Catarina Carvalho (Mensagem de Lisboa’s founder and editor), Dino Santiago (musician) and Karyna Gomes (NewsSpectrum Fellow)

Cape Verde Creole and Guinea Bissau Creole are widely spoken in Lisbon. Yet the voices of Creole speakers are rarely heard in the media.

Amid this background, Mensagem de Lisboa, a Lisbon-based community online media, embarked upon an unprecedented project: journalism in Creole. Together with NewsSpectrum Fellow Karyna Gomes, a Lisbon-based journalist and musician of Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean origin, Mensagem de Lisboa started “The Creole Project”.

As a NewsSpectrum Fellow, Gomes has been producing stories related to the representation of the Creole-speaking population in all domains of Lisbon’s social life, the impact of African music and art on the city’s cultural landscape, challenges related to housing, and social and urban issues affecting Creole community in Lisabon.

Nine multimedia articles were produced in in Creole and Portuguese (all listed below). Supported by two additional partners (“No Sta Djunto”, a social media community from Guinea-Bissau and the television program “Bem Vindos”, largely watched by Creole communities) – this project attracted a great deal of attention from the Creole community and other media in Portugal.

Gomes will remain a part of the Mensagem de Lisboa newsroom even after the end of NewsSpectrum programme. She says she wants to build the team of contributors and journalists publishing in Creole and has already been contacted by many Creole speakers from Lisbon willing to participate.

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