Start date:  04 October 2018

Location:  Anderlecht, Brussels

Organiser(s):  Maks vzw

The multiplier event had two main goals:
– To recruit new participants for our second phase of the pilot
– To get feedback and needs for the programme from professionals working with our target-group.

It was held in the event hall of the Sint-Guido Institute, a school that has 6 OKAN-classes (OKAN= OnthaalKlas voor Anderstalige Nieuwkomers, Welcome Class for Foreign-language Newcomers for youngsters of the age between 12 and 21 years old) and teachers, educators and psychologists in their staff that are trained in working with this vulnerable group.

As the event was held in the school all students and staff from the school were invited to attend it. Almost 40 people attended the event.

The principle of the Sint-Guido institute, Mister Donceel, started with a few words: “it’s been four years that the OKAN group works together with Maks vzw in a project where the students made video-games.” Some of the students are still working as a job student for Maks in the Capital Digital project. He’s glad we found another project that is specifically tailored for this group of students.

After this introduction, Jasper from Maks took the stage where he shortly explained the concept of the Digital Welcome project. One youngster yelled “Where can I enroll? Can I do it now?” to who Jasper replied: “Patience, my dear, but thank you for your enthusiasm!”. The crowd laughed enthusiastically.

The Digital Stories made by the mentors from the first piloting phase were shown. A student remarked that all these were made by people that are older than them (they were around 23 years old) but he was assured that the programme is perfectly suitable for students that are 16 years or older.

After this, the fun part began: some of the games that were made during the first piloting phase were shown as well as an interview from the Digital Journalism workshop.

Questions from the students were mostly the common ones: “when will it go through?”, “is it free?”, “where will it be”.

Finally we asked if the students who wanted to join the Digital Welcome project could stand up so to take a group picture!

The school was very enthusiastic to be involved in the Digital Welcome project for the next piloting phase. The Welcome training for mentors will take place in November and December 2018 and the peer 2 peer workshops will be held in January 2019.

The language exercise in a digital context was what convinced the staff to get actively involved
in the project but it was the enthusiasm of the group when seeing the possibilities of Scratch that really got the ball rolling. 14 youngsters have volunteered to join the project with two  teachers that are willing to actively help as trainers.