Open Foundation West Africa launches Founders Day Ghana Writing Contest

Wikipedia has become a growing voice for effective communication and knowledge sharing.

The team at Open Foundation West Africa (an affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation) in partnership with the Ministry of Information has successfully  launched its maiden edition of  a writing contest dubbed, “Founders Day Ghana Writing Contest''. The contest is in commemoration of Founders Day in Ghana earmarked for the 4th of August, the day is meant to celebrate all actors and players that worked towards the attainment of Ghana’s independence.

The idea of the contest is to heighten the day through information curation and creation on Wikipedia, which is highly significant to positioning of Ghana on the web and globe. Information accessibility is key in this day and era and Wikipedia is that platform  and the place we often rely for information irrespective of where we are in the world.  The African continent  has been given the voice to tell it’s  story to the world, through the web. However, the question we might often ask ourselves is, are we making use of this voice? Currently our stories are not being told by us, so who is telling our story?

The sad truth is that about just 2.6% of all articles written on the English Wikipedia are about Africa (according to the Guardian, 2013). Imagine the entire 54 countries on the continent in this very little fraction, the bigger question here is how much of that fraction is content Ghana?

The Founders Day Ghana Writing Contest seeks to address this existing gap and to help change the narrative by encouraging Ghanaians to produce content online that speaks to their context and provides the right information about the country.  It is also an opportunity to continue in the works of our forebears and to live up to the mantle passed on to us. Reflect on what you have done around this time to live up to their good works, if not, it's not late, you can play an active role by contributing your time and knowledge to celebrate their good works.

A call has been issued to all Ghanaians, to participate in the  contest and to write articles  about people, places, all activities leading to independence, creative arts works (movies and music around that time) and topics of national interest. This we believe will right our history correctly and increase the general visibility of the country

A successful launch of the contest took place on Saturday,18th of July via zoom and saw encouraging participation by people with diverse backgrounds such as students, community members from across our hubs in the various regions, as well as media personalities.

The contest is set to run from the 1st to 31st of August, 2020 and we are inviting anyone to participate and to help in continuing the work of our forebearers.

Interested in learning more about the campaign? Kindly visit http://ofwafrica.org//campaigns for more information.