Born in Brussels, Sarra El Messaoudi grew up surrounded by his two brothers and his sister in a resolutely cosmopolitan city. However, during her primary school years, she was often the only student from diversity. Her mother, a Belgian nurse, and her father, an interior decorator from Bouyafa near Nador, have always closely followed the education of their children. The young journalist evokes this period with pride, remembering to have always been “the first of the class”.
“I was lucky to have a mother who had the tools to help us in our revisions and homework at home. I am aware that this is not the case for everyone, but this support allowed me to maintain a good school level, ”says Sarra El Messaoudi. She frequented in turn the Brussels municipalities of Evere, Molenbeek and Schaerbeek, where she found more diversity in college. It was at this time that she began to consider her professional future, nourished by a passion for reading and books.
“I developed these abilities thanks to my mother, who always had books at home. My father, meanwhile, initiated me to calligraphy on a table at home. I always liked to write and tell stories. ”
Content that reflects the Belgian mosaic
Young and full of ambitions, Sarra El Messaoudi was very early realistic. “I knew that while waiting to become a writer, I had to move towards a lasting profession. I thought journalism could be the ideal combination of the two, ”she tells us.
At the crossroads of human accounts and experiences, the journalist thus draws her passion for the story from her own experience, but also from that of her family, her community and her plural city.
“My mother is Belgo-Belgian. On the paternal side, my grandfather came from Morocco to Belgium in the 1960s, as part of the workers’ migration initiated by the agreement between the two countries. My father then joined her, with my grandmother, by family reunification. My ancestors are therefore one of the workers’ families of the time. We all come from somewhere, and it is important to know it, to better appropriate its story, but also to celebrate it and not to hide from it. ”
At the age of 13, Sarra El Messaoudi projected himself into what has become his job. Later, she woven her first affinities with journalism through the written press. After a license in communication and a master’s degree in journalism at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), she worked for the writing of the last hour (DH), before participating in the production of reports for the RTB Belgium television news.
Journalist, trainer and speaker, she is now a creator of social impact projects, director and producer of podcasts. With an expertise in diversity and inclusion (DEI) and in media education (EMI), it is committed in various ways “for a more inclusive media world”, from its findings on the ground.
Over these first years of immersion, Sarra El Messaoudi is struck by the absence of the diversity she knows in Brussels, but that she does not find in the media. She notices this invisibilization particularly on television, which she considers little representative of the plurality experienced daily in off-champ.
“On the screen, I saw few people who looked like me. First, women were not so numerous. Then, those from diversity were practically absent. On television, I especially saw women who seemed to apologize for being there. ”
Tell the stories of all diversity
Determined to do information otherwise, the journalist is responsible for dealing with other subjects than those who limit diversity and migratory experiences with short reports of one and a half minute. She wishes “to interview other profiles and improve the treatment of subjects that [la] concern ”. She writes in particular for grenades, the RTBF media which deciphers the news from a genre point of view.
In his quest for adapted formats to tell the stories of the diversity that make up the socio -cultural mosaic of Brussels, Sarra El Messaoudi launched a series of podcasts: “Our inheritances”. Its objective is to “give voice to all the diversity of Belgium” and not only to its binational community. The idea is to faithfully report these stories, whether they tell a success, a resilience, a fragmented journey or a difficult experience. Ultimately, it is a question of giving these experiences the highlight that they deserve in the media space.
“As this work progresses, we realize that we are numerous but that we do not know the stories of our parents, their migratory trajectories,” explains Sarra El Messaoudi. More than a sound production, its initiative starts from an emergency, that of catching up with the passage of time and which erases the un-documented stories of primary-migrants.
“The grandparents have died and the entire first generation of immigration is leaving. What is left of that and therefore of us? There is an urgency to tell and to reclaim these stories, in long formats which are not binding or which limit the first concerned in time and space. ”
For Sarra El Messaoudi, it is a question of allowing the people concerned to feel legitimate to approach different subjects, beyond cultural or religious markers. “Before the interview, I exchange with the interviewees to choose which story we would like to speak. It is both a process of transmission and reappropriation, ”she explains to us.
This is why the journalistic work of Sarra El Messaoudi goes hand in hand with his voluntary commitment, as a project manager. Within the Association for Diversity and Inclusion in the Media (ADIM), it endeavors to promote equal opportunities and inclusive representation in its professional universe.
As such, the journalist organizes work, networking and exchange of experiences between sisters, “to allow women to integrate the profession first, then to stabilize there, which is all the stake when our field is still undermined by racism and sexism, whether in writing or through cyberviolence, without forgetting the precariousness of the profession”. In other words, it is a question of “creating a safe space which allows professionals to exchange freely, to reflect and to understand the systemic problems of the profession”.
Family stories, a memorial “sun card”
Beyond the release of speech and the immortalized sound memory, Sarra El Messaoudi actively engages in a unifying approach, anchored in public space and collective participation. In this context, she initiates events around her initiatives and podcasts, “to create meetings from these stories and enhance our cultures”.
On the occasion of the sixty years of the agreements on the workers’ migration between Morocco and Belgium, the journalist devoted one of her large formats to the common memory on both banks, told by her protagonists.
“I had the chance to do a whole job on the Belgian-Moroccan community, with also an event bringing together more than 200 people in Brussels. We were able to come back to our memories and those of the grandparents, in the presence in particular of Mohamedi Ben Yadir, the Moroccan-Algerian author of what is called the ‘map of the sun’. “
This card is of great importance for Belgian-Moroccan families. Sarra El Messaoudi explains it to us: “At the time, the parents had no GPS to orient themselves on their way to Morocco, where they spent the summer holidays. Many of those who went by car to Spain were sometimes lost voluntarily. To avoid this, Mohammadi Ben Yadir produced a card in 400 copies, distributed in stores frequented by the community. This is how ‘the map of the sun’ was born. This tribute to Brussels was very moving to all of us. ”
Following this success, Sarra El Messaoudi was invited to decline the guided tour initiative in Brussels. “I never thought I could do it one day!” The visit was created around extracts from all programs with Belgian-Moroccan people, returning to the political context of the signing of the working migration agreement, the social and economic conditions of families who came at the time, but also their mobilization and their organization in the face of racism, “she tells us.
This was also an opportunity for the journalist to return to previous historical references, starting in the colonial past, in connection with “what is still happening today, between fascization of society, mounted hostilities against immigrants, Islamophobia and police violence, then what makes us feel at home, in Belgium”.
Through these stories, “people discover one of the most important communities in the country, in a work of memory anchored in the past, the present and the future”. “It feels good for the elders who find their stories and young people who discover them for the first time,” says Sarra El Messaoudi calmly.