you'll be in The Hague, or a permanently open weekly slot, to start volunteering. What you need is an hour, or an afternoon, or a willingness to check a filter you might have skipped past. The opportunities already exist at whatever scale fits your life right now, the only step left is finding them.