Supported projects

THE HAGUE - Since the war in Ukraine, dozens of Russian ‘research vessels’ have been making suspicious movements near critical infrastructure in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. This has been revealed by research conducted by VRT NWS in collaboration with media outlets in the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia.

BAHIR DAR - For the past 19 months, Ethiopia’s Amhara region has been devastated by a conflict between federal forces and the Fano militia, which seeks full control of Amhara territory. 

ZURICH/ALTMULTHAL - Fossils of dinosaurs are the new Picassos and Van Goghs. Millions are often given for precious skeletons. Such is the case for Trinity, the skeleton of a T. rex that Antwerp entrepreneur Fernand Huts bought a year and a half ago.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Latinos voting for Trump in the US: they exist and there are far more of them than you might think. Alex Cordova travels to the United States in the run-up to the presidential election. He examines the role of the church, politics and identity in the context of the 4 November election.

KINSHASA / TERVUREN - After almost 70 years in the Africa Museum, the rare Kakungu mask is back in Congo. Despite the festive ceremony at the National Museum, the mask remains the property of Belgium, causing unrest among the Congolese people and the Suku community, where the mask originally came from.

COBQUECURA - 4.3 babies are born every second in the world. For a woman, childbirth is one of the most profound physical and emotional events in her life. Yet childbirth, like the female body in general, remains undervalued and under-researched.

ANTWERPEN - Valère, Veerle Duflou's partner, chose to donate his body to science. Ten years after his death, Veerle wants to know what happens to those bodies. She goes to the Antwerp University anatomy lab and follows the people to whom these bodies end up.

ALMERÍA - At the far end of Europe, on the southern border of Spain, lies Almería. It is a huge province completely covered with white plastic, harbouring Europe’s largest vegetable garden. It is the place where our tomatoes come from, even in winter. But under all the plastic, strange things happen…

BRUSSELS - Our meat consumption must go down, and to facilitate this, an army of producers is ready with alternatives. Some found inspiration in age-old recipes, others are reinventing meat altogether.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is not so much a country with an army, but rather an army with a country. Like the black kite, a powerful bird of prey, the armed forces keep a close eye on the people of Pakistan.

NAYPYIDAW - When the Burmese Spring began more than a decade ago, and 50 years of dictatorship seemed to be coming to an end, trees were growing to the sky in Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi came to power and the country liberalized. After the Rohingya genocide, however, the honeymoon was over. And the new military coup in February 2021 turned back the clock decisively.

DAMASCUS - Trapped in the dusty cells of northeastern Syria are thousands of foreign IS fighters, all having come with one goal: to establish an Islamic caliphate. They come from 50 countries such as Iraq and Lebanon, as well as France, Britain and Belgium. Five years after the fall of IS, they are prisoners in a legal no-man's land, often without charge or trial, written off by their home countries.

ENONTEKIO - The Arctic region is warming up four times as fast as the global average. This impacts people and animals.

BRUSSELS - In We, Roma there are 99 distinct stories of Roma. The themes are broad, from their own language to their own court, from Iftar to Mary worship, from prejudice to the affirmation of certain stereotypes.

OSWIECIM - Journalist Evelien Rutten goes on a road trip to Auschwitz with her teenage daughter and two aunts in this narrative podcast and book of the same name. They visit all the important places that played a crucial role in their family history.

NAIROBI - For decades Kenya has been a purveyor of Olympic medals in distance running, and it will continue to be so at the Paris Games, but for the past decade or so it has also been clear that there is a strong smell of doping attached to the medals. Athletics is one of the most important economic sectors in Kenya and where there is money, there is cheating.

ÚSTI NAD LABEM / LANDAU - The 'lithium fever' has devastated the landscape in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, among others. Europe is trying to mine its own lithium deposits in an environmentally friendly way: using geothermal energy. Germany is already experimenting with it in the Upper Rhine Valley. 

PUERTO BAQUERIZO MORENO - A visual documentation of the human history of Galápagos and its first inhabitants, who bore witness to the development of the last century.

JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH - The war in Gaza has been going on for more than a year. Ethnic cleansing is taking place not only there, but also in the West Bank. It did not start after October 7, but has been going on for decades, stresses Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, among others. 

ASMARA - Biniam Girmay, a 17-year-old promising cyclist from the African country of Eritrea, dreams of one day riding the Tour de France, the world's most prestigious Grand Tour.

SOFIA/BUDAPEST - When people think of adoption, they think of poor countries in the global south. However, Flanders and the Netherlands adopt children from other European countries, such as Bulgaria and Hungary. This cross-border investigation shows that Roma children in these countries are discriminated against and end up in the adoption system due to stigma, poverty and a lack of support for families.

GOMA - After 25 years of blue helmets' presence in eastern Congo, 2024 was supposed to be the year of departure. But as the UN peacekeeping mission deploys the retreat, M23 rebels keep advancing. 

MINSK - A totalitarian state has emerged in Belarus and Russia since the suppression of pro-democracy protests in Belarus and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Criticism and anti-war voices are suppressed with draconian punishments. Democratic Belarusians and Russians are building the alternative in the Baltics and the Caucasus. 

BAGDAD - Ten years ago, ISIS began its reign of terror in Iraq by invading Mosul. Many people were killed in the process. Minorities such as the Yazidis and Christians have received a lot of attention in this regard. Less well known is the plight of the Sunnis, the largest group, who lived under ISIS occupation and were oppressed and killed. They were subsequently lumped together with the radicals by many.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - In June 2020, following protests in the United States, colonial heritage in Belgium became fiercely debated.

MEXICO-CITY - Like in India or the United States, Mexicans will elect a new head of state in 2024. That must spend the next six years dealing with the dubious legacy of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 'Whoever comes to power, the oppression of indigenous peoples will continue unabated.'

ANTWERP - There are many forgotten disasters around the world, but one day they will be in the news again. Are we prepared for when the alert levels reach code red again?

KINSHASA - Who are the Congolese mineral divers in the midst of the green transition? They call themselves kazabuleurs. In the late 1980s, Zairean fishermen dived for diamonds, first near Tshikapa and then on the Angolan border during the civil war.

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa, the queer paradise, or at least that is what is said. We know the images of the annual Pride in Johannesburg. As such, South Africa is the only country on the entire African continent in which LGBTQIA+ persons have equal rights, and can also marry. Only: the contrast between the constitution and daily reality is stark.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - According to the European Commission, half of the sustainability claims on company websites are unproven, vague, unclear or downright deceptive. Clothing companies in particular use terms such as 'sustainable' more frequently than other companies without providing further information. Since 2021, both the Dutch and Belgian governments have been searching the internet for misleading sustainability claims.