Brabant takes a strong step to strengthen the Street culture & sports scene. The province is investing €450,000 in a program to connect creators, initiatives, and local collaborations within the scene and make them more visible. With this approach, the province aims to reach and activate more young people.
The scene is a dynamic, creative, and often informal movement mainly of young people, where sport, art, movement, and lifestyle come together. From hip hop, graffiti, and skateboarding to freestyle football and 3x3 basketball.
Lack of cohesion
This subculture in Brabant cities has a strong reputation but is often informally organized. Due to the lack of a cohesive approach within the (sub)culture, the strength is still fragmented.
Makers and loose initiatives do not find existing support and schemes or fall between the cracks when they try to use them. This emerges from an exploration by BrabantSport, Kunstloc, the B7 Urban platform, and other parties from the scene. There is much potential: the scene is bursting with energy and gets young people moving who are not reached by traditional sports or art forms.
Reaching young people through more cohesion
BrabantSport, the provinces implementation partner, will work on making the rapidly growing scene more future-proof on behalf of the province. The approach focuses on 3 tracks:
- At least 15 promising projects will receive support through a low-threshold financing program.
- A network will be created in which knowledge is shared.
- Barriers will be removed.
Brabant chooses an approach that uses the energy of the scene to reach more young people, with special attention to girls.
This energetic movement deserves space, opportunities, and a stage. Young people work on their own culture and style. We do not want to steer this from above but support and enable it, says Bas Maes, deputy for culture, sport, and leisure. The scene fits perfectly with the innovative and creative character of our province.