Coimbra Coolectiva
https://coimbracoolectiva.pt
Between 2018 and 2021, Filipa Queiroz and Joana Pires Araújo ran the online magazine Coolectiva, which covered culture and lifestyle. In the summer of 2021, a group of Coimbra citizens approached the two journalists with the idea to rebrand and turn the magazine into one that also scrutinised local forces, as well as promoted debate and fostered solutions for some of the challenges plaguing Coimbra — especially in terms of the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the region.
That was the beginning of a new magazine — Coimbra Coolectiva, a name which merges the previous one (a combination of “cool” and the Portuguese word for collective), but keeps the focus on Coimbra.
Inspired by the media organisation The Philadelphia Citizen, a citizen journalism website emphasising solutions and empowering citizens in and around Philadelphia, USA, Coimbra Coolectiva’s team profoundly believes in the role of citizen journalism combined with a solutions journalism approach.
“That type of journalism is very powerful and has a tremendous transformative role. We believe that communities can change the places where they live. That’s what we do — we communicate, we mobilise citizens, we point out paths or solutions towards the future,” says Joana Pires Araújo, one of the outlet's founders.
Coimbra Coolectiva has had a real impact on the community, like the time in March 2023 when, following the call of the magazine, citizens got together to protest cutting down trees to build a new public transportation stop, and managed to save 80 of them. Or the time when it published an opinion piece by a local student, Tomás Batista, who had designed a plan for a new public transportation network in the city. The day after the piece ran, the municipality contacted the student to hear him out.
“That story did what we want to do — give voice to those who want to create change,” says Joana Pires Araújo.
Coimbra Coolectiva is a non-profit organisation, and is funded by private donors and members. Between July 2022 and July 2023,
it had a total of almost 700,000 page views, and more than 470,000 unique users. The outlet also produces two newsletters (one via e-mail and another via WhatsApp) which almost 6,000 people are subscribed to.
Last updated: August 2023