Bon Buzz
Update (10 July 2025): launch of the Bon Buzz Network
Bon Buzz is a program designed to encourage young people to critically reflect on the polarized society in which they live and to bring about change in perceptions through (journalistic) stories. After four cycles of Bon Buzz workshops on journalism and polarization the Good Buzz continues! Voice4Thought is launching a new project in Chad this year: Bon Buzz Network. Through this network, we connect all former workshop participants so that they can conduct research together, write new depolarizing stories, and produce podcasts. At the same time, we are strengthening the capacities of our participants by encouraging them to collaborate more.
The new project was launched on Friday, June 27, at the Catholic University Center in Sabangali. The first publications will appear on August 8.
Bon Buzz Network is made possible thanks to the support of the European Union and is a collaborative project with the EU, the Dutch Embassy, GIZ, and the Center for Research in Anthropology and the Social Sciences (CRASH).
Bon Buzz: depolarising stories in Chad
Socratic dialogue, free writing, drawing each other’s faces, blindly observing what is going on around you in a bustling street in N’Djamena, the participants of the intensive 7 day workshop of the Bon Buzz project did it all. Sometimes you have to challenge your thoughts, break free of established habits, get exposed to new ideas and ways of working when you want to advance in your work. Especially when you are a young journalist, or a publicist, who is born and raised within a highly polarised society and you feel the urge to change the way you are reporting on that society, but you don’t know how.
Enter: the Bon Buzz project, a two round 7-day workshop on writing depolarizing stories in Chad. After Bon Buzz 1, which second workshop finished in February 2024, Voice4Thought organised two new rounds of Bon Buzz workshops in 2024. In regard to Bon Buzz 1 some parts of the program have been tweaked. This time a more interactive approach led participants to critically discuss the meaning of polarisation among themselves and how their stories could convincingly change perceptions in a polarised society. In addition, having both new and older participants proved a succes: students helped each other to sharpen the angle of their stories and deepen their understanding of polarisation and depolarisation. After finishing their propositions to produce a written or audio story (podcast) they will start their research and the writing and producing of their stories.
Bon Buzz evolved from Tchadoblog.