How does Belgian politics actually work? What does the voting process look like in practical terms? When do you vote for what and how does that work? What is left and what is right? Why is voting so important? And what happens when all the votes are counted? These are just a few questions that the interactive election platform Kiez.nu tries to answer.
“Over the past year we have given the floor to all party chairmen, as well as the youngest candidates emerging in the upcoming elections,” say twenty-somethings Nelle Van der Herten, Joline Delen, Maya Mentens, Thiemen Seeuws and Marie Duvivier van Kiez. Kiez now has almost 4,000 followers on Instagram, and around 2,500 on TikTok.
“We bring political content for and by young people.” What started as a school assignment has today grown into a valuable platform that takes young people by the hand towards the voting booth. They do this in collaboration with Gazette of Antwerp. “We are quite proud of that.”
Not black and white
“Over the past period we created content based on debates we attended and with input and questions we received from young people,” say the students. “Because there is a lot of ignorance.”
They also had a lot of questions themselves. “We tried to find answers to that. We also have to vote for the first time this year. So we are our own target group.”
Nelle Van der Herten, Maya Mentens, Thiemen Seeuws, Marie Duvivier and Joline Delen from Kiez and Midge Sinnaeve and Adrian Wojda from Scum Studios. — © Kris Hossey
And that turned out to be an educational process for the seven. “By being so involved in politics, we have changed our minds a hundred times on all kinds of issues. When you understand topics better, you learn that many things are not black and white. Each party has positions that you can agree with. Thanks to Kiez, we were also forced to listen to politicians we might not otherwise listen to.”
Politics in game form
Today is exactly one month before the June 9 elections. And for those who want a compact collection of all the content that Kiez has published in recent months, there is now also the interactive election platform Kiez.nu: a website that looks like a video game. For this purpose, the students worked together with Scum Studios, the Borgerhout non-profit organization that sets up cultural and audiovisual projects with young people.
“Kiez.nu is a visual manual for the elections tailored to young people.” And that thanks to Midge Sinnaeve (38) from Scum Studios and intern Adrian Wojda (25). “We notice that many young people, especially young people who have their roots elsewhere, are sometimes difficult to get on board when it comes to politics. We asked ourselves: if everyone has to vote, how can we best inform them?” says Sinnaeve. “A platform that resembles a video game seemed like the best solution to us. And the ideal collaboration was created with Kiez.”
“I developed the platform from my own perspective,” says Adrian. “I was not very informed about politics myself and that was both an advantage and a disadvantage in this case. With Kiez.nu, young people can gather more information at their own pace and prepare for June 9 in an interactive way.”
Tags: Kiez Scum Studios launch interactive election platform young people enter voting booth Antwerp
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