{"id":1127,"date":"2026-08-01T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T09:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2026-08-02T12:14:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T10:14:44","slug":"eleven-years-in-belval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-superb-addons-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"--superb-dropcap-font-size:96px;--superb-dropcap-line-height:76.8px;--superb-dropcap-padding-top:5.1px;--superb-dropcap-padding-right:10.2px;--superb-dropcap-padding-left:3.8px\">I started at the University of Luxembourg on Saturday 1 August 2015, as its first Social Media Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today is 1 August again, eleven years later, and it has landed on a Saturday. I have been thinking about that all week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eighteen days ago I passed four thousand days here. Yes, I count. Today is four thousand and eighteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Belval was a different place in 2015. The esplanade was there but the life had not arrived. You could stand on it and see straight through the gaps where the rest of the buildings were going to be. Students were already turning up, a bit early, while the cranes were still doing the heavy work around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I thought it would take a generation. It took about a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My job was to tell the University&#8217;s story, and eleven years of that teaches you to look for the story inside the announcement. It is a useful habit. It is also impossible to switch off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which is how I ended up noticing everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A caf\u00e9 opened on the Avenue du Rock&#8217;n&#8217;Roll. Then another. Somebody put a bicycle workshop inside the railway station and started teaching adults to ride. The blast furnaces spent decades being the past and then quietly became something you could climb. And the streets here are named after music: Rock&#8217;n&#8217;Roll, Swing, Blues, Jazz, and one after a concert hall in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I kept finding these things by accident. Somebody mentions something in a queue. You walk past on the right afternoon. There was no list anywhere, and I kept thinking somebody should make one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nobody did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I built it. A couple of weeks, mostly evenings and weekends, and more short nights than I will admit to here. Not for the University, not for work, not for anybody&#8217;s strategy. Just because eleven years of paying attention to a place ought to be worth something to the people living in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It is called I Love Belval, and it is at <a href=\"https:\/\/ilovebelval.com\">ilovebelval.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over a hundred places so far. Where to eat, where to study, where to buy things, where to catch a train. Everything that is on. What opens, what closes, and the small changes that tell you a neighbourhood is alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is independent and it is free. My employer knows, and has been lovely about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eleven years ago I arrived somewhere still under construction and was told, more or less, to go and find the stories. I have been doing it ever since. This is what happens when you keep at it long enough and then decide to give the whole lot away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Belval, thank you. For eleven years, and for whatever comes next.<br>Posted at 11:11, naturally.<br>Smile. Create. Inspire. \u2600\ufe0f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 1 August 2015 I started at the University of Luxembourg. It was a Saturday. Today is a Saturday too, and I have something to give away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-me"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away - Aswin Lutchanah<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Eleven years ago I became the University of Luxembourg&#039;s first Social Media Manager. Today I am launching ilovebelval.com, a guide to everything happening here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away - Aswin Lutchanah\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eleven years ago I became the University of Luxembourg&#039;s first Social Media Manager. Today I am launching ilovebelval.com, a guide to everything happening here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aswin Lutchanah\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-01T09:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-02T10:14:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aswin Lutchanah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aswinlutchanah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aswinlutchanah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Aswin Lutchanah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away - Aswin Lutchanah","description":"Eleven years ago I became the University of Luxembourg's first Social Media Manager. Today I am launching ilovebelval.com, a guide to everything happening here.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away - Aswin Lutchanah","og_description":"Eleven years ago I became the University of Luxembourg's first Social Media Manager. Today I am launching ilovebelval.com, a guide to everything happening here.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/","og_site_name":"Aswin Lutchanah","article_published_time":"2026-08-01T09:11:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-08-02T10:14:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":2560,"url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Aswin Lutchanah","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@aswinlutchanah","twitter_site":"@aswinlutchanah","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Aswin Lutchanah","Estimated reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/"},"author":{"name":"Aswin Lutchanah","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e55fc3c7e19ea287db84544691cff76"},"headline":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away","datePublished":"2026-08-01T09:11:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-02T10:14:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/"},"wordCount":467,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e55fc3c7e19ea287db84544691cff76"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg","articleSection":["About"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/","name":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away - Aswin Lutchanah","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg","datePublished":"2026-08-01T09:11:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-02T10:14:44+00:00","description":"Eleven years ago I became the University of Luxembourg's first Social Media Manager. Today I am launching ilovebelval.com, a guide to everything happening here.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Aswin-Lutchanah-ilovebelval-portrait-blog-scaled.jpeg","width":1920,"height":2560,"caption":"Aswin Lutchanah holding a yellow sign reading ilovebelval.com in front of the Belval blast furnaces, with the red Terres Rouges tower behind."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/eleven-years-in-belval\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Eleven years in Belval, and a website to give away"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/","name":"Aswin Lutchanah","description":"Hybrid Social Media Manager","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e55fc3c7e19ea287db84544691cff76"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4e55fc3c7e19ea287db84544691cff76","name":"Aswin Lutchanah","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cropped-icon-512-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cropped-icon-512-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cropped-icon-512-1.png","width":512,"height":512,"caption":"Aswin Lutchanah"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cropped-icon-512-1.png"},"description":"Hybrid Social Media Manager with over 9 years of experience specialising in Social Media. Experienced with all aspects of Social Media Management. Having a Master degree in Computer Science, I have an in-depth knowledge of the digital world including Social Media, Community Management, Social Media......","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aswinlutchanah.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}