**Indoor football clubs that can make a cross over the competition, theatres that say njet to the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) and a community centre that calls the police on an aggressive visitor. The extended covid pass will only become mandatory on October 15, but it is already causing high tension. “This will only increase inequality.”**
Wednesday, 5pm. Vossenplein. The corridors of the swimming pool are crowded. Parents come and go to bring their often small children to swimming lessons. The greeting with the swimming teachers – volunteers from the neighbourhood club Anneessens 25 – is cordial. The club is best known for its indoor football, but also offers yoga, jiujitsu, indoor hockey and homework help.”
My son loves water and swimming,” says Myriame (45). The mother of Mehdi (7) brings her son with autism disorder to the swimming pool, where he has a personal attendant in the water. “If this activity were to stop because of the Covid Safe Ticket, it would be a disaster, also for the other children. When the pools were closed, they were locked inside for almost two years. I tell you: if swimming stops, je casse tout à Bruxelles.”
That the swimming activity is uncertain may seem strange. After all, the Covid Safe Ticket for indoor sports will only apply from the age of 16. “Only here are a lot of children from the age of 4 who can’t change on their own,” explains Myriame, who is herself vaccinated. ”
So the parents have to come along.” And many of those parents are not vaccinated today, knows Mustapha Rezki, manager of Anneessens 25. Worse still: of the swimming teachers, only two of the six have been vaccinated. “And since they are volunteers, they need a CST. The headaches for Anneessens 25 do not end there. Of the thirteen indoor football coaches, only three have been vaccinated. The first team, which is now playing in the first national league? Four of the fifteen players have been vaccinated.
**Reverse effect”**
Whether CST encourages vaccination? Not really. We try, but ils s’en fichent,” notes Rezki. “In fact, this obligation seems to have the opposite effect and to make many members more stubborn. Six months ago, the cards may have been different, but in the meantime it has become a conviction for many people. The way the cards are now, most teams will not be able to play any more matches for the duration of the CST.” No matches also means the loss of a real neighbourhood ritual: two to three hundred people coming to cheer on the first team every Friday.Rezki is therefore not happy about the extension of the Covid Safe Ticket to, among others, sports halls. “This will only increase inequality. And of course it will be the poorest who will no longer have access to sports, culture …”.
The indoor football teams of Anneessens 25 are no exception. The indoor football federation in Brussels and Walloon Brabant estimates that 75 of the 580 indoor football teams in Brussels will be in trouble. Maybe at the start of the competition, but by then it will be too late,” says Serge De Grève.And other sports also share the blame. Circus zonder Handen, with nine locations in Brussels, for example, makes a point of welcoming young people from Brussels with open arms. However, that accessibility will soon be under pressure when the Covid Safe Ticket is introduced. ”
To accompany the groups, we often call on 16-year-olds who come from the circus school themselves and support a class,” explains Thibaut Princen. “If some of them cannot teach due to the lack of CST, this has an impact on our offer.”Will the entire amateur sports sector soon collapse like a pudding in Brussels? At basketball team Excelsior Brussels, which has many members from Neder-Over-Heembeek, a different sound is heard. In the first team, almost everyone has been vaccinated in the meantime. The youth teams still have some way to go, but more and more young people are being convinced, says trainer Terry De Roover. “The fact that the covid pass will be compulsory certainly plays a part.”
**The role of police officer**
Monday evening, Gallaitstraat in Schaarbeek. In community centre De Kriekelaar, a party is going on with about seventy participants. The atmosphere is excellent. Paint it black’ by The Rolling Stones blares through the loudspeakers and the dark dance floor fills up with exuberant foals. After all, since 1 October, dance parties without masks have been possible again, albeit with a covid pass.Prospective visitors who do not have such a pass sometimes grumble, but then turn back without a problem. Until a man shows up who, after a few verbal outbursts at the reception desk – against masks and the CST – just walks in without a corona pass. ”
We then called the police, who kicked him out,” says centre manager Leen Rossignol. “But then that person came back to take revenge on the colleague at the reception desk. He was beaten up and other participants ended up kicking him out again.” The community centre filed a complaint in the meantime.The incident shows how quickly the Covid Safe Ticket can push a cultural organiser into the role of a policeman, the centre manager found. ”
That is really not a pleasant role and we are not at all armed against such aggression. At the same time, Rossignol emphasises that it was only one person. “The week before, we also had theatre and there was no problem. Most visitors and entertainers who have not been vaccinated are not anti-vaxers like that man, but are simply confronted with a lot of wrong information that leads to fear. We put information sessions in place to counter that, including for young people.”
**Compulsory vaccination**
The fact that they do not want to play policeman is already a reason for many cultural institutions to oppose the extension of the coronapas. Some ten French-speaking theatres in Brussels have already announced that they will not be applying the system. And some four hundred cultural organisations from Brussels and Wallonia opposed it in an open letter last week. “It is especially not our role (…),” it says. ”
It is against the ethics and values that we defend with our actions and productions. If we have a role to play, it is precisely to connect in the midst of a social disaster (…).” The signatories also doubt that cultural events have a major share in the infections.”
What weighs heaviest? That it will only reinforce the polarisation in society,” says Virginie Cordier, who co-signed as director of cultural centre La Vénerie in Watermaal-Bosvoorde. “We can already see this within our staff, our public, the board of directors … We even get mail from visitors who are vaccinated, but refuse to come when we apply the CST. In addition, people also forget that not everyone has a smartphone and gets to that QR code just like that without any problem.”
The signatories and CST rebels are almost all French-speaking, but the Dutch-speaking cultural institutions are also not immediately happy about the covid pass. “We are already applying it because we want to get rid of the virus, but actually the whole sector is annoyed with it,” says Michaël De Cock, artistic director of the KVS. “The biggest objection is indeed that polarisation. If we had just made vaccination compulsory, there would be no need for this coronapas either.”
De Cock is not the only one who is in favour of compulsory vaccination. “That extended covid pass is very ambiguous,” says Céline Nieuwenhuys, secretary general of the Federation of Social Services and also a member of the corona advisory group GEMS+. “On the one hand, we say that the vaccination is completely free, but those who don’t opt for it are no longer allowed to play sports indoors, go out to eat… Then you better be consistent and allocate a lot of resources for that.”
I for one can’t give a rats ass of pity when people that refuse to get a free vaccine get disadvantaged if they don’t want to get tested.
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**Indoor football clubs that can make a cross over the competition, theatres that say njet to the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) and a community centre that calls the police on an aggressive visitor. The extended covid pass will only become mandatory on October 15, but it is already causing high tension. “This will only increase inequality.”**
Wednesday, 5pm. Vossenplein. The corridors of the swimming pool are crowded. Parents come and go to bring their often small children to swimming lessons. The greeting with the swimming teachers – volunteers from the neighbourhood club Anneessens 25 – is cordial. The club is best known for its indoor football, but also offers yoga, jiujitsu, indoor hockey and homework help.”
My son loves water and swimming,” says Myriame (45). The mother of Mehdi (7) brings her son with autism disorder to the swimming pool, where he has a personal attendant in the water. “If this activity were to stop because of the Covid Safe Ticket, it would be a disaster, also for the other children. When the pools were closed, they were locked inside for almost two years. I tell you: if swimming stops, je casse tout à Bruxelles.”
That the swimming activity is uncertain may seem strange. After all, the Covid Safe Ticket for indoor sports will only apply from the age of 16. “Only here are a lot of children from the age of 4 who can’t change on their own,” explains Myriame, who is herself vaccinated. ”
So the parents have to come along.” And many of those parents are not vaccinated today, knows Mustapha Rezki, manager of Anneessens 25. Worse still: of the swimming teachers, only two of the six have been vaccinated. “And since they are volunteers, they need a CST. The headaches for Anneessens 25 do not end there. Of the thirteen indoor football coaches, only three have been vaccinated. The first team, which is now playing in the first national league? Four of the fifteen players have been vaccinated.
**Reverse effect”**
Whether CST encourages vaccination? Not really. We try, but ils s’en fichent,” notes Rezki. “In fact, this obligation seems to have the opposite effect and to make many members more stubborn. Six months ago, the cards may have been different, but in the meantime it has become a conviction for many people. The way the cards are now, most teams will not be able to play any more matches for the duration of the CST.” No matches also means the loss of a real neighbourhood ritual: two to three hundred people coming to cheer on the first team every Friday.Rezki is therefore not happy about the extension of the Covid Safe Ticket to, among others, sports halls. “This will only increase inequality. And of course it will be the poorest who will no longer have access to sports, culture …”.
The indoor football teams of Anneessens 25 are no exception. The indoor football federation in Brussels and Walloon Brabant estimates that 75 of the 580 indoor football teams in Brussels will be in trouble. Maybe at the start of the competition, but by then it will be too late,” says Serge De Grève.And other sports also share the blame. Circus zonder Handen, with nine locations in Brussels, for example, makes a point of welcoming young people from Brussels with open arms. However, that accessibility will soon be under pressure when the Covid Safe Ticket is introduced. ”
To accompany the groups, we often call on 16-year-olds who come from the circus school themselves and support a class,” explains Thibaut Princen. “If some of them cannot teach due to the lack of CST, this has an impact on our offer.”Will the entire amateur sports sector soon collapse like a pudding in Brussels? At basketball team Excelsior Brussels, which has many members from Neder-Over-Heembeek, a different sound is heard. In the first team, almost everyone has been vaccinated in the meantime. The youth teams still have some way to go, but more and more young people are being convinced, says trainer Terry De Roover. “The fact that the covid pass will be compulsory certainly plays a part.”
**The role of police officer**
Monday evening, Gallaitstraat in Schaarbeek. In community centre De Kriekelaar, a party is going on with about seventy participants. The atmosphere is excellent. Paint it black’ by The Rolling Stones blares through the loudspeakers and the dark dance floor fills up with exuberant foals. After all, since 1 October, dance parties without masks have been possible again, albeit with a covid pass.Prospective visitors who do not have such a pass sometimes grumble, but then turn back without a problem. Until a man shows up who, after a few verbal outbursts at the reception desk – against masks and the CST – just walks in without a corona pass. ”
We then called the police, who kicked him out,” says centre manager Leen Rossignol. “But then that person came back to take revenge on the colleague at the reception desk. He was beaten up and other participants ended up kicking him out again.” The community centre filed a complaint in the meantime.The incident shows how quickly the Covid Safe Ticket can push a cultural organiser into the role of a policeman, the centre manager found. ”
That is really not a pleasant role and we are not at all armed against such aggression. At the same time, Rossignol emphasises that it was only one person. “The week before, we also had theatre and there was no problem. Most visitors and entertainers who have not been vaccinated are not anti-vaxers like that man, but are simply confronted with a lot of wrong information that leads to fear. We put information sessions in place to counter that, including for young people.”
**Compulsory vaccination**
The fact that they do not want to play policeman is already a reason for many cultural institutions to oppose the extension of the coronapas. Some ten French-speaking theatres in Brussels have already announced that they will not be applying the system. And some four hundred cultural organisations from Brussels and Wallonia opposed it in an open letter last week. “It is especially not our role (…),” it says. ”
It is against the ethics and values that we defend with our actions and productions. If we have a role to play, it is precisely to connect in the midst of a social disaster (…).” The signatories also doubt that cultural events have a major share in the infections.”
What weighs heaviest? That it will only reinforce the polarisation in society,” says Virginie Cordier, who co-signed as director of cultural centre La Vénerie in Watermaal-Bosvoorde. “We can already see this within our staff, our public, the board of directors … We even get mail from visitors who are vaccinated, but refuse to come when we apply the CST. In addition, people also forget that not everyone has a smartphone and gets to that QR code just like that without any problem.”
The signatories and CST rebels are almost all French-speaking, but the Dutch-speaking cultural institutions are also not immediately happy about the covid pass. “We are already applying it because we want to get rid of the virus, but actually the whole sector is annoyed with it,” says Michaël De Cock, artistic director of the KVS. “The biggest objection is indeed that polarisation. If we had just made vaccination compulsory, there would be no need for this coronapas either.”
De Cock is not the only one who is in favour of compulsory vaccination. “That extended covid pass is very ambiguous,” says Céline Nieuwenhuys, secretary general of the Federation of Social Services and also a member of the corona advisory group GEMS+. “On the one hand, we say that the vaccination is completely free, but those who don’t opt for it are no longer allowed to play sports indoors, go out to eat… Then you better be consistent and allocate a lot of resources for that.”
I for one can’t give a rats ass of pity when people that refuse to get a free vaccine get disadvantaged if they don’t want to get tested.