By Pamela Ofori-Boateng
When Felix Nartey, co-founder of Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA), encouraged me not to miss Asaf Bartov’s visit to Ghana, I thought it was one of his ways to just get me present at the training.
Pamela please try to come for Asaf’s event; he is the best teacher when it comes to Wikipedia and all its related projects, he said almost pleading.
Ok, I will. I responded unconvincingly.
Felix wasn’t wrong after all. I finally got to the location of the event after using about a week to convince myself to attend.
After sitting under the training with 20 plus Wikipedia enthusiasts for about 5 minutes, everything started making sense and I said to myself almost whispering “Felix wasn’t wrong after all.
I got introduced to editing Wikipedia not so long ago and I have been learning how to do that from local volunteers from OFWA (Thanks to my OFWA colleagues for the opportunity).
They have been amazing at taking time to give me the necessary training and support I need as a news editor. However, Asaf’s training provided me with more insight to the real world of Wikipedia and an understanding to appreciate Wikipedia better. I know it was the same for almost all who attended the training.
I could go on and on but I need to put out the real focus of this article - a brief report on the training.
A three-day Wikipedia workshop was organized in Ghana in partnership with OFWA and Wikimedia Ghana User Group, to train experienced editors on the basics, latest development in the movement, and Wikidata. The lead trainer was was Asaf Bartov, Senior Programme Officer Emerging Communities
The first and second days of the training were focused on building the capacity of the community and sharing recent trends in the movement. The third day of the training particularly focused on equipping media professionals with editing skills and how to properly use the information on Wikipedia.
The turnout for all three events was encouraging and the line of questioning and contributions from participants depicted a high level of understanding from Asaf’s entertaining yet educational delivery.
Asaf also featured on a radio interview during his visit and led some partnership talks with prospective partners before finally departing.
Even though the training ended not long ago, everybody is already asking, “when is Asaf coming back to Ghana?
