Partners
City of Mechelen
The City of Mechelen is situated in the heart of Europe in between Brussels and Antwerp.
Mechelen is an ambitious, dynamic and surprising city with a long history that is still visible through numerous historic monuments in the old city centre of Mechelen.
Mechelen has a rich mixture of cultures, education levels and contrary to other cities, the migration movement of new inhabitants is not a movement of elderly people deciding to move from the country side to the city for convenience reasons. People migrating to Mechelen are principally young people fundamentally convinced to build up a live in the city and middle aged (+40) who opt that quality of life in Mechelen has thus improved that they decide to move to Mechelen.
Another important asset for Mechelen is that we are the most digitized city of Belgium, with the highest percentage of its inhabitants having access to online information. The city website has been awarded by Agoria with the e-Gov award for the most user-friendly city website of Flanders. At the same time we are awarded best city website of the year by Clickx magazine. Mechelen also has the ambition to become the mediacity of Belgium. A big number of media companies have moved to Mechelen, Lessius Mechelen is the media expertise centre of Lessius…
and there is Villa Crossmedia of course!
Villa Crossmedia is a project drawn by the entire city, but the youth department and the artistic workplace H30 play a bigger role in it.
The youth department focuses on an offer for children, youngsters, they provide recreation spaces, counsel youth movements and support them financially, and they coordinate the new media centre PROJECT WOLF, founded within the framework of Villa Crossmedia.
H30 is an artistic workspace for young people in the center of Mechelen. Since September 2012 their house is rebuild to THE creative spot in the city where youngsters can taste, meet and create. H30 organizes all kinds of projects and is an open house where youngsters can step inside to ask questions, to do proposals en organize things themselves.
H30 participates at VXM by giving the space and the support of experimenting with moving image. In the Digital storytelling project young people can search how they can visualize there life’s, interests and opinions in the frame of a shot movie. Hans Lettany, the artistic supervisor of this project, stimulates them in the process of creating their own kind of way to tell a story.
Project coordinator Tina Van Acker: tina.vanacker@mechelen.be +32 15 298 013 www.villacrossmedia.eu
Coordinator Project Wolf Willem Beeck: willem.beeck@mechelen.be +32 15 157 792 www.projectwolf.be
Coordinator H30 Lina Lauwens: lina.lauwens@mechelen.be +32 15 219 939 www.h30.be
Thomas More University College
Thomas More University College offers a broad range of Professional Bachelor's degrees and Advanced Bachelor's degrees in Business & Communication, Design & Technology, Education & Training and Health & Wellbeing. These bachelors combine a professional orientation and tie with the labour market with a strong basis in applied research.
The main focus of Thomas More Mechelen in the Villa Crossmedia project is on media literacy. The University College combines experience with research data to develop training packages. With these training packages we want to make young people aware of the dangers, risks and opportunities in (new) media and media creation. With the help of the project partners we will create and evaluate tutorials and train the trainer sessions.
With 21BIS, Thomas More Mechelen brings its own youth media platform into the project, along with the experience of developing engaging virtual youth media platforms. Our journalism students will also create and share content on the project platform.
On the topic of culture and identity Thomas More Mechelen will conduct research on digital storytelling and cultural diversity, thus supporting the development of the culture and diversity packages together with CSV. We will also coach journalism students to bring cultural and diversity awareness in the cross media coverage of news targeted at (diverse) youth.
As an academic partner in the project Thomas More Mechelen will exchange knowledge, experience, trainers and resources with the project partners. At the end of the project Thomas More Mechelen will organize a media literacy conference in Mechelen.
Project coordinator Carmen Van Puyenbroeck: carmen.vanpuyenbroeck@thomasmore.be +32 15 369 195 www.thomasmore.be www.21bis.be
CSV
CSV is a UK volunteering and learning charity. CSV's vision is of a society where everyone can participate to build strong and inclusive communities. Their mission is to enable people to take an active role in their communities. Their programmes help empower disabled people to lead independent lives, offer security and stability to families and children at risk of neglect, help young people find their direction in life and enable older people to share knowledge and experience across generations.
In Ipswich, there is a large team of staff and volunteers dedicated to the VxM project. They want to engage as many young people as possible, to give a voice to communities and to empower individuals. Between 2012 and 2014 they’ll be launching digital podcasts, working alongside Ipswich Community Television to deliver some hard hitting stories, and further developing the VxM magazine and blog. They will be delivering community events to showcase your young people’s talents, and offering a number of formal and informal courses on every aspect of the media.
Project coordinator Darren Mann: dmann@csv.org.uk +44 1473 418 028 http://mediaclubhouse.org.uk
Het Entrepot and Villa Bota - Bruges
The Entrepot in the sea harbour of Bruges (Belgium) is a creative art lab for young artists who need time and space to create and to experiment. Everyone working with photography, video, music, theatre, dance, performance, graphic design and other creative media, is welcome. The Entrepot facilitates and supports young, upcoming artists and stimulates cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations.
The Entrepot is a non-profit organization, located in an old customs warehouse at the sea harbor near the historical city of Bruges, Belgium. The large building houses several different work spaces that are used by artists and musicians to rehearse and create. There are 2 theatre spaces, 2 dance studios, 3 music studios, a sculptor’s space, an open office for creative organizations and a large concert/performance hall that can host up to 1200 people.
In the city centre The Entrepot has 2 more creative spaces that are used for different purposes. One is a club with a capacity of 200 people where parties, concerts and small performances can take place. The third location is called Villa Bota and is set in a beautiful park.
Villa Bota is the organization’s media lab and functions as a meeting place for youngsters. It has a radio station where volunteers produce their own shows and where they can attend workshops. Besides radio they can also experiment with video and filming techniques. The focus of Villa Bota is to share and spread knowledge about all different types of new media.
The Entrepot and Villa Bota do not have fixed programs but support young people in different kind of ways. Depending on the project or question, we can offer technical, logistic, financial or creative support. Every year The Entrepot also organizes a couple of large-scale events to offer platforms where creations can be shown.
Project coordinator Kim Dupon: kim@hetentrepot.be +32 50 47 07 83 www.hetentrepot.be www.villabota.be
