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Across Brazil, more than 92 million low-income people predominantly the Black population face profound information inequality. Without access to quality public interest news, many rely on social media, where disinformation, hate speech, and denialism thrive. Meanwhile, mainstream media often ignores or criminalizes their realities, deepening the gap between marginalized communities and democratic participation.
About the organisation
Desenrola is a Brazilian organisation working at the intersection of Solutions Journalism and Media Literacy, addressing news deserts, disinformation, media illiteracy, and digital segregation. Its model integrates a news platform with a Solutions Journalism School, which has trained over 590 young people (ages 16–25) from vulnerable communities. Many now work in major newsrooms or lead their own media initiatives. The organisation also develops digital infrastructures in partnership with civic media networks, such as Território da Notícia, a hybrid platform reaching over 500,000 monthly readers through digital displays in community spaces—expanding access in low-connectivity areas. Recognised by the Google News Initiative as one of the 30 most innovative organisations in Latin America (2020), Desenrola offers a scalable civic media network model to build an information integrity ecosystem in marginalised communities by 2035.
Ronaldo Matos
Co-founder and CEO
Ashoka Fellow, Ford Foundation Global Fellow, Sebrae Journalism Awardee
Headquarters: Brazil
Geographies: Brazil
Domains:
Equity
Journey of Exponential Change
Desenrola joined C4EC at a pivotal moment—recognizing that the information gap affecting Brazil’s peripheral communities is not only an access issue, but a growing inequality and a systemic risk to democratic participation.
The Big Quest:
How can we connect all socially vulnerable populations to public interest news, improving access to social rights while rebuilding trust in journalism and democracy by 2035?
Two key ideas are shaping its trajectory: that government institutions can be powerful allies, and that building media literacy at scale requires distributing this capacity through networks, technology, and community knowledge.
Early prototypes being tested include:
Open Territorial Interest Mapping: A real-time system that makes visible the issues that matter most to local communities, enabling journalists and educators to align content and media literacy actions with community needs.
Distributed Civic Media Network: A network of independent media, media literacy, and civil society organisations to expand access to public interest journalism and scale Information Integrity Agents.
Public Health Communication Model: Testing how trusted community media can strengthen the delivery of critical health information to end users.
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