
Statement of Solidarity with Wageningen Student Encampment
We support the student-led movement on campus to pressure WUR to divest, boycott, and disclose ties with Israeli institutions and companies complicit in apartheid, occupation, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. From May until end of November, students were camping on the bridge between Orion and Forum, while months of negotiation with the Board to end complicity in human rights violations seemed to be ignored, downplayed, or defended in the name of ''academic freedom''! We stand behind the students demands and urge the Boards to reorient from fantasy, hypocrisy, and denial towards accountability and justice.
Upcoming Events
keep reading below for more info!
Poisoning the well: toxic behaviours in Academia

When: Wednesday February 12 @17:30
Where: Dance room, WUR Clockhouse (Generaal Foulkesweg 37, 6703 BL Wageningen)
There are several reasons why we enroll at a university and there are several ways in which a university education contributes to our personal and professional development. A degree can open doors to many different career paths, classes can be a great opportunity to meet new people, and some university professors are great mentors. However, the same classrooms can impact us in less constructive ways: since we are compelled to prove we are better, smarter, and more special than those around us.
Tonight, we will explore how universities shape us through discussing public intellectuals, people who make a living by being visibly smarter and more special than others. (Self-reflection can only be truly effective, if we ask ourselves the toughest questions, like, do we have something in common with Jordan Peterson?;))
Vegan snacks and tea will be provided :)
REST,EMBODY,RESIST: 3-part workshop w/ Zahira Mous

Join us for our three-part workshop series: REST EMBODY RESIST with Zahira Mous
Workshop dates: 12, 20, 26 February 2025, from 5-8 pm. As we build up the content and the trust in the group, we generally expect attendance in all three sessions unless communicated with us for certain circumstances.
Location: Clockhouse building Old library (Generaal Foulkesweg 37, Wageningen)
Questions to: otherwise@wur.nl
Sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HaczU_P5ne2y48ikmF6uudZU9QmsPGHyZBx7CoSWSJ4/edit
This three-part workshop is focused on movement and mind-body connection, for people who want to heal and learn in a group setting. Zahira uses decolonized healing methods to help the community cope with the demanding reality of being human. Modalities utilized: sharing and listening, EFT, moving from the wisdom of the body, and creativity. It is a three-part workshop series during which we deepen the work each session, diving into layers of our being, making an inner inquiry and creating space within (sometimes questions, sometimes answers). With this work, you'll gain tools to help regulate your nervous system, increasing self-awareness through recognizing your worth, as well as connecting to (building) community. Welcome to REST | EMBODY | RESIST.
For whom?
Rest And Resist emerged as a platform for needing a supportive and safe space for fellow activists and artists fighting for a free Palestine, and beyond. Their work focuses on fighting exhaustion, separation, burnout, harm, and disillusionment in activist movements. If you are longing for a collective space where you can rest with intent to co-regulate, build resilience, supportive networks, mutual care, and trust, this space is for you. As we will use our bodies to move and heal what needs healing, we aim to accommodate bodies of different abilities. If you have any questions or concerns weather this space is for you, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at otherwise@wur.nl.
Facilitator
Zahira Mous's work is about embodied healing; generating feelings of inner freedom. From exploring artistic and spiritual practices across the globe, Zahira developed understandings of varying cultures and languages and how they influence humanity and, by extension, the arts - and vice versa, how the arts influence humanity.
Zahira Mous's life started out with dance. Alongside performing and creating choreographic projects, Zahira traveled to various places and offered healing through dance and movement; specifically providing girls and young women with joy and tools to cope with traumas from human trafficking, (sexual) violence, and poverty. Those experiences developed her dance therapy practice.
Zahira holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance and a Graduate Certificate in Women's & Gender Studies and a Bachelor of Theater in Education. She is the director of dance theater company Project Zahira, founder of the non-profit Healing Arts Foundation, and co-director of REST|RESIST. Zahira is certified in NLP and EFT as well as a therapy series based on a Jungian approach focused on healing the inner teenager.
As an activist and artist, she focuses on improving human rights / women's rights in Brazil, India, Palestine, and in the Netherlands. Decolonizing therapeutic and cultural practices is significant if we want to dismantle imperialism, capitalism and the patriarchy.
Beyond Cutting Ties: Critique of Collaboration Principles

January 20th: Critique of the current system: Principles of collaboration.
What is this workshop about?
This workshop will focus on how WUR currently operates, how decisions are made with who we collaborate with as a university, and in particular, identifying key issues with the current system.
What will we be doing in the workshop?
The workshop will consist of short keynotes to set the scene, focusing on fossil fuel ties (keynote speaker: Aaron Pereira, Solid Sustainability Research), colonialism and genocide (keynote speaker: Jennifer Veilleux, WUR), and WUR's principles of collaboration (Wageningen for Palestine), before moving into interactive breakout groups. In these breakout groups, you'll be guided by a facilitator to brainstorm about and problematize WUR's current collaboration system. We will then come together to harvest our learnings and discuss how to move forward collectively. Throughout the workshop, there will also be opportunities for connection, as well as for learning about some of the different movements involved at WUR. We will use the insights gained in this workshop as a framework for the next event, where we reimagine the collaboration system.
Spiritual Ecology Core-training 2025

Read more and sign up here: Core-training Spiritual Ecology - winter & spring 2025
What is Spiritual Ecology?
Spiritual Ecology starts with the acknowledgement that the global ecological crisis, which cannot be separated from the social, economic and political crises, is also the defining crisis of the human species. We are being challenged as a species, to ‘grow up or to get out of the way’, according to Thich Nhat Hanh.
The good news is that the universe is a self-aware creative process, and this pure creative potentiality is in us too. It can awaken and free itself from the limiting identities and illusion of separateness we hold as human beings. We are much larger, stronger, deeper and more creative than we’ve grown accustomed to believing.
This paradigm shift requires of us a decolonizing of our mind, a deeper listening from a more humbled place within how to be a human being for all life to thrive. As the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Akong Rinpoche used to say when travelling with his aid organization through Tibet, “only the impossible is worth doing”.
With the Core-training we offer a practical and transformative journey both personally and collectively. The Spiritual Ecology practices we offer come from indigenous and ancient wisdom traditions, systems theory, neuroscience, Kincentric leadership, the Work that Reconnects, nature connection and engaged mindfulness and compassion practices.
By exploring our experiences inside and in relating to the human and more-than-human world we invite different ways of knowing to access the wisdom in the group. We want to create a space where we can relax, where we can embrace our humanness (being a 'compassionate mess') and support one another in our membership of the group and the larger community of life, finding our own unique part to play in contributing to a better world.
Practical details
6 days in person + 2 online sessions
In person: 15 -16 Feb, 22-23 March, 10-11 May 2025, from 10.00 – 17.30
Online sessions via Zoom: 13th of March & 17th of April 2025 from 19.30 – 21.00 CET
Location: KenKon Training Centre, Nieuwe Kanaal 11, Wageningen.
Past Events

When? December 19th, 17h-20h
Where? Dance room, WUR clockhouse (https://maps.app.goo.gl/g9ZZqiBim5MC4HYz7)
Unlearning toxic masculinity in ourselves and our activism
On Thursday December 19th the Utrecht based ‘unlearning toxic masculinity’ collective Patriarkraakt will give a workshop at the WUR Activist Academy.
While we are often focused on changing others, the world and the future, we’ve all internalized unhealthy characteristics of the current system that deeply influence our lives and our activism. One of the main areas where there is a gap between the world we long for and our daily reality are gendered relations and the gendered ways in which we operate. Unhealthy aspects of masculinity and patriarchy continue to be present and even celebrated in personal relations, group dynamics and movement culture.
Whether it is toxic heroic and burnout activism being encouraged, acts of (self)care being invisibilized or downplayed, men taking up too much space, normalizing or not adressing transgressive behavior, etcetera – from intimate relationships to mass movement culture, unhealthy gendered interactions are sadly still too prevalent.
Patriarkraakt works to make visible, discuss and change harmful gender dynamics, and proposes that all activists, groups and movements implement such practices as an integral part of their activism. In this way people get the insights and the tools to start creating the world they’d like to see in the here and now so as to make activism safer, more sustainable and more fun for everyone.
We think all of us have internalised some bits of the patriarchy, but to different degrees. We want to encourage everyone to be open and reflecting on themselves - having a brave space to learn, but also being caring with the painful experiences participants might be reminded of. Although we invite everyone to be part of a 'brave space' in which we can be vulnerable, open and learn, we cannot guarantee a safe space for everyone.

Time: 5th Dec 2024, 17.00 - 19.30 h
Location: Clockhouse (Generaal Foulkesweg 37, Wageningen), room: Old Library
Join this dynamic and reflective workshop with Niki & Katha, where we will explore the themes of decoloniality, accountability, and responsibility. Using the "7 steps forward, 7 steps backward or aside" framework, we will open up a space for awareness, self-reflection, and meaningful conversation.
This workshop will invite participants to examine the inner work required to confront and unlearn colonial mindsets, especially for those of us living in the Global North. Through dialogue, movement, and community-building, we will raise essential questions of accountability:
What does it mean to take accountability for historical and ongoing inequities? How do we navigate our roles in systems of power and privilege? What does this inner work of deconstruction look like?
Together, we reflect on power, privilege, complexity, and positionality, creating an inclusive and brave space for everyone to share their perspectives. The aim is to foster a sense of connection and community that will inspire participants to carry this work forward.
This is an invitation to move together—whether we take steps forward, backward, or aside—as we engage in this collective journey.