We Decolonize VUB

🚨 WeDecolonize is looking for new BOARD members! 🚨

Are you passionate about creating a more just society, free of racism and coloniality? 🌍📚

WeDecolonize is looking for students to join a renewed version of the project next academic year 2026–2027! 🔥

Since WD’s creation by a group of racialized students at the VUB in 2020, WD has served as a platform, a learning hub, a safer space and much more to (re)center racialized communities in higher education.

Since then, the project has expanded to all Flemish higher education institutions.
As board member you’ll work around four pillars, namely:

1)The deconstruction of Eurocentric knowledge systems by organizing
educational events and doing academic sensitization and lobby work. 🌍

2) The creation of safer spaces on university campuses. We have our decolonial library at the VUB. This is a place where students and organizations can gather to organize, plan, and build solidarity. 📚

3) Community–building: WeDecolonize builds community by including (student)
organizations in our interuniversity network. 🤝

4) Public Action: Besides a Summer School at the end of the project
year. You’ll develop competencies such as project and event management,
public communication, academic and creative knowledge sharing, and leadership in an academic context. 🚨

🚀 Ready to make an impact, challenge the status quo, and reimagine what the university can be?

🔗 Click the link in our bio for more info or scan the QR code!
👉🏽 https://www.ucos.be/wedecolonize-2-3/

Two days, countless conversations, new connections, shared creativity, reflection, joy, softness, critical thinking, and so much collective care 🤍

This weekend, we closed off our academic year with our WeDecolonize Summer School and honestly… we could not have imagined it like this.

Despite the beautiful weather outside, over 80 people came together to think, create, discuss, write, move, listen, share, and imagine with us ☀️

From panel talks on third spaces and women in higher education, to poetry, songwriting, dance therapy, film screenings..., every activity reminded us why spaces like these matter.

What stayed with us most was the openness in every room. The willingness to reflect together, to sit with complexity, to imagine differently, and to collectively build spaces centered around care, knowledge, lived experience, and community.

Thank you to everyone who attended, spoke, performed, facilitated, supported, helped behind the scenes, or simply shared space with us this weekend. This Summer School was everything it was because of all of you 🌱

We are beyond proud of how we got to close off this year together.

Until next time,
WD 🤍

🎶 Summer School Workshop: Songwriting on Joy

What does joy sound like to you?
In this workshop, we explore joy through music, storytelling, and songwriting. Together, we reflect on softness, healing, community, and the moments that allow us to breathe a little deeper 🤍

No experience needed, just come as you are.

🗓 Saturday 23rd of May
🕞 15:30 – 17:00
📍 VUB Usquare A.0.05

Sign up via the link in bio 🔗

🎤 Summer School Open Mic: Race & Code Switching

How many versions of yourself do you move through in a day?
What parts of yourself feel welcome in certain spaces and which parts stay hidden?

Join us for an evening of poetry, storytelling, music, reflection, and conversation as we explore race, identity, language, belonging, and the realities of code switching. A space to share, listen, and simply exist together 🤍

Whether you want to perform or just be present, everyone is welcome.

🗓 Saturday 23rd of May
🕢 19:30 – 21:00
📍 VUB Usquare Grand Hall

Sign up via the link in bio 🔗

📚 Book of the week: *A Taste of Power* by Elaine Brown

In this powerful memoir, Elaine Brown reflects on her journey through the Black Panther Party as the first and only woman to lead the movement.

Brown writes about revolution, survival, sexism, political struggle, and what it means to search for power in a world built to deny it to you. At the same time, she does not romanticize activism, showing both the strength and contradictions within liberation movements.

*A Taste of Power* is not only a story about the Panthers. It is a story about Black womanhood, political awakening, and the cost of fighting for collective freedom ✊🏾

For those interested in Black radical history, feminist politics, and the messy realities of resistance.

We’re opening our Summer School with a panel on third spaces for racialised people

What does it mean to create spaces where we can exist beyond expectation, pressure, and representation? Spaces that are ours, shaped by community, care, and resistance.

Together with and , we’re bringing voices together to reflect, share, and imagine what these spaces can be 🤍

🗓 Friday 21 May
🕖 19:10 – 20:30 (Q&A 20:30 – 21:00)
📍 VUB Campus, Room D2.01

Sign up via the link in bio

As part of our Summer School, we’re screening the short film *Still Processing* followed by an aftertalk 🎬

Directed by Sonia Mutaganzwa and Jean Luc Niyonshuti, *Still Processing* is a poetic exploration of grief and healing. Through the five stages of grief, the film reflects on loss beyond the physical touching on identity, self-worth, relationships, and direction.

Healing is not linear. We fall, process, heal, and sometimes fall again. This film invites us to sit with that cycle and reflect on what it means to keep moving through it 💭

Join us for an evening of film, conversation, and collective reflection 🤍

🗓 Saturday 23 May
🕕 18:00 – 19:30
📍 VUB Usquare

Sign up via the link in bio 🔗