‘Are you OK?’ Student rowing club Pelargos wins Student Well-being Award
Are you OK? This question aims to help make unwelcome behaviour easier to talk about. Student rowing club Pelargos made a personal variant on the national campaign, which won them Leiden University’s Well-being Award.
Well-being and feeling safe and respected are important themes within study and student associations. The Student Well-being Award is given to a student organisation that engages with these issues.
Club members on the photo
The Hague rowing club made posters featuring its own members, which gave it the edge in winning the award. Vice-chair of Pelargos Maud Stamsnijder: ‘On the posters you can see a competition rower, the head of the bar committee, a first-year student member and a member of the committee. These are super photos. They’ve been used in the template of the national ‘Are you OK?’ campaign and distributed at locations where a lot of members are present. Putting our own members on the photo made the campaign much more personal and recognisable.’
As well as the posters, Pelargos organises a lot of initiatives about well-being and feeling safe in social environments. The social safety working group staged a well-being week, where the GELIJKSPEL training that deals with flirting, sex and related issues was offered. The club committee also follows training courses about feeling safe in social environments.
‘I am incredibly proud of the recognition we are getting and of the work that has gone into this within the club. It’s fantastic and a great honour as a club in The Hague to receive this recognition,’ said Stijn Westerhof, chair of Pelargos.
Student well-being in the spotlight
The prize was presented during the traditional meeting between the new committee members of the student organisations and the Executive Board. During the meeting, attention is also paid to student initiatives relating to well-being and social security.
‘You are doing some incredibly important work,’ said Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board. ‘The associations play a key role in making everyone’s student years a happy time. Student well-being has been paid more attention in recent years, and the student organisations have played their part in this.’ When assessing the initiatives, the Student Well-being team look at how innovative and inspiring the ideas are. They also take into account the potential for introducing an idea or campaign more widely.’
Honourable mentions for Seks.Co & Catena
The Executive Board was impressed by the nominations. Two student organisations therefore also received an honourable mention for their commitment to student well-being.
The first mentioned was the ‘Seks.Co’ committee of the Fortuna student association at Leiden University College. The committee is concerned with sexual health, relationships and intimacy. They offer educational workshops on sexual well-being and at the ‘Men & Margaritas’ evenings, masculinity and stereotypes are open for discussion by male members.
Student association Catena also received an honourable mention. At a ‘simulation party’, the members were given the opportunity to practise with situations relating to social safety. The training sessions are organised by senior year students who have experience and affinity with the theme
Photos ‘Are you OK’ campaign: Just van Unen.
Student Well-being & Leiden University
More and more attention is being paid to student well-being. Not only by educational institutions, but also within student organisations. This is a development that Leiden University encourages and supports.
Are you a student organisation within the university community and would you like to know more about the opportunities for support? If so, get in touch with the Student well-being office. If you are a student and you want to be kept informed about activities and developments around student well-being, you can sign up for the monthly Student Well-being Newsletter!