Your contribution to the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund
The DAI’s gatherings (coined as Confluences) happen 7 times per year at various locations in and around Europe, and come with expenses outside of the actual classroom. To address this, the DAI created the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund.
This fund covers all accommodation (bed, shower) and communal meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) during DAI confluences. It also provides a partial refund for travel costs that exceed the standard trip from your home base to the Netherlands and back (see the conditions below).
Why do we need a Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund?
Our program is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education (75–80%) and tuition fees (20–25%). We are not permitted to use this institutional budget to fully cover students' food, accommodation, and travel expenses.
- Non-EU and Second Master's Students: For students paying the institutional tuition fee (non-EU passport holders or EU passport holders who already hold a master's degree from the Netherlands), these additional costs are covered by the fund.
- Other Students: For all other students, the contribution to the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund comes on top of their statutory tuition fee.
The fund does not cover educational activities, nor does it cover any food, accommodation, or travel expenses incurred by faculty or crew.
Only “commoning” can make “roaming” possible!
The Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund allows us to warmly welcome all DAI students to take part in DAI's “temporary boarding school support structure for a reasonable price.” It ensures everyone can enjoy the wonderful conviviality during the seven Confluences per year, which sits at the very heart of our program.
WHAT IS COVERED?
Bed & Shower During All DAI Confluences
During the Confluences, all students are accommodated in rooms in youth hostels or alternative group facilities.
Please Note: Facilities are always shared among several DAI students. In general, it is not possible to provide single bedrooms. Our hospitality coordinator Jacq van der Spek will invite you to register for a room alongside your peers. If the venue's conditions allow for it, we will reserve a separate room for anyone who unexpectedly falls ill.
For urgent mental or physical health concerns that require our attention ahead of our annual planning, please contact: Jacq van der Spek, Senior Coordinator of Hospitality & Logistics for the Roaming Academy and emergency response certificate holder.
WHAT ELSE IS COVERED ?
All Communal Meals During All DAI Confluences
Our healthy lunches and dinners served during all Confluences are carefully planned by our Chef de Cuisine, Sophia Zbinovsky Braddel, in collaboration with rotating sous chefs. While the cuisine is primarily vegetarian and vegan, we may occasionally serve fresh fish as an optional addition depending on our location. This will always be served alongside standard vegetarian options.
We will absolutely accommodate all food allergies. Please inform logistics coordinator Jacq van der Spek as far ahead of our annual planning as possible so she can coordinate with Sophia.
Breakfasts are typically provided by the hostels where we stay. While the fund covers these costs, DAI does not control the hostel menus. Alternatively, at self-catering locations, breakfasts are prepared by Sophia and her team, in which case they are entirely vegetarian and vegan.
See also the student-led page on Instagram: thelastthingwecanrelateover
Partial Travel Cost Reimbursements
The travel costs can be refunded back to the students under three very strict conditions.
For each Confluence located outside of the Netherlands, a Travel Cost CAP is established at the beginning of the academic year. To determine this CAP, all students must find the most affordable means of transportation to the location and submit their travel cost estimates. Based on this collective feedback, a specific Travel Cost CAP is set for each Confluence, tailored to every location where students are based.
Once the CAP is established, a refundable percentage (typically 50%) is fixed. This percentage is uniform for all students, though it may vary between Confluences depending on the destination and the available budget.
Your final reimbursement is calculated as follows:
- If your expenses are higher than the CAP: Your refund will be the set percentage calculated from the CAP amount.
- If your expenses are lower than the CAP: Your refund will be the set percentage calculated from the actual amount you paid.
Conditions for Reimbursement
- Submit Location and Estimates: At the beginning of the academic year, you must inform Jacq van der Spek of the location from which you expect to travel, as well as the average travel costs from that location to the Netherlands.
- Book Early and Seek Affordable Options: Students must make a serious effort to secure the most affordable tickets. All destinations are announced in advance and can be booked starting in October.
- Within 400 Kilometers: For locations within a 400-kilometer radius of the Netherlands, the DAI will typically arrange free coach transfers departing from Arnhem (or another designated location) directly to the Confluence. In these cases, you are expected to travel to the Netherlands first. Pickup locations will be communicated in advance.
- Group Flights: Occasionally, the DAI will arrange an affordable group flight departing from the Netherlands (or another location) on a fixed day and time.
- Important Restriction: In both of the cases above, if you choose to travel directly to the Confluence destination independently, your extra travel costs will not be refunded.
- Tuition and Fund Clearance: Ticket refunds are exclusively possible if your tuition fees are completely settled with our parent university, ArtEZ, and your mandatory contributions to the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund are fully paid up to date.
- Payment Structure: Payments to the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund are made in two or more installments. The DAI will send you payment details immediately following introduction week.
Fund Payments & Refund Coordination: Jacq van der Spek and Georgia Stellin.
WHAT DO I HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE BB&S FUND ?
As previously noted, for students paying the institutional tuition fee (non-EU passport holders or EU passport holders who already hold a master's degree from the Netherlands), these additional costs are covered by the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund.
For all other EU passport holders, this fee comes on top of their statutory tuition.
Bread, Bed & Solidarity Student Fund (2026–2028 Cohort)
Total Contribution: 2 x €1800 (Paid across 4 installments over two academic years)
- Installment 1: €800 – Due before September 25, 2026
- Installment 2: €1000 – Due in early 2027, before February 2, 2027
- Installment 3: €800 – Due in late 2027, before September 25, 2027
- Installment 4: €1000 – Due in early 2028, before February 2, 2028
Bread, Bed & Solidarity Student Fund (2025–2027 Cohort)
Total Contribution: 2 x €1750 (Paid across 4 installments over two academic years)
- Installment 1: €750 – Due in late 2025, before November 2, 2025
- Installment 2: €1000 – Due in early 2026, before February 2, 2026
- Installment 3: €750 – Due in late 2026, before November 2, 2026
- Installment 4: €1000 – Due in early 2027, before February 2, 2027
Bread, Bed & Solidarity Student Fund (2024–2026 Cohort)
Total Contribution: 2 x €1700 (Paid across 4 installments over two academic years)
- Installment 1: €700 – Due in late 2024, before November 17, 2024
- Installment 2: €1000 – Due in early 2025, before February 17, 2025
- Installment 3: €700 – Due in late 2025, before November 2, 2025
- Installment 4: €1000 – Due in early 2026, before February 2, 2026
The Opt-Out Policy
At the beginning of the two-year trajectory, incoming EU passport holders have the formal right to refuse to profit from, and pay into, the support structure of the fund. Please note that non-EU students do not have this right, which is why the fund emphasizes “solidarity.”
If you choose the opt-out option, you will still be entitled to participate in all educational programming (the 4 curriculum components). However, you will be excluded from all communal meals for the entire two years. You must always arrange your own catering, even at relatively isolated locations such as PAF or Nida. Additionally, you will have to entirely self-organize your own accommodation and travel for all Confluences.
Particularly in rural places (think, once again, PAF or NIDA) where the DAI settles down for 7 to a max of 12 days, this is going to be super stressful for you, and your actual costs for food, accommodation and travel will be substantially higher than what you have to pay to the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund.
Abscenses
Those who, at the beginning of the two-year trajectory, commit to taking part in the support structure of the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund must pay the full contribution, divided over several prescribed installments (see below).
Skipping (part of) a DAI Confluence as an individual student, for whatever reason, does not entitle you to a discount. It is important to understand that the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund only partially covers the costs incurred by the DAI for our “living together” during DAI Confluences. If everything were broken down to individual payments for the actual costs per student per day, we would have to charge each student a substantially higher contribution. Such compartmentalized payments would lead to students skipping meals, days, or even entire Confluences purely for financial reasons. Precisely to make sure this will not happen, the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund came into being.
Force Majeure, Consultation, and Further Resources
Important Notice regarding Force Majeure: In the event that COVID-19 or any other unforeseen force majeure requires DAI as an institution to cancel one or more scheduled in-real-life DAI Confluences, a reasonable discount will be calculated. If the total sum has already been paid, this will be issued as a refund toward the end of the academic year. Please note that if the missing Confluence days are rescheduled for a later date within the same academic year, no discount or refund can be claimed.
Student Consultation: Matters and questions surrounding the Bread, Bed & Solidarity Fund are regularly discussed and reviewed with the COUNCIL, DAI's consultative student body.
Further Information: For all other details regarding fees and finances, please visit our Finance Page.
This page has been updated for the 2024–2026, 2025–2027, and 2026–2028 academic cycles.
