Undesert the news in Lisbon Metropolitan Area

The project's main goal is to address the lack of information coming from within these communities and collaborate with their members to share untold stories, empowering them in the process. This involves guiding them through the complexities of the news media landscape and helping their stories reach a wider audience.

What stories young adults living in the peripheral areas of Lisbon would tell if they had the power to do so in the mainstream media? This project aims exactly at that. Working with youngsters to share  stories that represent a diverse range of experiences and perspectives that are often overlooked. Mensagem will work with three communities in the Lisbon metropolitan area, collaboratively developing innovative storytelling formats while adhering to journalistic standards. The objective is to empower young individuals living in news deserts and those who tend to avoid the news. By helping them constructively build their own narratives, the project seeks to bridge the gap and amplify their voices. Ultimately, "Mensagem" aims to foster understanding, empathy, and positive change within society.

Target group

The main target audience of our media news desert project is the young readers from underreported communities in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. For this pilot, we have selected three neighborhoods: Algueirão/Mem Martins (Sintra), Casal da Mira (Amadora), and Charneca da Caparica (Almada). These neighborhoods have a significant representation of young people, social minorities, and firstgeneration Portuguese residents.

Goals of the project

By working journalistically with three communities in peripherical Lisbon we hope to help put their issues and stories on the media agenda. We also hope to understand and make people understand how to start to reduce inequality and raise the awareness about these communities in the rest of the society – and what does that mean to both sides (the media and the communities).

About the media outlet

Mensagem is a community journalism local media based at A Brasileira Café in Chiado district, downtown. It started two years ago. From the beginning Mensagem aimed at telling the small and civic stories of  big metropolis like Lisbon – Portugal’s capita. It is working to bringing people together and making them feel part of a community in a big city like Lisboa, especially using the power of journalism and storytelling as a tool to promote knowledge and thus enhance empathy. No story is small enough for us and we go where nobody else goes. We practice a constructive approach to the city, trying to turn our members not civic agents, and not news victims.