Universiteit Leiden

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Meet & chat

Meet Stichting We zien mekaar

Date
Monday 11 September 2023
Time
Address
Plexus Student Centre
Kaiserstraat 25
Leiden
Room
Garden

Talking about suicide is important, but anything but comfortable. To make this difficult subject easier for students and staff to discuss, the university is organising a campaign week in line with the national campaign ‘1K Z1E J3’ (I see you) being run by Stichting 113 Zelfmoordpreventie (113 is the phone number of the Dutch helpline).

Is there someone you’re worried about, but you find it difficult to start up a conversation about negative feelings? If so, take a seat on the 1K Z1E J3 bench in the Plexus Student Centre courtyard between 11:00 and 13:00 on 11 September and practise with the friends from Stichting We zien mekaar.

(We See Each Other). This is a foundation set up by a group of friends from Leiden University who were unexpectedly confronted by suicide not once, but twice. The friends invite students and staff members to join them in brainstorming about how to start a conversation if you’re worried about someone, or if you yourself are struggling with negative feelings.

 

The foundation's chair Tim Zuidberg understands that students and staff may find it uncomfortable to sit on one of those benches and talk about negative feelings or suicide. ‘It's perfectly understandable, because we feel exactly the same. And it’s all right for these conversations to feel like that: they actually need a kind of vulnerability. Something that might help: we’re not professionals either. We’re just a group of guys of around 30 who just happen to have experienced this. Who knows, maybe we can learn from each other.’

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