Desinfox Youth

Democratic governance Environment Gender equality Misinformation The French-speaking world Young people

Desinfox Youth aims to provide young people from French-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the means to face off manipulation of information. Giving them the keys to gain a better grasp of content they are exposed to, and apply critical thinking, this project helps young people to gain insights and build the capacity to play an active role in defending reliable news reports in accordance with human rights.

It is implemented in partnership with two African organisations working in Media Information and Literacy (MIL): Eduk-Média in Cameroon and Les bénévoles de l’EMI in Côte d’Ivoire. These two organisations have benefitted from a series of training courses, involving ten of their members, to build their expertise. They have scaled up their skills in two phases: targeted support on managing subsidies, an essential component in financial empowerment, then a more in-depth study of educational methods in MIL, for their members to become trainers themselves, and play an active role in the field.

A core stakeholder in this process, the Centre for media information and literacy (CLEMI), trained staff at Eduk-Média, who in turn provided support for Les bénévoles de l’EMI staff. This cascade training model fosters the lasting appropriation of knowledge: going beyond the mere transmission of skills, it turns the beneficiaries into empowered stakeholders and agents of change, capable of deploying and adapting what they learned to their communities.

“Desinfox Youth is a chance in a lifetime for our MIL organisation. It has enhanced our trainers’ skills in training engineering and educational engineering for MIL, to produce resources that are suitable for our context and forge a network of 65 MIL supervisors.”
Blaise Pascal Andzongo, Eduk-média (Cameroon)

Press cartoons as a powerful means of raising awareness

Given that pictures can be a hard-hitting means of conveying a message, Desinfox Youth also harnesses press cartoons to get messages across to the public. In partnership with Cartooning for Peace and Africa Check, the project supports the production of caricatures used to illustrate fact-checking articles and increase their appeal to young people. In 2024, 17 illustrated articles were published on social networks to raise young people’s awareness of the role of the media and how information is manipulated, and foster critical thinking regarding their own responsibility in how they use social networks.

“Thanks to Desinfox Youth, we have improved the content of our training courses and built our capacity. We have moved on from mere PowerPoint presentations, and now produce great educational resources. Our trainers now work like training engineers, which is a first for Les bénévoles de l’EMI.”
Alexis Assiedou, Les bénévoles de l’EMI (Côte d’Ivoire)