Mechelen Night Owls “Nachtraven”

Everyone should be able to feel safe in the city, regardless of their age, gender, origin, etc. Unfortunately this is not always the case, especially after night falls. Young people also experience intimidation in many different forms. The city of Mechelen wants to tackle this problem in a targeted manner and has engaged Studio Dott to help. Together we dove into Mechelen nightlife and we shared the joys and sorrows of youngsters, in search of smart solutions for a safer nightlife.

Slim in de Stad-award 2017
Client: City of Mechelen

Intimidation, (not) a thing of the past

We found that there is indeed a problem with intimidation. The question remained whether young people also see this as a problem or do they just take it as a part of life? Time to go out and just ask them!

Social digital

Our target group consisted of young people, 15 to 25 years old, who go out in and around Mechelen. No better way to reach these youngsters than through the good old social media channels. Especially on Facebook, our survey soon began to go viral among the Mechelen youths. Thanks to their honest responses, we got a good overview of the problems and needs with regard to safety in nightlife. With this input, we were able to set up a customized idea jam.

I wanna jam with you

20 youngsters, a lot of pizza and a great deal of enthusiasm on a Saturday afternoon: the ideal mix for a lively idea jam. With this co-creative session, we gave these youths the opportunity to make their voices heard even more. We started from the already detected challenges and mapped the potentially unsafe situations and locations.

More ideas please

There is no challenge that has no solution. During the second part of the jam, the youngsters formulated how things could be improved and various ideas were born, some a little more drastic than others, but all equally relevant. From all these ideas, the participants themselves chose their favorites, which they then developed in more detail.

Don't worry, there's a story

All of the ideas suggested by these youths were collected and thematically clustered. Together, we then made a selection of the most useful concepts. This resulted in 3 storyboards, combining the different ideas. This gave the city of Mechelen a clear story from which certain ideas can be picked for testing at a later stage.

The story continues

The next steps in the process are experimental testing of a number of concepts in a realistic context with the youngsters so that these solutions can be evaluated and adjusted. To this end, the City of Mechelen is looking for innovative companies that can improve the feeling of insecurity among young people, with new or existing solutions. Thanks to an open call, anyone can apply for this, after which an expert jury will select the winner(s).

Hack the Night

Are you interested in participating in the open call by the City of Mechelen? Then try your luck now and present your solution to a group of youngsters who will give their honest opinion. Who knows, you might win the top prize of 10,000 euros (incl. VAT) to turn your idea into reality!

To the open call

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Mechelse Nachtraven

Iedereen moet zich veilig kunnen voelen in de stad, ongeacht leeftijd, geslacht, origine, ... Helaas is dit niet altijd het geval, zeker niet wanneer de nacht valt. Ook bij jongeren komt intimidatie in allerlei soorten en maten voor. De stad Mechelen wil dit probleem gericht aanpakken en nam hiervoor Studio Dott onder de arm. Samen zijn we het nachtleven van Mechelen ingedoken en deelden we lief en leed met de jongeren om op zoek te gaan naar slimme oplossingen voor een veilig nachtleven.

Slim in de Stad-prijs 2017
Client: stad Mechelen

Intimidatie, (n)iets van deze tijd

We stelden vast dat er wel degelijk een probleem is met intimidatie. Restte nog de vraag of jongeren dit ook als een probleem ervaren of hoort het er voor hen gewoon bij? Tijd om het veld in te gaan en het hen gewoon te vragen!

Sociaal digitaal

Onze doelgroep bestond uit jongeren van 15 tot 25 jaar, die in en rond Mechelen uitgaan. Geen betere manier om deze jongeren te bereiken, dan via de goeie ouwe social media kanalen. Vooral op Facebook begon onze bevraging al snel te leven onder de Mechelse jeugd. Dankzij hun eerlijke antwoorden, kregen we een goed beeld van de problemen en noden rond de veiligheid in het uitgaansleven. Met deze input konden we verder aan de slag om een op maat gemaakte idea jam op poten te zetten.