Arnhem Celebrates Coming In Week: Together Visible, Together Inclusive

From October 5 to 12, 2025, Arnhem will focus on Coming In Week. COC Midden-Gelderland, together with the municipality, Vizier, InDifferent, SWOA, Café de Kurk, and other partners, will organize a week full of encounters, art, and dialogue. The values of visibility, connection, and inclusion are central: working together for a city where everyone can be themselves.

An Invitation for All Arnhemmers

Coming In Week is meant for everyone. It is an invitation to share stories, appreciate differences, and engage in conversation. Arnhem aims to be a city where everyone feels seen, heard, and safe, regardless of background, belief, origin, gender identity, or whom you love.

Highlights from the Program

Festive Opening at City Hall

The week starts with a reception at City Hall, attended by the alderman for Inclusion, the chair of COC Midden-Gelderland, and speaker Haroon Ali. They will reflect on why it is important to organize a Coming In Week. They will also share more about the rainbow community and the challenges this community may face. Artists and experts will share their stories and provide an inspiring kickoff.

Pride Walk on October 11

A colorful and energetic march through the city, musically accompanied and open to everyone: whether you belong to the LGBTQIA+ community or are an ally. Together we celebrate visibility, equality, and solidarity.

Cultural Program

Throughout the week, there will also be various activities, including a queer art exhibition, dance workshops, film screenings at Focus Film Theater, and poetry and reading evenings under the motto “We are more than letters.” Art and culture as a means to share stories and meet each other.

Street Names with a Voice

The municipality of Arnhem wants to be an inclusive city. A city where everyone feels seen, heard, and safe. Where everyone is treated equally. Explaining street names is one of the many ways we work towards an inclusive city. On the website Explanation of Arnhem Street Names, you can find more about Street Explanations.

During Coming In Week, we reflect on who we are as a city. We celebrate diversity but also look at our history. Because inclusion means not only making space for each other today but also recognizing where we come from.

That is why we will unveil the new sign for Mr. Jacob Anton Schorerstraat during Coming In Week. Some street names refer to people or events from the past. They carry stories, memories, and meanings that tell us something about who we were, who we are, and who we want to be as a city. By adding extra information, we make those stories visible.

More Neighborhoods, More Stories

This project is part of a broader approach to provide context and explanation for street names in Arnhem. The Transvaal neighborhood was the first area where street names were provided with explanations, followed by Hazegrietje as the second neighborhood. Here, it concerns Van Heutszlaan and Karel van der Heijdenweg, streets that refer to colonial soldiers and thus also to a charged part of our history. This way, residents and visitors gain more insight into the stories behind the street names. In other neighborhoods, explanatory signs will also appear in the coming years, so that gradually it becomes visible which history our city carries with it.