What’s in a voice? The whole world, if you ask me.

In this new space as aidóni’s founder, I’ll be sharing my motivation behind creating aidóni and the experiences and discoveries we’ve made along the way. I’ll also be sharing the important in-depth discussions I’ve had with our team about their motivations for joining us; their unique perspectives on journalism and the world they navigate daily. This space is dedicated to fostering open conversations and providing insights into the passion and dedication that drives our mission.

By Méline Laffabry

Is a voice measured by its power, its compassion or its ability to bring about real change?

To me, its power lies in its ability to share stories. 

Stories that help others understand the reality of one individual or a community: Stories that put faces and names to events we only learn about through main media reports and political announcements. 

aidóni’s stories are created to shed light on the adversities communities all around the world have to endure every day, as well as the solutions they strive to develop to counter them. It’s aidóni’s aim, through sharing our unique accessibility and knowledge, to foster a community through which we can all connect and learn from one another.

A voice of their own

I’ve never liked the sentence “to give a voice to the voiceless” – even as I acknowledge its intent and all the good projects that have used it as a main tenet by which to achieve their goals.

No matter which language they speak, no matter which words, art, or form of protest is used to tell a community’s story – everybody has a voice.

The first thing a newborn does is to scream their lungs out. What so many people are lacking – especially when it comes to members of communities who have been marginalised – is the ability to engage authentically with others who are willing to listen.

This is one of the reasons why I founded aidóni and worked to gather a team of talented individuals from all over the globe. 

So we could, here at aidóni, give voices their own space, a platform to tell their stories and share their perspectives.

Where the idea of aidóni came from 

I am a 29-year-old French journalist, born and raised in Bordeaux, in the southwest of France. 

From an early age (around eight years old), I knew I wanted to be a journalist.

I’m afraid my motivations are not very original. I’m deeply passionate and curious about people and their culture(s), as well as the societies they form –  especially those with markedly different ways of living from my own. 

It didn’t take long for me to realise that I wanted to lead an international life, connecting with people from different backgrounds who could teach me,  question me, and challenge me – and sometimes put me on the spot when needed.

I took a gap year before starting university. When I did begin my student life I sought every opportunity to study abroad. 

This collection of experiences had a profound impact on how I now see the world and my take on mainstream journalism.

At 18, for the first time I encountered a real diversity of cultures and heard first-hand stories about communities, conflict, and resistance.

I spent a few months in the United States and studied at a school for foreigners. Most of the students who soon became my friends were from Latin America.

I knew next to nothing about this region, (except the very Eurocentric version of history I had learned in school).  I discovered the real Latin America through their eyes and stories. 

It was the end of 2013. 

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, had died a few months earlier and was succeeded by Nicólas Maduro. This signaled the beginning of a long crisis in the country, and those families who could afford it were sending their children away. 

Before meeting these students, who became my friends, I knew Chávez had died but had no idea what his death had provoked.

I only knew what mainstream media had shown me (which wasn’t much and almost always was quite negative) and I didn’t look deeper: I’m not proud of it but I guess we all have to start somewhere. 

This was the first time I really began to understand how international relationships seem to work.  And, when I came back to France, I didn’t see these communities reflected without bias in the news, and I felt that no one in my corner of the world really knew about them.

I could barely find any information in French about what was happening in Venezuela. I realised that, if anyone wanted to hear more about them, they couldn’t – unless they could read English or Spanish.

It made me question how mainstream media choose what is newsworthy and what is not. 

Dictatorships can take control and no one really cares, unless their actions impact our shopping prices or the cost of the gas we put in our cars. The frustration provoked by this realisation didn’t change my mind about wanting to be a journalist but it did make me realise that we, as journalists, need to approach community reporting differently. 

It led me to plant and begin growing the seed of an idea that would eventually become aidóni.

People at the heart of everything

In the years that followed, I kept meeting people from around the globe. And, whether they were Agents of Change directly involved in initiatives trying to make things better for their communities or not, they all shared stories I had never heard before, or which seriously challenged what I thought I knew. 

All of them told me they felt the media under or misrepresented them by relying too much on stereotypes, instead of highlighting the creative initiatives people are developing in communities across the world to manage conflicts. And, even when journalists did report on their communities, they spoke about them but very rarely to them. 

They told me about the anger, the frustration, and the distrust it created. 

So, here is aidóni. 

Countless conversations, lots of work, and a few years later.

I have gathered a team of wonderful people coming from very diverse backgrounds, all sharing the conviction that people should be at the heart of our stories.  

Together we are building a home for our community.

A place where conversations and debates will be given the scope to develop where learning from each other is key, and where people are at the heart of everything we do.

Come on in, the door is always open!