Social contribution
DPG Media leverages its knowledge, capacity, resources, and media to support the younger generation, recognizing that motivated, engaged, and well-supported young people have the power to shape the future.
Facts and figures
With the Belgian brands VTM, Qmusic, HLN and bank/insurer Belfius, DPG Media supports the new youth movement JEZ!. Its first charity campaign in 2023 raised 3,219,191 euros for 200 youth organisations in Flanders and Brussels.
4,023 teachers registered on the Sidekick Sam Academy platform, an initiative originating from JEZ! Predecessor Red Nose Day and now supported by JEZ!. The platform provides Flemish teachers with knowledge and skills to support the mental wellbeing of their pupils.
With its Dutch brands, DPG Media supports actions that promote literacy across society. Together with the CPNB and the Children’s Book Week we’re increasing reading pleasure among children. We also made several magazine issues for people with low literacy levels. De Gelderlander provided free newspaper subscriptions to people with limited resources to increase their community involvement. We will expand this initiative on a national level.
DPG Media is a partner of Campus 19: a programme in which young people with fewer opportunities in society are retrained to be IT officers. DPG Media supports the programme in a variety of ways, for instance by making its building available for the training sessions. More than 100 young people started the training in 2023.
DPG Media offers lodging and technical support to 80 journalists from 3 independent Russian media outlets, enabling these journalists to continue to carry out their work independently and freely.
Young and Foolish, that's JEZ!
Together with VTM, HLN, Qmusic and with the support of Belfius, the JEZ! youth collective will put youth issues on the agenda, create content and organise events with the aim of putting the spotlight back on young people. After all, today's youngsters and children have the power to make a positive difference in tomorrow's world.
We are going for a story of, for and by young people, where together we will set the whole of Flanders in motion and launch initiatives for all kinds of youth-focused projects. We want to celebrate young people, and put them in the spotlight in a positive way.
Children's Book Week makes reading fun
With the Kinderboekenweek, CPNB and DPG Media want to make the pleasure and experience of reading accessible to every child. Unfortunately, for children and young people it has become less normal to read for pleasure. In education, the focus is more on technical reading, at home books get competition from all kinds of screens.
With Children's Book Week, we want to stimulate the pleasure of reading. We invite parents and grandparents to talk about how valuable reading is and to share with their children and grandchildren the big and small life lessons they have learned from books. We challenge children to find a book that really suits them, so that their desire to read continues to grow. We make this enthusiasm contagious by reading aloud, by reading together and by enthusiastically sharing our best book tips.
Sidekick Sam Academy
A teacher working towards a stronger future for young people in his or her class is a
Sidekick Sam. The Academy is an online platform to motivate, inspire and connect all
current and aspiring teachers. It reaches out to them with the necessary support and
tools to empower young people.
The platform offers inspiring videos and podcasts, hands-on teaching packages and
online workshops and webinars. And it is also a place for dialogue and for sharing
experiences, because research has shown there is a great need for this. Every month,
Sidekick Sam Academy is updated with content around a new theme. It is not a static
platform, but a community that lives and grows. Our goal is to create a tight-knit
community with a Sidekick Sam at every school!
Zeppe & Zikki and Aya help children navigate safely
The merry traffic duo Zeppe & Zikki take on the challenge of helping primary school children navigate traffic safely. Thanks to their original lessons and crazy adventures, children not only learn to be careful themselves, but also how they can help others. Flanders' happiest traffic duo also likes to pose for national safety campaigns.
The cute character Aya introduces toddlers to the rules of the road in a playful way. In addition to a digital adventure series on television, 60,000 pre-schoolers get to know Aya in their classrooms every year.
Project 19: more IT starters
Too few Belgian young people graduate as digital experts to fill the many vacancies for digital profiles. By supporting Project 19 we give 18 year olds the chance to start from scratch and quickly build up IT knowledge through an innovative method. DPG Media supports the project not only financially, but also offers the opportunity to gain practical experience.
Every year, 300 young people are given the opportunity to learn to code through the project. Everyone who wants to learn to code is welcome. The basic skills are followed by a specialisation in, among others, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and e-gaming. The training is partly online and partly classroom-based, but there are no real teachers. The participants train each other, supported by exercises and lessons on the platform.
Action in the spotlight: more than 1 million euro for Pakje Van Je Hart
With the 'Pakje Van Je Hart' campaign, radio station Joe gave its listeners the opportunity to do something heart-warming for children living in poverty. In Belgium, 1 child in 5 lives in an underprivileged family, which is far too many. That's why everyone could buy a present for a child that might otherwise not get one. The Joe listeners gave their hearts out in a big way: during the first edition of 'Pakje van je Hart' we collected 1,014,900 euros to give children a better Christmas.
