Supported projects

BRUSSELS - The 'Black Neighbourhoods' project is a result of the writing residence of the Flemish-Dutch organisation deBuren. While the authors were walking through Paris, they were both attracted to Château Rouge, an African neighbourhood immediately behind Montmartre. The positive sides but also the struggles of the neighborhood with gentrification and crime, reminded them of that other African neighbourhood, much closer to home: Matonge in Brussels. That was the start of a long search for the history, identity and future of black neighbourhoods in Europe.

YAOUNDE -  How witchcraft corrodes the African economy and society -  "Under the guise of witchcraft people are tortured, murdered and development money is wasted. But local governments and international aid organisations remain passive," write Alberique Houndjo (Benin), Chief Bisong Etahoben (Cameroon), Fidelis Mac-Leva (Nigeria), Anneke Verbraeken (The Netherlands). 

INDIA - Being transgender seems to be a fairly recent concept in Belgium and the Netherlands, but in India there has been a deep-rooted culture around the third sex for centuries.

UGANDA - In “Bewitched”, Daan Bauwens, Rien Bauwens and Yann Verbeke head to Uganda. A team of young Ugandan psychologists visits fishing villages on the shores of Lake Victoria. They are going to tell that there is such a thing as mental health and that it it can be helpful to talk about it. Because too often people with problems go to a witch.

MYANMAR - The Karen People are an ethnic minority of eastern and southern Burma (Myanmar). Many Karen people live in north-western Thailand as refugees from the decades-long Karen insurgency and Burmese government oppression. 

BELGIUM/NETHERLANDS - Ivo Van Hove has conquered the world. As the leader of the largest theater company in the Netherlands, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, he makes theater productions that are enthusiastically welcomed worldwide.

Sex before marriage is punishable by lashes and incarceration. Adultery even with the death penalty. And that is why promiscuous sexual behavior in Iran is the norm. Two journalists, with the support of the Pascal Decroos Fund, made a captivating undercover report from the underbelly of Tehran.

ITALY - Italy: it is not a neighbouring country and yet it often feels like it is. But how well do we know that country and its people? Couldn't our knowledge of Italy and the Italians, almost seventy years after they emigrated en masse to our country, reach a little further?