Foyer vzw
Rue des Ateliers 25, 1080 Molenbeek
00.32 (2) 411.74.95
Copyright © Foyer 2020
Rue des Ateliers 25, 1080 Molenbeek
00.32 (2) 411.74.95
Copyright © Foyer 2020
Johan Leman, 3 February 2025
Along the canal, there are opportunities for walking and biking on either side, overlooking the water. Parallel, less than 100 metres away, is the rue des Ateliers, between place Sainctelette and rue du Ruisseau. It is on that street that the entrance gates are located for those who want to visit JES, or ‘Group Intro’, or the youth work of Foyer, or the Amal sports hall, or the administration of the Communauté française, or a Pakistani mosque, or museum MMM, or some associations clustered by the municipality, or a bureau of architects, or a Pentecostal church, or just some private residences as well. In other words, a lively street.
What are the two big problems in the neighbourhood? Drug dealing, especially around the corner situated between Amal sports hall and the well-enclosed garden of the youth work Foyer. And fly-tipping. One knows, but can’t solve the problem.
Suppose you have sufficient finances as a Region or as a Municipality, what do you do? You organize it such a way that the drug dealers and fly-tippers no longer find a place there. If you then know that a bit further down the road there is a beautiful park on rue de Ruisseau, which you keep closed as because otherwise drug dealing and illegal dumping become daily fare there as well, you make a similar intervention there. Then you make sure that surveillance can be provided at the park so that people have access to it. This, it seems to me, should be the priorities.
What you should definitely avoid is making the problem even bigger. Just because something was planned decades ago, at a time when there was no public order issue, does not mean you should push through with that old plan against all common sense when a serious public order problem has now arisen. You first solve the public order issue and carry out works that are 100% certain to improve the neighborhood.
How do you make the problem worse? By expanding the space where drug dealers and illegal dumpers can operate without the slightest social control. This happens when you create an opening in the garden of the youth organization Foyer and turn half of the garden into a walkway, extending it into the garden of the MMM museum (where artworks could also be vandalized with graffiti) and further into the park (which remains continuously closed due to the risk of drug dealing and illegal dumping).
The result: you take away play space from young people and make the neighborhood less safe, all for the sake of a so-called “green walkway” of at most 300 meters, without any social control, which ultimately leads to a taxi garage. This is supposedly being done over the “Little Zenne,” even though there has never been a Zenne there, only a small canal that no longer carries a drop of water… A simple look at 19th-century maps is enough to confirm this.
If this project is pushed through against all principles of public order, the Region and Municipality will create an excellent new opportunity for drug dealers and illegal dumpers, while the park will largely remain unused. And then later, they will complain about security issues and a lack of play space in Molenbeek!
Back