Invited to the Agora of Journalisme of Tours 2023 to present her new media COSMOS, Mabrouka Khédir, a Tunisian journalist, did not hesitate to present her project during a discussion session about media initiatives in the French-speaking countries. She also made an interview with Tours journalism school magazine and participated in the recording of the Sahafa Med podcast in English. As her media project is dedicated to the environment, COSMOS, she works to make it known. It is an original initiative, not to say unique in the Tunisian media landscape and even in the region as the subjects related to climate change and the environment are not very present in media. But that did not discourage Mabrouka Khédir from launching COSMOS… In green and (perhaps) against all…
After ten years of collaboration with Deutsche Welle Akademie in Tunisia, she launched the online media COSMOS with her 4K production team in March 2023. Through this media, Mabrouka aims to highlight the ecological issues and to raise awareness among Tunisians but also the Arabic-speaking public on issues relating to climate change. This site, which is available in Arabic and French, is a continuaty of her weekly radio program which had the same name and had tackled the ecological issue of sustainable development.
After 2 years of working on this podcast, MAbrouka found herself unable to develop this COSMOS project which was close to her heart within the radio as much as she wanted, she then decided to create a specialized online media. Through the various content produced by its team, videos, podcasts, broadcasts, articles, reports, testimonials…, COSMOS gives journalists and citizens the opportunity to become familiar with environmental journalism with a scientific approach. COSMOS gives thus the floor to the leaders of environmental initiatives to present their project and inspire citizens.
The Cosmos media team is mainly composed of female journalists. It is a “committed women’s initiative”, according to Saoussan Al Cheik, a member of the Cosmos team, and former project manager at the media development NGO Internews. Saoussan, who is interested in human rights initiatives and believes in citizen journalism, works along side the COSMOS team where she works on a voluntary basis. For her, the environment is not a separate sector but a way of life that we must integrate into our daily basis. This is after all the objective of COSMOS, which aims to encourage citizens’ reflection on environmental issues and their own roles and responsibilities.
Beyond the environmental cause, Mabrouka has another fight: defending the place of women, a cause close to many women in Tunisia.
When she was an image reporter for the Deutsche Welle, Mabrouka came under criticism because this job is often considered as a job reserved for men. However, she continue that she has also received tremendous support from her male colleagues on the field. Today, Mabrouka laid down her camera to wear the entrepreneur’s outfit. She points out that while women journalists are numerous in newsrooms, women/entrepreneurs who run and own media remain minority.
For Mabrouka, there is still a long way to convince the Tunisian media to talk more about ecology. But she who is convinced by the importance of environmental issues has a strong conviction: that the talk must oriented to young people. This is why, being a journalist and a mother at the same time, she herself decided to invest in this field, by creating COSMOS, in order to preserve our natural heritage for her son and for future generations.
