The Paris-Washington Tunisian Diaspora: The Bridge to Tunisia

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On December 20th, as TAYP member I had the privilege to attend « Speak Out Tunisia 2014 », an event organized by Le PaCTE Tunisien, a Tunisian Diaspora organization based in Paris.

Speak Out Tunisia is a program set up to train citizen journalists operating in all regions of Tunisia on journalistic ethics and modern reporting tools in preparation to become the voices of their communities and ambassadors of their regions.

Le PaCTE Tunisien set up a platform, PaCTE TV, to enable these citizen journalists to publish their photos, videos, and articles. We invite you all to visit their page: http://pactetv.com.

In an effort to support fellow Diaspora organizations in general, and Le PaCTE Tunisien in particular, Saoussen Mahjoub has, on behalf of the TAYP team, committed to building bridges between the communities in France and the US in order to reinforce the network of fellow Tunisians living overseas to give back to Tunisia. Initiatives such as Speak Out Tunisia are just an example of the entrepreneurial spirit Tunisians have in Tunisia and overseas.

We usually don’t think of journalists as entrepreneurs.  If we think of entrepreneurs as people who see opportunities, who research the feasibility of a project, and take a risk in implementing such a project, then, in their quest for news and truth, journalists do face a number of challenges every entrepreneur faces.  They think about the information that needs to be disseminated, they evaluate the possibility of collecting relevant information, and then take the risk to publish such information.

Subsequently, this entrepreneurial spirit is to be harnessed and supported by the right tools. Equipping the Diaspora with such tools so as to empower others will not come from any external source but from encouraging each other in creating a strong and long lasting impact on the communities we are trying to help.

We have identified le PaCTE Tunisien as an organization having goals that complement TAYP’s, as well as a source of synergy given the number of initiatives and various activities they have already in place. This meeting was just an initial contact, and a brainstorming session, with the PaCTE’s Team. We hope that this will be the start of a great partnership in an effort to bring Tunisian Diaspora organizations together for a better Tunisia. We thank the PaCTE team for their invitation, for their eagerness to work with TAYP, and for sharing our passion for Tunisia. With such passion everything is possible.

TAYP Europe is represented by Ms. Emna Masmoudi based in Paris (France) and Ms. Saoussen Mahjoub based in Brugge

Saoussen Mahjoub

Washington, DC, USA