Studio Hirondelle Chad

Launched in July 2025, Voix de Toumaï is the weekly multilingual magazine of Studio Hirondelle-Chad, a production and training unit created in January 2025 in N’Djamena as part of the European Union-funded regional project “Resilience to disinformation for social cohesion in Chad and the central Sahel.”

Lasting one hour and produced in Sara, Chadian Arabic, and French, the magazine is broadcast by a network of 14 partner radio stations across the country. Structured in five sections, it explores the social, cultural, economic, and civic realities of Chad each week. It gives a voice to those who are making a difference in the country and highlights local initiatives while promoting mutual understanding in diversity. The content is also shared on digital platforms to broaden access to independent, inclusive, and verified information.

CONTEXT

In 2025, Chad is continuing its political transition in a context marked by security and socio-economic challenges, particularly in rural and border areas. The growing circulation of unverified content on social media and messaging apps is undermining public debate and complicating access to reliable information, especially for young people. This intervention comes at a time when the Chadian media landscape relies on a network of local radio stations, which remain the main source of information for communities but face technical and economic constraints and challenges related to the circulation of false information, which complicate access to reliable and verified information.

Project Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to foster social cohesion and resilience to disinformation in Chad. It is structured around three specific goals:

• Strengthen local media and their collaboration with civil society
• Combat disinformation and promote inclusive information
• Raise public awareness about information integrity through media literacy.

Creating spaces for dialogue across Chad

In 2026, the challenge will be to consolidate the work undertaken as part of the “Resilience of populations to disinformation” project. The project will continue the production, dissemination, and capacity-building activities already in place, while expanding their scope to include the most vulnerable audiences.

This involves, in particular, developing offline media and information literacy activities within communities (listening clubs, public debates, local awareness campaigns) and mobilizing and training civil society organizations to interact more closely with the media, thereby contributing more to the production of content of public interest.

At the same time, there are plans to extend the initiative to eastern Chad, with the launch of a humanitarian magazine aimed at refugees and host communities. It aims to meet information needs in a context marked by displacement and social tensions. With a view to expanding and sustaining this momentum, consolidating the network of partner radio stations, and strengthening Studio Hirondelle-Chad’s territorial roots, new funding will be sought.

An Inclusive and Regional Approach

The project promotes better representation of women in the media, both as subjects and as actors of information. It also encourages community dialogue through public debates and participatory productions.

At the regional level, Chad joins Fondation Hirondelle studios in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in a mechanism for editorial co-production, cross-training, and knowledge exchange—particularly to jointly deconstruct misleading narratives circulating throughout the region.