Supported projects

BRUSSELS - Wout Van der Steen is an 8-year-old deaf boy from Wuustwezel. His parents are happy to let him go to a mainstream school, where he is entitled to an interpreter of Flemish Sign Language. This interpreter translates everything, both what the teacher says and what his classmates say. 

MARIUPOL - The Sea of ​​Azov is the shallowest sea in the world. The entire region around the sea has been a battleground for centuries.

BRUSSELS - In the three-part podcast If the roller shutter stays closed, we tell the story of Philippe and Peter. Two regulars at De Harmonie, a social restaurant for elderly local residents in Brussels' North Quarter. During the lockdown, however, the doors remained closed. What does this mean for Philippe and Peter, two Brussels residents from very different backgrounds

BRUSSELS - State police commander Léon François starts using questionable investigative methods in the fight against drug traffickers in the 1970s, without legal regulation. Who are the gangsters and who is the police? The boundaries blur. Top cops and politicians, ex-premier Vanden Boeynants in the lead, watch and do not intervene. François is convicted, but the case never really gets cleared up. A lot of serious crimes are never solved.

BELGRADE - In Serbia, there is a lot of lithium, money and political interest at stake. Under the farming lands of its Jadar valley, geologists from mining giant Rio Tinto found Europe's largest lithium deposits - an amount enough to produce at least one million electric car batteries a year. 

BRUSSELS - Suffering from Parkinson's disease or cancer, European farm workers experience inadequate recognition and failing compensation schemes, a cross-border research of media in ten European countries shows.

BRUSSELS - Microchips are the basic ingredient of our digitalisation. Without chips, our smartphones or laptops do not work, our cars fall silent and the internet crashes. Not surprisingly, therefore, car factories are halting production due to a global chip shortage, China and the US are fighting a trade war over chips and the European Union is investing billions in the chip industry.

Europe’s dump yard and the system behind the international recycling business

BRUSSELS - Though they are right under our feet, soils do not receive much attention. Yet the many free services they provide for us are truly priceless, and they are under pressure. What can we do to prevent all this, and to repair damaged soils, Tim Vernimmen asked eight soil scientists in four countries. In response, they told him about all the things healthy soils can do for us - our food and water needs, our buildings, our health, and the climate - inspiring an article for the popular science magazine EOS that became a plea to stop ignoring the soil. 

GOMA - Through the beautiful green hills of North Kivu, a 150-kilometre road winds from the capital Goma to the coltan and cassiterite mining area, road 529. Since 2002, efforts have been made to rehabilitate the road, which runs through one of the most dangerous areas in the world.