Supported projects

KABUL, KINSHASHA, JUBA - No Olympics this summer. But Elien did seek and feel the Olympic spirit: in Afghan women's football, wheelchair basketball in South Sudan and with nzozo players in Congo. These champions wouldn't have made it to the Olympics anyway, but the Olympic spirit is clearly present.

PORTO DO ACU - For the construction of the Brazilian port of Porto do Açu, hundreds of families were forcibly evicted from their land. Fishermen lost their livelihoods and the promised jobs in the port never came. The port also turned up in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Brazil. All this did not stop the port of Antwerp from investing 20 million dollars in this controversial project.

CABO DELGADO - There are diamonds, gold and a gigantic gas bubble in the ground, but that doesn't help the inhabitants of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The government abandons them and the army can't protect them from violence. The militant Islamist group Al-Shabab manages more and more to recruit the impoverished population with an ill-founded, religious story. MO* went to the heart of the affected province.

BRUSSELS - We call them transmigrants. Also known as 'illegals'. Almost a swear word. Caroline van Gastel and Saar Van Eyck shed light on the harsh daily reality of a number of young women in Brussels. They come from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan where the regime oppresses the population and conflicts between communities are fought violently. The people can barely survive. They have to leave family and children behind in search of work. When they will see them again, nobody knows.

NEW YORK - The documentary 'Pride is Protest' offers an insight into the LGBTQ scene in New York, 50 years after Stonewall. Marieke Dermul and Filip Tielens went to New York for a week in June 2019 during the biggest Pride ever. They talked to a veteran of the 1969 riots about positive changes, but also to young LGBT people, transgenders and people of colour about discrimination in the year 2019. What do they think should be fought for today? And how does that translate into contemporary activism and protest, besides the great party that a Pride is every time again?

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.

ANTWERP - He was one of the most important investigative journalists in Belgium. He published revelations about the murder of the leader of the socialist party André Cools, the Gang of Nivelles, the arms trade and the extreme right. He loved the idea that those in power would have been safer without him and he had a phenomenal archive. He died young from Alzheimer's.

BRUSSELS - Belgians are top in sorting out garbage. But what happens to the PET bottles we throw in the blue bag? Exactly how many PET bottles do we recycle? And does recycling really reduces fossil plastic production?

DHAKA - The women in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka are fed up with it: they want to be able to go out on the streets without men bothering them. And so they organise their own transport through the impossibly chaotic, congested traffic: a motor-taxi with a woman at the wheel. Or they buy themselves a motorbike. First alone, as an exception, which provokes opposition and sometimes outright attacks. Now more and more numerous, they close ranks, form motorcycle clubs and lead demonstrations against violence against women.

ANTWERP - 5G promises to become the infrastructure of the future. For example, the new, fifth generation of mobile internet would be up to one hundred times faster than 4G, and will provide a platform on which new technology is built.