The Jury selects the projects
Its members
- Baudouin Michiels
- Marlène de Wouters
- Catherine Elmer
- Benoît De Decker
- Chris Degheldere
- Jean-Denis Lejeune
- Rudy De Cock
Baudouin Michiels
Baudouin Michiels has a PHD in law and is a graduate of Social Science & Employment. In parallel to his career within the groups Côte d'Or and Kraft Jacobs Suchard, he is a board member and President of the Commission for Social Affairs and the Federation of Belgian Enterprises.
Baudouin Michiels is very familiar with the world of Non-Governmental Organisations. He is President of the Management Committee for the Prince Albert Fund, which distributes grants to young managers that want to achieve an international career. He is also President and CEO of the Belgacom Fund, which provides financial support to either commune initiatives or those of Social Services in the three regions of Belgium that aim to improve dialogue between the citizen and local authorities.
Marlène de Wouters
Despite being born in Amsterdam, Marlène de Wouters is a Belgian native.
Following her professional tennis career where she won numerous national and international titles, Marlène decided to embark upon a different career path. Since 1989, Marlène has become one of the most well-known television presenters in Flanders. Loved by the general public for her spontaneity and her ability to understand people, her image is synonymous with integrity and professionalism.
For her televised programmes, Marlène has interviewed fascinating personalities, famous and unknown, national and international. What is most remarkable about these interviews is the way in which Marlène so easily wins the confidence and trust of her guests regardless of their status, background or nationality.
Catherine Elmer
Doctor Catherine Elmer is a pediatrician at IRAHM, the Royal Institute for motor disabilities. She is a rehabilitation specialist. She ensures the medical follow-up of children in the institute (type 4 educational rehabilitation institute) who are polyhandicapped or who have a prevalent motor handicap; some of the children accomodated here were placed by the Youth Court Judge.
She also coordinates the follow-up in dialog with her neurologist colleagues who are in charge of the motor rehabilitation of the children. She has an excellent knowledge of the family and social context of each child.
Benoît De Decker
Benoît De Decker is an educational governor and is currently the director of the non-profit organisation Solidarcité.
He completed his civil service at Antenne 110 in 1988. This is an institute for children who suffer from autism and psychoses. Following this, he became a tutor at “la Chapelle de Bourgogne”, a medical institute, where children and young people with personality disorders are educated.
He then went to work as a social worker with the non-profit organisation Samarcande. In 1997 he began work with a Mexican NGO (Ednica) that offers support to the street children in Mexico City. This unique experience will remain with him forever.
After his return in 1998, SOS Jeunes asked him for an innovative project: Solidarcité, a year of active citizenship for young people between 16 and 25 years. This original and successful initiative grew in 2006 to become an independent non-profit organisation.
Benoît is also an active supporter of a number of non-profit organisations that are active in youth welfare. “Social innovation” is his favourite field of action.
Chris Degheldere
Chris Degheldere is a sociologist and also has experience in scientific research.
Following this she worked with a regional development organisation where she was responsible for the welfare sector and then became head of department for aid at the Flemish Red Cross.
She is currently the coordinator of Federatie Pleegzorg (Forster Care Federation).
Jean-Denis Lejeune
Jean-Denis Lejeune was born in Liège on 8 November 1959. He began his career there initially building car bodies, but after 10 years he changed jobs to become an automotive spray painter at a local car dealership.
After the disappearance of his daughter Julie and her friend Melissa, Lejeune organized and coordinated with the parents of missing children to put on the famous White March, a 1996 demonstration in which over 350,000 Belgians participated. He traveled several times to the US to observe the operations of a center for missing children and presented this model to the Prime Minister of Belgium. In 1998, Jean-Denis Lejeune became the pioneer and co-founder of Child Focus: he worked in close collaboration with the board of directors and was active in communications and fundraising. After a successful period, he quit Child Focus and joined l'Institution du Délégué Général aux Droits de l'Enfant de la Communauté Française (The Institute of Children's Rights from the French Community) as a project leader and communications officer.
Lejeune is now an active member of the jury of “Helping Hand”. With this initiative, Belgacom generously supports employees who are active in an NGO or other social organization with financial and material aid.
Rudy De Cock
Rudy De Cock was born in Ghent in 1960. He trained to become a Cultural Worker at the institute which is now known as the Artevelde Hogeschool. He began his career working with young people. Later on, he assisted the under-educated and long-time unemployed. By defining a new professional programme for them, he worked to prevent them from becoming marginalised by society. Also in his later projects, fighting poverty was always a central concern.
He became provincial ombudsman at the Kind & Gezin (Child & Family) organisation and a civil servant in charge of raising awareness about people with limited chances in life. He’s actively involved in optimising strategic working methods, service packages and family support in order to enhance the chances of families with young children.
Currently, Rudy De Cock continues to play an important role at Kind & Gezin and he’s in charge of the “children’s rights and diversity” team. In his leisure time, Rudy is also an active chair member at VZW Link, an organisation which strives to use the experiences of poor people to improve social services.