Sebas

Together with friend and cameraman Thomas, I took to the streets of Amsterdam to conduct a series of interviews with strangers. We did this for our new project @stories.by.fabula Both of us felt community sense is lacking in the present-day (urban) society. We move around in our own comfortable bubble, closed off from those around us by a phone screen or headphones. We make collective use of public services such as parks and trains but are too shy to even start a conversation, give a compliment to someone or look another person in the eye. By not talking to one another, we risk losing our ability to see and embrace our greatest commonality: our humanity. In the end, we aren’t as different from each other as we sometimes think. With these street interviews, we hope to rekindle dialogue between strangers and show how inspiring and wonderful our fellow human-being is. We shouldn't be afraid of each other and always retreat into our safe and like-minded environment, but instead open up and show curiosity and empathy towards others. We believe this will foster mutual understanding and create a more pleasant society to live in, in which cynicism and polarization make room for optimism and community spirit. For the first episode we asked people the following question: what makes life worth living for you? Hope you enjoy it! PS: try talking to a stranger yourself. You'll see it will brighten your day 🔆

Whilst FC Barcelona’s ticket prices have skyrocketed in recent years due to the club and city’s touristification, local fans have slowly started moving away to smaller, yet more affordable teams in the region. One of them is fourth division club UE Sant Andreu, located in the north of Barcelona. In seven years, they went from 700 ‘socios’ to more than 5,400 this year, making it currently one of the hottest clubs in town. At Sant Andreu, football still belongs to its people, and a match will not cost you more than 20 euros. In return, you get pure Catalan passion, both on and off the pitch. How football is supposed to be, some would say. The huge increase in popularity might come at a cost, now that the team is doing well and more and more people from ‘outside’ are discovering the clubs’s authenticity. Only time will tell whether they can resist the gentrification of their city and the lure of modern, commercial football. You can read the full article (in Dutch) through the link in my bio.

While most of Europe is tightening its border controls, a new swing in the Belgian-Dutch town of Baarle-Hertog-Nassau is a reminder to embrace unity.

Does Argentina's football have a racism problem? Read the full article (in Dutch) through the link in my bio. (And apologies for the overexposure, I am new to this game okay) #argentina🇦🇷 #football #racism

Football without papers @campussansofetenerife #tenerife #football #migration

With their unusual hair colour, redheads have traditionally been easy targets for prejudice and bullying. Although experiences vary, some of them still feel unheard. Belgian @rosannekeu is trying to change that with her book and podcast. ‘It is always non-redheads who attribute certain character traits and stereotypes to our hair colour. It is time for people with red hair to tell their own stories.’ LINK IN BIO Beautiful visuals by Studio V @de_volkskrant

Last month, I went to Tenerife to attend a training session of @campussansofetenerife , a volunteer sports project run by the local university in collaboration with football club CD Tenerife. The project aims to help underage West African migrants integrate into their new environment through football. Twice a week, they gather on the training field to kick a ball around— an all-too-welcome break from their otherwise monotonous existence on the Spanish island. The Canary Islands have seen a significant influx of unaccompanied minors who arrived alone, having fled with or without their parents’ permission. As a result, the local government of the archipelago has declared a migration crisis and is calling on other Spanish regions to show solidarity by taking in some of the underage asylum seekers. Although this request has met resistance from several autonomous regions, the central government has begun relocating young migrants to the Spanish mainland. As a consequence, the group of boys participating in the project is constantly changing: those who are transferred elsewhere are replaced by a new group eager to play football. According to project coordinator Miguel, underage migrants are being used as “political bargaining chips, as if they were parcels.” Losing their two-hour football sessions not only takes away their joy, but also deprives them of the only source of stability in an otherwise constant state of uncertainty. My words and pictures can be seen in today's @de_volkskrant (or through link in bio)

For more than two years, the European media start-up @theeuropeancorrespondent relied on volunteer work. Until this summer, when they received 2 million euros from the EU Commission to realise their ambitions. ‘I want to read journalism that connects the dots between European countries’, co-founder and editor-in-chief @juliuseofintelmann told me during an interview. ‘Because some developments are just explained better through a European rather than a national lens.’ ‘Think about the housing crisis’, Fintelmann continued. ‘That is a problem every European capital is struggling with and of which the underlying cause is the same. As The European Correspondent we do not only want to show that but also discuss potential solutions.’ Their ultimate goal? Fintelmann: ‘That consuming European journalism becomes just as normal as reading local and national news and that people will start debating it with their friends’ Wanna read the full article? Link in bio! Pictures by @rebeccafertinel

So I did a little experiment and translated my article for @theeuropeancorrespondent in a little video explainer. Hopefully you like it :) PS: the full article can be read through the link in my bio.

In yesterday’s @de_volkskrant my story was published on @rfgmedia.nl , a media collective that helps journalists who escaped their country continue their career in the Netherlands. It was interesting to see how some of the refugee journalists see activism as an inherent part of their job, whereas in ‘the west’ this is traditionally considered a dirty word amongst media professionals. Although one of the founders of RFG Media also used to see journalism and activism as two different things, he now considers it a ‘lazy and privileged view on journalism’. He realised that in the dictatorships the journalists come from, simply telling the truth is already a form of activism. ‘Fugitive journalists and journalists from minority groups usually see much sharper that what goes for neutrality in reality mainly serves to maintain the status quo’, he said. Thanks to @ashrafsahli and Esther Muwombi for their openness. The full article can be read (in Dutch) through the link in bio. Pictures by @daphne_vm

Nog niet zo lang geleden, tot midden jaren zeventig, kende Spanje een fascistische dictatuur. Inmiddels is dictator Francisco Franco vijftig jaar dood en viert Spanjes progressieve regering de vrijheid en democratie. Maar het land blijft verdeeld. Nog altijd wachten slachtoffers op genoegdoening en heeft het rechterdeel van Spanje andere ideeën over het verleden, en dus ook het heden. Lees de hele reportage van Sebas van Aert op vn.nl. Illustratie is gemaakt door Victor Meijer.

Hoe is Galicië anders dan de rest van Spanje? Dat vroegen wij in deze Galicië-special aan correspondent Jorn Lucas. Als inwoner van de regio, kent hij het gebied als geen ander. Luister via de link in bio waarom Jorn Galicië zo'n fijne woonplaats vindt.