Supported projects

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.

LIAOZHONG - Apart from the recent SARS crisis, stories about China tend to be rather over-the-top. They praise the country's unprecedented economic growth and the potential of its 1.3 billion-strong consumer market.

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 one.

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 countryside of Hungary. In another three years, poverty-stricken Romania and Bulgaria will join the European Union.

ANTWERP - Denise Van den Broeck spent three years in the harbour, sailing on ships and accompanying officials as they went about their work. The result is a collection of reports and stories set in the space between land and sea, where globalisation and multiculturalism are more than just empty words.

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 facts form part of a single, larger narrative. It is about the insignificance of human life. Everything must give way to blind doctrine and economic and political interests. Soldiers and civilians are equally irrelevant.

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 the year before. Deckers decided to go and have a look at the situation himself.

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 Hutus and other local tribes can live alongside them in peace.

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 familiarise herself with Qatari life.

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 the Israeli-American point of view receives much more attention than the Palestinian one, but also that the focus tends to be on external events and visible actions, while the underlying emotions and interests require much more attention.

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 messages of development or warnings against AIDS, is never told.

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 intensive investigative work.

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 difficult for the occupying forces.

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 their peers, have to kill other children and torture the population.