Supported projects

Antananarivo - When the news from Beijing reached Madagascar on September 6th, 2018, that a deal of 2.7 billion USD was signed on the country’s “blue economy” with China, people in the second largest island country panicked. Rightfully so. Nobody, including the fishing ministry, had heard of such a deal before heads. 

LESBOS - Dimitri Van Zeebroeck and Lize Van Dyck join forces for a special film documentary about the migration crisis, more specifically in Lesbos, Greece. In the meantime, they write blog posts and articles for MO*, a Belgian magazine.

DILOVASI - The Toxic Valley project looks into the environmental consequences of industrialisation in Turkey, and reveals a pattern of chemical dumping and polluting that has led to a widespread health crisis in the Kocaeli region, the most heavily industrialised area of the country.

AFGHANISTAN - Now that the Taliban is constantly threatening with attacks on polling stations and other places, it is fearful to see what the Afghan presidential elections of September 28 will bring. But everyone is convinced that they must continue: “The Taliban cannot stop us anymore. It's too late for that." 

MECHELEN - ‘Wablieft’ (Flemish interjection meaning ‘Excuse me?’) is a newspaper that has been providing clear news for low-literate adults in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) for more than thirty years. Next to a weekly newspaper it also publishes ‘Wablieft Start’, a biweekly news magazine in even simpler Dutch.
 

IRAQ - In the summer of 2014, IS invaded the Sinjar region in northern Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of residents fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, or to Mount Sinjar, not knowing that help would come days later. Without food or water many died of exhaustion. But IS had come not only to expand the Caliphate, but also to eradicate the Jezidis, a community with its own religion and an ancient culture. Fate awaited residents who were locked down by IS. The men were killed; women and girls sold as slaves and boys were put in IS training camps.

BUCHAREST - The need of Italian mafia networks to carry out vast money-laundering operations took them to Romania and Bulgaria. They set up companies that not only succeeded in flying under the radar but also won government contracts. 

PTOLEMAIDA - In Greece, coal is considered "national fuel" and policymakers have always treated it as such. The future of the coal industry, however, is not taken for granted. The price of coal has increased, the industry is operating against EU's environmental and economic policies and its proponents and opponents are more than ever at odds. 

BERLIN - Are online dating applications designed to make us react in a certain way? Why do men do not attract enough attention and women increasingly receive insults and inappropriate messages? Our grantees, Judith Duportail and Nicolas Kayser-Bril, investigated how the architecture of a dating application influences how users behave. 

CAPE TOWN - Although cyberspace is not the main platform for the illegal wildlife trade, it provides an anonymous and versatile marketplace in which to buy and sell. It is safe to say that the internet plays a role at some point in an increasing number of wildlife trafficking incidents.