Youth summit A1000 makes Antwerp youth think about the city of tomorrow: “We want to encourage young people to take on political responsibility” (Antwerp)

The A1000 is an initiative of HETPALEIS and Laika together with the city of Antwerp. The project gives a voice to Antwerp’s young people. That is why the sixth-year care staff of the IMS will be working for three days in HETPALEIS on Theaterplein on topics such as democracy, money, society, security… “We want to correctly inform young people about the importance of elections,” Beels explains. “Because we notice that young people sometimes have an aversion to politics. That is why we want to encourage them to take political responsibility and vote.”

It immediately became clear on Tuesday that social issues also affect young people when an argument arose between Beels and speaker Samira Azabar about the legitimacy and usefulness of systematic identity checks in some Antwerp neighborhoods. The discussion arose after Nousria Chanouch (18) from Borgerhout fired a question at the Antwerp ships.

“We have the feeling that the police are checking and even targeting people of other ethnicities more often,” says Nousria. “My own father was checked several times while he was just walking on the street. It seems like they are stopping him purely based on his skin color. Isn’t that racism?”

“These controls are legally anchored in time and space,” Beels answers. “I worked in the police for twenty years. That’s why I know most officers will act within the law. But I am aware that certain target groups are systematically monitored too often. That could indicate ethnic profiling. But that cannot necessarily be equated with racism. It is often due to the tunnel vision that some officers can develop.”

“In academic circles we equate ethnic profiling with racism,” Azabar points out, after which there is loud applause from the students in the stands. “Police must base their work on what someone does and not because they have a certain ethnicity, skin color, nationality or religion.”

The workshops are a preliminary process for a thousand fifth and sixth secondary school students from fourteen Antwerp schools. On October 3, they can fire their ideas about city policy at the leaders of Antwerp politics. “During the first part we try to awaken young people politically by inviting experts and forming an interactive debate. We then try to translate that stimulation into art projects. In this way, film and photo reports, comedy and poetry slam also have their place in the program,” says Brechtje Van Bel of the organization.

“We choose a group of ambassadors from those thousand students,” adds Els De Bodt, director of HETPALEIS. “These are about ten students who will talk to the politicians on October 3. That is why they receive extra workshops on debating and can talk to journalists. In this way we prepare them to defend the visions of the young people in front of an audience of a thousand people on October 3.”