Youthhubafrica’s co-founder, Rotimi Olawale, caught up with Zied Mhirsi, Global Health professional turned blogger and media entrepreneur in Tunis, the birthplace of the 2011 arab-springs. Zied shares his experience on starting tunisialive.net and his views on the success of the Tunisian revolution. Additional edits by Sola Fagorusi
Q: Kindly introduce yourself:
Zied Mhirsi during the Tunisian revolution
A: My name is Zied Mhirsi, I am a Tunisian Global Health professional and media entrepreneur
Q: What is your academic background?
A: I was trained in Medicine so I am a physician by training, then I studied in public health and I have two masters in public health. I work mainly around HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and now I am hoping to help countries and communities strenghten their health systems.
Q: How did you come up with Tunisialive.net?
A: Well, I am very interested in social media generally. I am one of the first bloggers in Tunisia, I started blogging in Tunisia since 2004 and that introduced me to the world of online and citizen journalism. During the Tunisian revolution, I was tweeting and giving news of what was happening in Tunisia in English and I realised there was a huge demand for news from Tunisia in English. So, with a couple of friends, we started Tunisialive.net and we were lucky that a lot of people and media organisations overseas were interested in our content which made the project sustainable.
Q: How many years have you worked on tunisialive.net?
A: Tunisialive.net was created in April 2011 and so it as been around for about a year and half now. It has a team of 15 people working on it and in the period of high demand, with our volunteers and temp staff we can go up to 40.
Q: So, apart from providing Tunisan news in English, what else do you do?
A: Basically, we are the only english speaking website in Tunisia. So, everyday on the website, we have Tunisian top stories. We also work with foreign media organisations providing them with services from news confirmation to photos, videos that they use as a content to report about Tunisia. So, we are not only as a news website, but we also act a little bit as a press agency based in Tunisa and specialised in English content.
Q: Can you mention some of the clients you have worked with?
Zied Mhirsi
A: We have pretty much maxed out on the international market. We have worked with CNN, Al-Jazeera English Channel, New York Times, CBS news, E-TV South Africa. We have a pretty much large network of international news clientele and this increased our credibility and now everyone who wants to report Tunisia comes to us. We have a one-stop shop for media, but not only for media, the fact that we know pretty much everybody in Tunisia and our services are trusted, brought us also international institutions like the World Bank, Africa Development Bank who needs our PR services and all sorts of production services.
Q: What challenges were you faced with going into media considering your public health and Medicine background?
A: Well, the challenges is the fact that we were really news junkies but we didn’t have the experience of running a media organisation and everyone can write articles and learn the skills of how to properly report, confirm the news and write proper stories but what was extremely difficult was the management part. Sometimes, Tunisia is the world’s top story, everybody wants to read about Tunisia, then for months later, no one is interested. How to manage human resources, budgets, these were the main challenges. Luckily, project managements in public health is very similar to media. Sometimes, we have outbreak of disease, we need to mobilise more people and that’s why my background in public health helped me a lot in managing the media enterprise.
Q: Having stepped down from managing the day to day operations of Tunisalive.net, what are your next plans?
A: Tunisialive now continues, my 2 partners/co-founders are now managing the daily operations, I am still a shareholder and a part of the adventure; I will always be. Recently, I created this NGO called The Tunisian Centre for Public Health. From its name, the centre aims to support public health in Tunisia. Everybody in North Africa is talking about the Arab-spring, but very few people and donors are talking about health although it’s now becoming a major challenge for us in North Africa. That is actually one of the reasons people went into the street, because they were not happy with the services they were getting and I expect that once the political transition is done, public health and other development issues are going to be on the front pages of the news you will read about in North Africa.
Q: In many countries on the continent, the Tunisian youth-led revolution is cited as an envious success story, in your opinion do you think the revolution was successful?
A: Definitely, the revolution was successful, because it allowed us to change the current situation, provided access to new freedoms and liberties. In the past, Tunisian internet was censored, this is something young people use often. There was no freedom of organisation, you cannot create your own NGO. You were not able to have political activism. So,after the revolution, we suddenly enjoyed such liberties and freedom that we once dreamt about.. Now, the issues that once you topple the regime, you have to somehow create a stronger one, a democratic one that tends to be a very difficult job, that doesn’t happen overnight. That needs a continous commitment of young people to the cause they are fighting for. You cannot go and be angry for one day and demonstrate and do nothing the next day. Once you gain your freedom, you have to exert them and this takes very long and difficult citizen participation process and I hope that the next generation will be able to have benefits from the fruits of the efforts of our generation in Tunisia. At the same time, if we fail, it is the next generation that will pay the price as well. So, the pressure is on us.
Zied Mhirsi..yes, we can
Q; At the end of the day, what would you like to be remembered for in Tunisia?
A: (laughs) I don’t think I will be remembered. I hope they will remember someone who has ideas and tried to implement them on the ground and worked tirelessly to persuade his friends and colleagues to move towards that direction and get the work done. People in North Africa tend to have short memories, they remember only the dictators, I don’t want to be remembered like that!
Q: Thanks so much for your time
A: You’re welcome.
Zied Mhirsi with ArchBishop Desmond Tutu
