European house
As a grassroots organisation with international roots, we see Europe as a common space where people from all backgrounds can contribute, grow, and feel at home. Our vision of Europe is human-centred, artistic, and open to change.
Dar al Yasmin stands for a Europe that welcomes, listens, and learns – from its past and from its newcomers.
Cultural heritage
At Dar al Yasmin, we support newcomers in finding their way — not only in the Netherlands, but also in Europe as a wider community. This journey is not only about practical matters. It also means becoming familiar with, and perhaps even growing to love, certain aspects of European culture.
To feel at home in Europe, it helps to understand some of the stories, values, and questions that have shaped it — both the light and the shadow.
We want to share cultural treasures with special meaning: the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, whose early thoughts on being and truth lie at the roots of European thinking. The birth of democracy in Athens — imperfect and limited, yet powerful in its vision. The Enlightenment, and the bold hope of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity. And the works of writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who searched for harmony between nature, art and reason, or Joseph Roth, who gave voice to the heartbreak and longing of a disappearing world.
But we also wish to speak honestly about the darker sides of this heritage: colonial violence, exclusion, war, and the times when Europe forgot its own values.
For us, cultural heritage is not a museum. It is a living field of meaning. A space where newcomers can listen, reflect, and add their own voice.
That is why we organise storytelling evenings, creative workshops, podcasts, and cultural walks — all ways to explore Europe’s soul together. We do not offer lessons in history, but moments of connection. Together, we search for the places where personal journeys and shared heritage meet.
Imagining Europe: connections and borders
Europe is more than a continent. It is a web of connections — and also a landscape of borders, both visible and invisible. We are curious about what is truly European, and what in Europe has always come from beyond.
From the poetry of Andalusia to the sciences of Baghdad, from Alexandria’s ancient library to the streets of Sarajevo, Europe has never been sealed off. Its ideas have grown in dialogue — with Africa, with Asia, with the Middle East. The beauty of European art, thought and architecture often carries echoes from elsewhere.
Think of cities like Granada, where Arabic, Jewish and Christian traditions once coexisted and collided. Or Isfahan, whose aesthetics travelled to Venice through textiles and tiles. Or Algiers, where the philosopher Malek Bennabi and the writer Jean Sénac imagined new paths between European and Arab thought — and where the French-Algerian thinker Mohammed Arkoun later asked how to reconcile reason and spirituality in both traditions.
We see Europe not as a fixed identity, but as a space of movement and meaning. We honour its roots — democracy, critical thinking, art —, we remember its violence, while also tracing the many branches that reach far beyond its borders. In doing so, we invite newcomers not only to arrive, but to take part in Europe’s ongoing story.
European civic engagement
All across Europe, people are taking initiative — starting community gardens, organising neighbourhood dialogues, helping refugees find their way, setting up youth groups, or using art to speak about justice and identity. This is civic engagement: people shaping their society from the ground up.
We are part of this movement and although we act merely locally we feel it as a part of a bigger movement.
Through our participation in European projects such as exchanges for social workers and youth workers (Erasmus+), we work together with partners across the continent to support active citizenship — especially among newcomers and young people.
We create workshops, cultural events and learning journeys that connect local action with European values. We explore questions like: What does it mean to be part of a community? How do we deal with differences? How can we care for the places where we live?
For us, civic engagement is not something abstract. It happens here and now — when someone tells their story, starts a conversation, joins a community activity, or dares to imagine a better future.
In our European work, we see how powerful these small acts can be. They build bridges. They strengthen democracy. And they show that Europe is not only made in institutions — it is made in daily life, by people who care.