“My time in Belgium fundamentally changed me. Boys who grow up in Albania learn to act macho. If they don’t, they are easily beaten up. In Belgium, I learnt that it doesn't have to be that way. I experienced there what personal freedom is.”
Igis (°1998) – Albania
“I was sixteen when they saw me talking to a girl. In a place like Shkodër, that’s dangerous. My parents were attacked. If I didn’t marry her, they would kill me. I fled to Belgium, but I was not granted asylum. No one believed my story. I learned Dutch, made a lot of friends and trained as a cook in Antwerp. A whole new world was opening up for me, until Covid ruined everything. And yet. Belgium has changed me: I’ve learnt what freedom is, and that you are defined by what you do, not by what you own.”