Wederik De Backer (b. 1988) makes radio documentaries and podcasts.

He graduated as a radio producer from the RITCS School of Arts in Brussels in 2013. His productions found their way to broadcasters in Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany and the US. He won the prize for best radio play at the prestigious European media award Prix Europa, and the Belfius Press Prize for a series on the pension gap. He is also one of the driving forces behind the podcast Plantrekkers and has a dog.

Info

Name
Wederik De Backer
Title
Radio documentary and podcast producer
Expertise
Radio, podcast
Land
Belgium
Stad
Brussel

Supported projects

How do you spell home?

  • Culture
  • Social Affairs
  • Youth

MECHELEN - Youth care center Juneco is a multicultural hub that houses 15 unaccompanied foreign minors aged 12 to 18 in Belgium. The young people grow up here without their families, creating close friendships.

This is where mommy lives now

  • Social Affairs
  • Justice

BRUGGE - In Europe, children sometimes end up in prison. Not because they have done something wrong, but because they are the (unborn) child of a convicted, accused or interned woman. Bruges prison even has a special ward where young children can live with their imprisoned mothers.

The history of the Belgian sperm bank

  • Healthcare
  • Science

BRUSSELS - The sperm bank appeals to the imagination. Especially its pioneering years, when there were no rules and doctors did as they pleased. Yet hardly anyone knows how it used to be, because donor insemination happened in the greatest secrecy.

Locked up in lockdown

  • Security
  • Human Rights
  • Healthcare

MERKSPLAS - March 2020. Corona shuts down Belgium. Everyone has to stay inside. Door closed, one hour a day outside. A story that sounds familiar to the residents of Merksplas prison.

Financially Dependent Mothers

  • Equality
  • Social Affairs

BRUSSELS - One-third of the women in Belgium have a pension of less than 750 euros. That's little, but doesn't have to be a problem: if you are happily married, have a long career behind you and can put the money together as a couple. But for a whole group of women, this is not the case. The baby boomers are the first generation to divorce in such large numbers. Before that, couples used to stay together forever.

The S53

  • Migration

BEERVELDE - Every night the last train leaves for the Belgian village of Beervelde, located along the E17. From the station, young men and women try to reach one of the nearby motorway parking lots, usually on foot. There they try to get on a truck that will bring them to England.