Night of the Volunteer

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.

The Humanity Hub invites you to their September Community Drinks. The topic is AI & Humanity; Navigating Technology, Ethics, and Society on Thursday, 17 September. Connect, share & learn about what different organisations are doing to make the world more peaceful and sustainable at the Community Drinks. What if your next game-changing connection is just a drink away? Join them for Community Drinks to wind down around a glass, make new connections, and get inspired by the spotlights of the evening. Hosted at The Hague Humanity Hub, this is the place for you to get away from your busy schedule and enjoy after-hours with purposeful conversations. What can you expect? Artificial Intelligence is no longer a technology of the future. It is already influencing how we work, communicate, make decisions, share information, and respond to complex social challenges. Across humanitarian action, peacebuilding, international justice, education, media, public policy, and civil society, AI is creating new possibilities. At the same time, it raises urgent questions about ethics, bias, transparency, accountability, privacy, trust, and human oversight. Join us on Thursday, 17 September, from 17:30 to 19:00, for the September edition of The Hague Humanity Hub Community Drinks. Under the theme “AI & Humanity: Navigating Technology, Ethics, and Society,” this edition will explore the human dimension of Artificial Intelligence. Rather than approaching AI as a purely technical subject, we will bring together perspectives from across technology, research, humanitarian action, policy, social innovation, and civil society to consider how AI can be developed and used responsibly. The question is no longer simply whether we should use AI, but how we can use it in ways that support people, strengthen institutions, and contribute to more inclusive and accountable societies. Together, we will explore questions such as: What does a responsible AI look like in practice? Can AI improve humanitarian and peacebuilding efforts without compromising ethics? How do we prevent AI from reinforcing existing inequalities? What responsibilities come with using AI across civil society and international organisations? Through short speaker spotlights and open discussion, the evening will create space for practical examples, critical reflection, and exchange across sectors. Who are the speakers? impactID offers a secure, purpose‑driven platform designed hand‑in‑hand with NGOs and foundations to make fundraising, project management, and results tracking simpler, smarter, and more human. More speakers to be announced shortly. Who is it for? If you are interested in connecting with people and their work towards a more peaceful, just and sustainable world, this event is for you. Whatever your role or sector, join Community Drinks to relax, exchange perspectives, and connect with this vibrant community committed to making the world more peaceful, just and sustainable, one conversation at a time. Date: Thursday, 17 September Time: 17:30–19:00 Location: The Hague Humanity Hub Come meet fellow professionals, exchange perspectives, and explore how technology and humanity can evolve together.