Tell your story about the lockdown

During the first lockdown, we decided to set up several digital storytelling trajectories with groups of Brussels youth. In these programmes, the aim was to engage with the young people about their feelings and help them find a place for them.

The Department of Culture, Youth and Media – Flanders supported us as part of generational Resilience. The participants of the programmes consisted of groups of young people from the partner organisations Bx Represent, Molenbeek Neighbourhood Academy, Molenbeek Rebels, Overkop and 4 different groups of youth animators from our own operation.

Maks’ coaches created an environment in which young people could make their voices heard. The young people testified about their unique and often difficult situation and raised awareness. This increased their self-confidence and taught them to take initiative. They learned to accommodate their feelings and stood up for themselves and their own community.

Politics, friendship, family, (home) education and measures were discussed at length. Some young people expressed firm and substantiated ideas and demanded change, in the field of education, among others. They also created virtual walks together in which they could show important places they felt were missing. Hearts and minds were opened.

Digital Story trajectory
All in all, the message resonated loudly: Brussels youth have a VOICE, and a valuable vision. In the Maks Youth team, we found many like-minded ideas. So in 2021, we will continue to be extra motivated to work on the practical implementation of the demands that young people brought to national attention thanks to the Digital Story trajectory.

With some guidance, these young people created impactful videos that reflect and represent the powerful identity of Brussels youth; they wrote a personal voice-over, matched images and learnt the basics of video editing.

A selection of these videos found their way into a powerful piece in Bruzz and 40 digital stories were loaded on Maks vzw’s vimeo channel.

Digital storytelling is magic. You work with photos and images and suddenly there is the story. A story that changes you and the world around you
GERMAIN
Trainee animator