International weeks
Four international weeks spread over the year
- An African week
- An Asian week
- An American week
- A European week
This gives every continent’s students a chance to highlight their respective country’s hallmarks. For instance, they can chose to focus on cultural, social, political or economic features, or others too, depending on whichever aspect they are concerned to showcase for their listeners’ benefit. Time can be allocated to organizing conferences or showing films or to some other form of intellectual pursuit. Other countries’ students may also put together programmes they themselves find appealing.
Students use these international weeks to cook meals typical from their home countries. In that sense, they are afforded an opportunity of sharing their culinary and gastronomic habits with their guests.
The activities in question are open to all, including non-residents. The underlying idea is to create an awareness of Carrefour in the minds of those who may never have heard of it.
STUDENT INITIATIVES
Students translate other ideas into reality too. The most heterogeneous suggestions can be tabled. To the extent that they take care of the premises put at their disposal, they can use it to suit their purposes. Considering that a number of activities need to be supported financially, they are allocated a grant at the beginning of the year from the non-profit-making association (ASBL) and UCL (Catholic University of Louvain) and administer it collectively.
It is here that recreation takes centre stage, e.g. community meals, playing ping-pong matches, football and volleyball or participation in the 24-hour cycling event. Indeed, organizing in-house dances would also come under this heading. This is the point at which the most exotic and unimaginable ideas come to the fore, i.a. dinner parties at which everyone is blindfolded (cf. testimony by Virginie , a blind student).
However, Carrefour, as a non-profit-making entity (ASBL), is not oblivious to the need to seek involvement in today’s world and deliver opinions on the multiplicity of problems warranting solutions. Indeed, the birth of Carrefour itself would be a good illustration (cf. historical background). In 2006, for example, several students from the hostel took part in the movement supporting people with no documents (cf. Video). Students also host debates-discussions on a variety of issues, i.a. fair trade (cf. Celine’s testimony).
Silence reigns in the run-up to examinations. This goes to show that everyone is keen to see their student friends succeed with flying colours.
Students and residents also pool their psychological energies and publish a newsletter to highlight red-letter days in Carrefour life.