Supported projects

The ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam are the main European gateway for cocaine. Publicly, the Netherlands and Belgium proclaim their united commitment to breaking the backbone of the drug trade. But behind the scenes, differences in political culture are at play, and resentment and gloom reign.

In January 2024, Dutch investigative journalist Linda van der Pol and Belgian photographer Gena Kagermanov traveled to Ukraine to investigate the impact of the Russian invasion on the Ukrainian cultural sector in several cities.

FORT-DE-FRANCE / BASSE TERRE – This investigation goes behind the scenes of a French state scandal, tracing a historical route from governmental actors who approved use of chlordecone, a dangerous chemical, in agriculture, to the realities of victims speaking out today. Their testimonies highlight how the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe face an environmental and sanitary disaster still ongoing.

JAKARTA / AMSTERDAM - It sounded so appealing to become an Au Pair in Europe on paper. Unsurprisingly a website like AuPairWorld.com, which matches au pairs and host families, displays hundreds of profiles of young women advertising their baby-sitting skills.  

LISBOA - The non-voter time bomb is a data-driven journalism feature that profiles voter abstention across the European Union (EU) over the last 50 years and analyses it according to different demographic and socioeconomic indicators for each of the 27 member states.

MILAN/SOFIA/ARAD – Tens of thousands of tonnes of textile waste arrive in Romania and Bulgaria every year, mainly from Italy and Germany. Despite the fact the EU had acknowledged the extent of the textile waste smuggling across the continent, no strategy so far proved to be efficient in preventing it.

ROME / DHAKA - Of the many cases chronicling the exploitation of South Asian migrant workers in Italy, none is perhaps more visible yet underreported than the plight of rose sellers – a common sight in busy tourist destinations like Rome, Milan or Turin.

EDINBURGH - Europe’s marine environment faces a plethora of severe threats. What are the key species in decline, and which interest groups are lobbying against marine protection laws? This investigation looks into Europe’s interconnected marine systems, and how they can be preserved.

BRUSSELS - Two young people are growing up in a world that is destroying itself. They each seek their own path and test how far they are willing to go in their actions.

NAIVASHA - Many of the beautiful bouquets sold across European markets have a devastating environmental and human cost. In Kenya, a supplier of 40% of the European cut flower market, the floriculture industry faces accusations of having a calamitous effect on water sources, of chemical use leading to disease, and of widespread abuses of farm workers, 70% of whom are women.