Education

The TU Delft foreign wives club

For thirty-four years the International Neighbour Group (ING) has been bringing together the wives and partners of foreign PhD candidates and professors who have recently moved to the Netherlands, helping them to adjust and showing them a good time.

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“Moving to a foreign country with your spouse can be a terribly lonely experience,” says Nel Torenbeek, chairwoman of ING, as she sets out the cake and coffee. “Often, these women don’t know anyone, they’re trapped in a foreign culture and their husbands are away at university all day. We help to bring these foreign women together, providing the personal contact they need.”

ING, which is subsidised by the TU’s Visitor’s foundation, is run by a group of well-heeled volunteer ‘hostesses’, who lead the various trips, courses and events. Many of these hostesses are wives of academics, so have firsthand experience of the problems foreign wives must confront.

Every Wednesday, ING hosts a coffee morning at the Sebastiaanbrug hotel, where the hostesses entertain the foreign wives of TU academics as their children play and crawl on the floor. ING organises a variety of activities for these women, ranging from Dutch language and cookery courses, day-trips to Kinderdijk’s windmills or Schoonhoven, to the twice monthly ‘Mothers & Toddlers’ meeting.

The ‘guests’, as the foreign wives are called, come from all over the world.

“At an ING meeting you’ll find women from every corner of the world,” says Deborah Sherwood, from the USA, who joined the group as a guest last year and has recently become a hostess. “It’s really a great opportunity to meet new and interesting people.”

For thirty-four years the International Neighbour Group (ING) has been bringing together the wives and partners of foreign PhD candidates and professors who have recently moved to the Netherlands, helping them to adjust and showing them a good time.

“Moving to a foreign country with your spouse can be a terribly lonely experience,” says Nel Torenbeek, chairwoman of ING, as she sets out the cake and coffee. “Often, these women don’t know anyone, they’re trapped in a foreign culture and their husbands are away at university all day. We help to bring these foreign women together, providing the personal contact they need.”

ING, which is subsidised by the TU’s Visitor’s foundation, is run by a group of well-heeled volunteer ‘hostesses’, who lead the various trips, courses and events. Many of these hostesses are wives of academics, so have firsthand experience of the problems foreign wives must confront.

Every Wednesday, ING hosts a coffee morning at the Sebastiaanbrug hotel, where the hostesses entertain the foreign wives of TU academics as their children play and crawl on the floor. ING organises a variety of activities for these women, ranging from Dutch language and cookery courses, day-trips to Kinderdijk’s windmills or Schoonhoven, to the twice monthly ‘Mothers & Toddlers’ meeting.

The ‘guests’, as the foreign wives are called, come from all over the world.

“At an ING meeting you’ll find women from every corner of the world,” says Deborah Sherwood, from the USA, who joined the group as a guest last year and has recently become a hostess. “It’s really a great opportunity to meet new and interesting people.”

Editor Redactie

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