In this section we explore how the organisers at the centre of our research view leisure activities for youth in terms of their ability to assist in creating a sense of belonging for young people from diverse backgrounds in Belgium. Organisers from both Quindo and Burn, want to help young people with this by organising a diverse array of activities that appeal to a range of people from varying backgrounds. Leisure activities can be a fun and relaxed way for youth to learn Dutch, get to know new people and create a network.
Diverse youth and activities
During their youth Jasper and Jeroen founded two organisation; ‘Urban Woorden’ and ‘Straatrijk’. They were looking for leisure activities relating to urban arts but nothing like this was available in Leuven at that time. Noticing a gap in the leisure activity landscape they decided to create these organisations themselves, to provide other young people seeking the same kinds of leisure activities. Jasper highlights that their initial philosophy was to involve children who were not really targeted by the main cultural centres in Leuven and they quickly noticed that their programme was reaching a wider range of people from more diverse backgrounds. Jeroen spoke to us about how the kind of activities they offer, contribute to integration. He pointed out that these kinds of activities are embedded in their own culture; the hip hop culture in relation to which people can build an identity and relate with other like minded people, like Jeroen himself. The organisers at Burn are proud of that culture in its ability to create strong relationships amongst people.
While doing field work, we felt welcome, but it was clear that there was a strong feeling of connection among the regular attendees at Burn. This was not only because they had known each other for a longer period of time (school, neighbourhood, etc.), but it was also an atmosphere where some of our team members were more attracted to the other attendees compared to other members of the group, perhaps because some of us identify more with the hip hop community than others. It is the organisers of Burn’s aim, to help people identify and create respect for everyone, each one teach one, one community one love, all things the hip hop culture strives to achieve. If someone does not identify with the hip hop culture however it may be the case that Burn does not feel like to be the right organisation for them. It should be noted therefore, that although the organisers of Burn try to offer an array of unique leisure activities to the youth of Leuven and emphasise laagdrempeligheid, not everyone necessarily finds what they are looking for in a welcoming and identifiable community.
The organisers of Quindo want to provide young people with a place where they can be creative with their interests, where they can tell their story. For them radio is just one manner of doing it, Broos explains: “Other organisations can use sports or cooking or other things, it is like our way of doing it. When you say ‘ah I present a radio show; it’s something else than saying ‘I play in a football team’ there’s still some magic around it and that also helps a lot.” The organisers want to give chances to everyone and the radio station should be a place where young people can have fun, feel at home and where a diverse group of young people of all ages and backgrounds are welcomed. The three organisers of Quindo also do workshops with OKAN classes and create a social place for people who are in a more vulnerable position. People can elaborate their ideas on an individual basis and Quindo provides individual guidance for people who are not able to run the studio by themselves. This was highlighted by a participant with special needs who has been coming to Quindo for three years. During that time he commented on how much he has been growing, technically and mentally, and that the organisers of Quindo support him really well in all aspects. Through his attendance he also created a network of people he did not know before. Thomas of Quindo mentioned a few times that Quindo wants to give a chance to everyone who is disabled in one way or another. The fact that all youth can feel at home and interact with each other is of great importance to all organisers at Burn and Quindo. It has to be noticed that the attendance of certain groups of society can be obstructed because three white male employees are managing Quindo (Green & Singleton, 2006).
Belonging through the eyes of the organisers
According to Jasper, Burn is different from other leisure clubs because young people can come together, get to know each other without the pressure for good performance which is common at other places. At Burn, the organisers want to create a place where everyone can show their creativity without being judged or feel limited. The participants need to feel good in what they are doing even if they are not the most skilled at the activity. According to Broos, at Quindo both the process and end product are important. Broos explains: “a good process, but a bad product, is bad influence for the process. So, that is not positive. But a less good process, can become positive when the end product is good."
Whilst Quindo is less focused on performance than other leisure activity clubs, they still focus somewhat on the end product with the mentality that by having a ‘successful’ product it will improve the experience of the youth as a whole. Thomas’ take on it is that "we are not a production company, we are a process company”. Both the organisers of Burn and Quindo claim that performance is not as important as what the participants learn during their creation process. However, when the creation process is good but the outcome does not result in a positive experience, as already said by Broos, the entire project may have a counter effect on the participant. In both organisations it is towards this positive experience that the organisers are working, therefore, the outcome or ‘product’ of an activity cannot be fully neglected.
Nevertheless, according to our interviewees helping to instill a feeling of belonging and the feeling of being safe is even more important than the process or end product. Broos explains that the feeling of belonging is a feeling of being connected to other people, knowing who you are because you get feedback from other people verbally or nonverbally. According to him, this feeling of belonging is vital, because when you experience this feeling you feel like you contribute to and are part of something. Broos added that the feeling of belonging is necessary to fulfil certain basic needs such as a sense of safety or having a place to fall back on. According to Laura, it is not only teaching, it is also getting the group together. She, the teacher, makes a choreography together with the participants who come to follow the dance classes, but she also focuses on community building. She wants to be involved as a coach and create a pleasant environment. This creates a feeling of togetherness and home. In one anecdote, Laura talked about a day when the atmosphere in the group was not good. As a result, they had a conversation with the group to discuss any concerns and the participants were happy to have their voices heard. With this, Laura makes clear she is there to listen to the participants, although she adds that she usually does not focus on tackling the problems of the participants because she is not a social worker and only does this when Monica, a colleague of her (and social worker) is present. The participants of Burn, are made to feel at home and the organisers try to make them feel like they belong there. Laura continues that from time to time some girls do not participate but just hang around at Burn, “it is indeed like a home feeling we are trying to make here”. We saw evidence of this on one particular occasion, when a few of us were visiting Burn. Upon our arrival we noticed that the girls who usually took part in the hip hop class had turned up to hang out and dance, even though Laura was not there to teach. Just coming along and attending dance classes whenever you want is in general not possible in other dance schools for which you have to pay, making what is happening at Burn more unique. It indicates that the girls feel welcome and feel home enough to go alone to this space. However, this may be because most girls of the hip hop class go to the same school (Heilig Hart Heverlee). They do not feel connected with girls from other schools in Leuven which are less diverse compared to their school. Laura confirms that such a cohesive group of girls makes it more difficult for other girls to enter, which will be addressed in the challenges.
Furthermore, Jeroen explains that the organisers of Burn try to create positive experiences with their projects in collaboration with the city and that the projects have a positive effect on the integration of young people, both within the organisation and in the wider society. Jeroen clarifies: “Burn is part of the city and if you feel part of the city, then you are part of the bigger society”. He highlights this with an example of the hip hop girls who gave a performance at the International Youth Conference in Leuven. More important than the dance performance itself was how apparent it became that the girls felt like part of the community of Leuven. “They really wanted to represent Leuven as their city and that they belong to this city”, said Jeroen. If young people can show their city what they are doing, then they can be happy to say that they feel comfortable at the organisation and in their city. In that sense, the organisations succeeded in creating a sense of belonging for these youth through the activities they provide. Another important aspect for the organisers of Quindo is social inclusion on the basis of media production. For Broos ‘inclusion’ is part of the fact that young people have to be accepted by a group. On top of that they need to have the feeling to be part of a bigger society. By representing certain minority groups, such as newcomers, people with special needs, young people with diverse backgrounds, on their online radio channel, Quindo diversifies the media landscape. They want to provide a feeling of belonging not only in the physical radio station, but also in Kortrijk and online by the radio programmes they broadcast.
Leisure and developing skills/networking
According to several organisers, the organisations do not only try to be a place where young people from all kinds of backgrounds feel at home, but they also learn skills and create networks doing the activities that they can then use in wider society. Jasper connects leisure activities, in this case art, with networking. While busy participating with the activity, the young people develop other skills: “people come and learn art, but at the same time, they get to know different things such as organising groups, events. They start with art, but then from that give them tools to develop themselves.” The students not only develop skills, but also make friends and broaden their network while having fun and doing something that interests them. Jasper noted “in the hip hop class, there is more networking with friends.” This also refers to the fact that friends bring friends and in this way, they feel more comfortable being at Burn. The organisers of Quindo explain that young people are developing social skills while developing technical skills and cooperating on radio programmes. One of their aims is to work on the social skills of their participants to empower them to have the skills to create their own belonging or community connections. However Broos does not want Quindo to be someone’s only space where he or she can feel at home in case they lose funding. Instead he hopes to equip them with the skills and confidence to also feel at home in other spaces.
Having said this organisers face some challenges in broaden the network of their participants. For example at Burn, the girls from the hip hop class mostly bring girls from their own network. Therefore it is not easy for other girls and boys to enter the group. A few white Belgian girls went to the hip hop classes but they felt they were not in the same network as the others girls and they finally left. Laura explains:
“It is very mixed actually. I mean it is funny because we don’t have the intention to only target people from different backgrounds but it happens that they are from different countries. I do not have a fully Flemish girl in my group for example. [...] I mean I guess depends what are your interests. Like I would say a Flemish person would not be as interested in this as people from other cultures. They have hobbies like scouting or chiro. But it is not like we only focus on that, it just happens. But everyone is welcomed obviously.”
It is interesting therefore that even whilst being laagdrempelig and open to everyone, the groups face problems with diversifying and instead people from the same network frequently take part in the hip hop class, which will be further elaborated upon in the challenges.
While doing participant observation, we noticed that the organisers at Burn succeeded in reaching young people from diverse backgrounds, genders, religions, ethnicities and cultures. However, we see this is in the overall organisation but not in the separate activities such as the hip hop class, as mentioned before. At Quindo, it is observed and told by the organisers that volunteers with special needs are among the attendees. The organisers of Quindo told us that groups they work with are mixed also within the groups of particular activities such as the workshops groups, the activities with OKAN, etc. Groups contain people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and diverse cultures.
In general, from the perspective of the organisers the sense of belonging created through leisure activities is often linked with the feeling of success amongst the youth themselves. If they can achieve something, they feel good and they return to the places where they feel appreciated. Our interviewees, alongside a number of scholars confirm that leisure activities have the potential to diminish or intensify feelings of difference or belonging, depending on whether the young people feel included by the organisers and the other participants or not (Lundvalll & Walseth, 2014; Mata-Codesal et al., 2015; Spracklen et al., 2017). The organisers see leisure activities as a method for integration, in that by having fun and playing together, young people can create a feeling of belonging without directly aiming for it.