Supported projects

BRUSSELS – Drinking water is arguably one of the most strictly regulated foodstuffs. After all, it is vital for life and consumed in large quantities every day. The water that European water companies pump through their pipes is clean. But what about the water that comes out at the other end of the ...

NEW DELHI - Grensloos India (India without frontiers) is a collection of critical travel essays with political depth. The book is a combination of travelogue, reflection and reportage on various facets of modern India: globalisation, the computer industry, religion and politics, poverty and ...

BRUSSELS - Belgium is home to countless international organisations, as well as a large number of politically active refugees and migrants. This makes our country attractive to espionage and foreign intelligence services.

SURAT - Once upon a time, Antwerp was the world's centre for diamond trading and cutting. As of 2005, the trade is still present, but Antwerp's renowned diamond industry is in decline. In an increasingly globalised world, diamond processing here has become too labour-intensive and expensive.

BEIJING - China has been on a spectacular economic rise for several years. It threatens to overtake Europe and the US as a global power. Is it a bubble that is about to burst, or should the West really fear the "yellow peril"? Who are China's modern-day gold-diggers, and are Chinese workers being ...

TEHERAN - What is it like to get by day to day with religious guidelines but no money? For the September issue of MO*magazine, David Nollet travelled to Iran with Gie Goris. This article provides an analysis and photographs of a young population living under enormous pressure.

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ - In January 2004, it will be ten years since the Zapatista Army of Liberation (EZLN) took up arms in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The rebels set themselves an unlikely mission: to declare war on neoliberalism.

BRUSSELS - The outgoing Belgian finance minister, Didier Reynders, has secured eight secret contracts with tobacco manufacturers to fund the Rodin Foundation's anti-smoking campaigns.

KIGALI - After the genocide of 1994, the Rwandan government temporarily suspended history from the school curriculum. The characters in After Years of Walking - children, teachers, genocide killers, students and historians - all find themselves in an uncertain zone between the old history and a new ...

BRUSSELS - Europe is expanding. May 2004 will be the moment of truth. Europe will then extend beyond the tundra of Finland, the sovkhozes and kolkhozes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the billboard-cluttered landscape of Poland, the gypsy settlements of Slovakia and the nationalism-ridden ...

BRUSSELS – Marleen Teugels came face to face with the suffering of ailing Balkan veterans almost by chance. Shocked by their stories, she has delved ever deeper into the alien military world since the autumn of 1999. She has gradually come to realise that these complaints, obscure files and horrific ...

ZAVENTEM - Steven Decraene, Peter Denruyter and Geert Sciot are three journalists who have delved into the complex and tragic Sabena case. Sabena was the first national airline in Europe to disappear. How did this happen to the country's flying monument?

OUAGADOUGOU - When freelance photographer Karl Deckers realised he had not received any Annual Progress Reports about his foster child anymore for the years 1999 and 2000, he looked through the reports from 1992 to 1998. To his surprise, each year's report seemed to be more or less a copy of that of ...

GOMA - Today, Congolese Tutsis are returning home to the region where they have lived for centuries, and which, according to their leaders, rightfully belongs to them. Calling themselves 'Kongomani', or 'citizens of Congo', they are prepared to fight for their rights. They believe that the Congolese ...

DOHA – At the end of 2000, Lut Vandeykeybus set off for Qatar, armed with a camera, lavalier microphones and countless cassettes, to fulfil a long-held dream of making a film about life in a harem. She had already travelled there once a few months earlier to do some preliminary research and ...

JERUSALEM - Needless to say, the 'new intifada' in Israel/Palestine is having a major international impact. On the one hand, it is one of the longest-running and most mediatised conflicts of the post-war era; on the other hand, the coverage seems to be mostly one-sided. By this, Abicht means that ...

SALVADOR DA BAIA - The popularity of world music has been on the rise in recent years. But often the countries of origin of the musicians in question are only in the news because of wars, disasters or economic crises. The story behind the music, the importance of it in society as catalyst for ...

BRUSSELS – An exposé by freelance journalist Marleen Teugels in Knack sheds light on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct within the Belgian army. Despite the General Staff's attempts to keep the confidential report on the matter under wraps, Teugels managed to obtain it after three months of ...

PRETORIA - David Van Reybrouck investigates whether and to what extent Maurice Maeterlinck, so far the only Belgian Nobel laureate in literature, committed plagiarism when writing 'La Vie des Termites' (1926).

BUKAVU - Finding out who they are is the aim of this documentary project. News reports suggest that genuine Mayi-Mayi militias are operating. In reality, however, the Mayi-Mayi are said to be nothing more than a hard core of poorly armed civilians. Nevertheless, they would make life extremely ...

KAMPALA - Africa specialist Els De Temmerman is the first person to receive support from the fund. In her book The Girls of Aboke, she talks about the fate of two girls who were used as child soldiers by rebels in their fight with the government army in northern Uganda. The girls, like thousands of ...

ZAGREB / LJUBLJANA – Along the Sava, Krka, Mura, Drava and Danube basins, beavers are still treated as a local nuisance, while their dams quietly reduce floods, retain water and filter pollution. This investigation asks: What if Europe counted them as climate infrastructure rather than damage?