About us
BALOBAKI CHECK works to ensure the integrity of information in the public arena. We were founded in 2022 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Our aim
To strengthen democracy in the DRC through training for journalists, media education and quality content to combat hate messages and Fake news within communities. Our contributors are journalism and communications students, journalists and researchers interested in fact-checking. We also look into the impact of fake news on the community and the protection mechanisms that are put in place.
Etymology
Balobaki is a word in Lingala, one of the four national languages of the DRC, the world’s most populous nominally French-speaking country. It means they said or they claimed.
Our organisation
Balobaki Check is a non-partisan organisation that aims to strengthen democracy ensuring the accuracy of information in the public arena in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We work towards this aim through training for journalists, media education and quality content to combat hate messages and fake news.
Committed to integrity, we work day in, day out to improve our output and to align with the codes and principles of the International Fact-checking Network, a section of the Poynter Institute whose mission is to bring together fact-checkers from around the world. We work to adhere to their fundamental operating principles of commitment to impartiality, transparency and accuracy.
- Commitment to impartiality and fairness
- Commitment to standards and transparency of sources
- Commitment to transparency of funding and organisation
- Commitment to standards and transparency of methodology
- Commitment to open and honest corrections
Balobaki Check is a member of Africa Fact, a collective of fact checkers in Africa built around the continent’s leading fact-checking media, Africa Check.
Media education and information in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Balobaki Check is the editorial project of KOYEKOLA Center, a non-profit organisation (NGO) based in Kinshasa, registered under no. F92/52.736, which promotes media education and information in the Democratic Republic of Congo through editorial production, debates, training, etc. in order to give journalists the ability to transmit quality information and the community the ability to understand and be enlightened about the choices to be made in the management of public affairs.
To ensure our independence, we do not accept any financial support from political parties and to maintain our neutrality we do not allow members of Balobaki to publicly display political positions that could have a negative impact on our work.
What is Balobaki Check’s mission?
In this French-language video, Ange Kasongo explains how this editorial project came about before the last elections, its mission and objectives.