The emphasis on laagdrempeligheid is what distinguishes Burn and Quindo from other Flemish leisure clubs. Being laagdrempelig is part of the identity of both organisations and a key reason for the reception of public money. On this page we explore how this search for laagdrempeligheid influences the daily activities of Burn and Quindo from the perspective of the organisers.
Relationships between organisers and participants
Laagdrempeligheid guides how the organisers do their job a multitude of ways. Through our fieldwork, we noticed that organisers focus on creating an equal relationship between themselves and the participants. For example, one of the organisers told us that he hates using the label ‘chief editor’ when he describes his job in the organisation. This is mainly because for him, the title ‘chief’ creates hierarchical distance between himself and the participants since they do not know what it means. Because of this, he always signs his emails off as ‘editor’. It seems that by erasing the world ‘chief’ from his job description, he wants to make the participants feel like he is approachable, that he is one of them, even though he is one of the organisers. We were also able to see this equal relationship between organisers and participants while doing participant observation. During one of our visits to Laura’s hip hop class for example we noticed that the girls were giving suggestions to Laura about which song they wanted to dance to. Laura actively listened to them and let them pick the music. Moreover, during her interview she mentioned that sometimes the girls teach her about dance styles she is less knowledgeable about such as afro beats or freestyle. This showed us that, even though Laura is the dance teacher, she is open to work with them and learn from them.
Interests over background
Most of the organisers explained that they do not ask about the socioeconomic background of the participants nor the level of skills they have. For them, what it is important is that they are interested in the activities their organisations are providing. The quest for laagdrempeligheid then, makes organisers focus more on the interests of the participants rather than their background. As one of our interviewees puts it; “background is not necessary to be here. They come here to make music”. This is potentially because the whole idea of laagdrempeligheid is to make organisations as open and accessible as possible, and therefore, an over emphasis on background would potentially result in limiting the entry of people who do not necessarily want to give personal and private information or who feel they do not fit the desire profile. That said, some of the organisers did mention that they make additional efforts to try to reach people from a certain target group. For example, Jasper explained that one of the reasons Burn was created was to provide leisure activities for people whose interests are not targeted by existing cultural centres. Alexander made a similar remark by saying that Quindo seeks to reach people in Kortrijk who are less privileged. Still, they both agree that Quindo and Burn are open for everyone.
Adapting activities to participant interests
During our fieldwork we also noticed that most organisers believed that the activities can be moulded according to each participant’s interests. During one of our interviews with Broos he stated the following:
“[At Quindo] we will never say ‘oh you have this project do this or do that’ but we’re like what are you interested in what would you like to do (...) The important thing is that you just start from the person himself and where he wants to go.”
Jeroen made a similar remark during his interview. He explained that for him, it is important to first ask the participants what kind of activities they want before establishing them. For example, he explains that they decided to create a cooking class after some of the people from the rap class asked them if they could eat at Burn since most of them came from school and did not have the time to eat beforehand. Similarly, Jeroen explained that they came up with the idea of having a hip hop class on Fridays after noticing that some of the girls stayed after the singing class to dance and have fun. The fact that the organisers are interested in shaping and changing the activities according to the participants’ needs is mainly due to the focus on openness that comes with laagdrempeligheid resulting in a flexible attitude in the establishment of activities.
Finance and feeling at home
Lowering the financial burden seems to be an obvious measure to open up an organisation to a wider participant base. Still, even this action has multiple dimensions. The organisers did not always find consensus on the approachability of the organisation. Thomas explained that he would like to be able to pay back the traintickets of people coming to Quindo for example, otherwise the financial burden to participate would be too high for a lot of people, even though the activities themselves were free of charge. According to him the burdens start before the actual beginning of the organisation. Broos however makes clear that this proactive measure would be financially unreachable due to funding restraints.
The free of charge mentality proved to be more than just about money to Laura. According to her it was not only the fact that an activity could be too expensive, she also told us about the phenomena of children coming to activities just because their parents pay for it. By not asking for money, the idea is that the activity becomes more the property of the participants themselves. This authentic bond with the offered activities can contribute to a further removal of barriers. It goes together with a deep sense of respect and trust from the organisers towards the participants. Participants can come to the organisation to do what they like and set their own agenda. Whether they just come in to chill or have a chat, or actively take part in the offered courses, the concept of laagdrempeligheid means that the organisers try to make all feel welcome.
According to the organisers, being laagdrempelig is closely connected to a sense of feeling at home. The youth should have a clear feeling that they are welcome, that they are wanted. According to Thomas, Quindo’s door is always physically open, which not only has strong symbolic power, but also eliminates the physical threshold for people to come in. Jeroen meanwhile dreams of a room for which his pupils have the key, so that they may truly have a place of their own, to come to whenever they want. He wants them to be able to decorate it according to their style, to give them freedom to personalise an ideal place to practice.
The freedom and respect bestowed upon the participant by each organiser is visible in variety of ways. For example, we saw that some girls came to hip hop class even though the teacher was absent. It did not stop their wish to come and practice together. In Quindo participants are referred to as ‘volunteers’ and in this way, the organisers acknowledge the input of each individual participant and emphasise the sense of community, so central to the community radio principle. Whilst there we saw that these ‘volunteers’ were treated as equal colleagues. This is also visible in the actual programme of Quindo, whereby every ‘volunteer’ does exactly that what he or she wants.
The belief in equality goes further than just giving opportunities to design and implement the activities. It is in the DNA of the organisations. Thomas made it clear that those who do not actively share this value of equality between organisers, do not have a place in Quindo. He highlighted that people working at Quindo need to be flexible, and have to take into consideration when volunteers want to use the equipment. In a similar fashion, Jeroen mentioned that Burn does not appoint employees and volunteers necessarily on the basis of their dance or artistic skills, but instead they search for people who are good with people.
To conclude, it is clear that laagdrempeligheid drives the organisers’ actions in a variety of ways. It encourages them to create equal relations with the participants, giving the participants agency in the creation of their own activities. Moreover, focusing on laagdrempeligheid, encourages the organisers to focus more on the interests of the participants rather than on their background. Who they are, where they come from, holds significantly less importance than what they want to do. Focusing on interests also makes them more flexible in their attitude towards how the activities the organisation is offering are designed. Meanwhile, common burdens preventing people from some from joining leisure activities such as financial difficulties are being actively tackled by offering free programmes and equipment, although funding restraints do put some limits on this. All these measures contribute to the organisers’ aim of making the activities something that is owned by the participants. Thus, it appears from our observations that laagdrempeligheid and feeling at home are closely connected, although it is not very clear which feeling comes first, and which one is the consequence of the other. Being laagdrempelig contributes to people's home feeling, but on the other hand being laagdrempelig is impossible without people having the feeling that they are welcome at the organisation.