Building Public Awareness on Climate Change in Ghana through Wikipedia.

The Youth Climate Council in partnership with  Wikimedia Foundation and Open Foundation West Africa organized a 2-day workshop to build the capacity of their members on Wikipedia. Participants were engaged on the fundamentals of Wikipedia, Translation of Wikipedia and practical lessons on Wikipedia editing, etc.

The workshop was aimed at enlightening and empowering youth climate activists within the Youth Climate Council Ghana network on how they can use Wikipedia to build public awareness of climate change in Ghana.

The 2-day event which was hosted at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT on the 24th and 25th of June attracted climate activists, students from the University of Ghana and other passionate Environmentalists. The training dubbed ‘Climate Change Edit-A-Thon’ equipped over 60 participants with the requisite training to enable them to edit and contribute to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia as well as its partner projects; Wikimedia Commons, Translate Wiki, etc.

Senior Campaign Fellow for Wikimedia, Ruby Damenshie Brown described the workshop as timely. She reiterated the need to populate Wikipedia with Climate Information relevant to Ghana. According to her, this is crucial in building awareness on crucial issues like climate change. 

Coordinator for the Youth Climate Council Ghana, Richard Matey reaffirmed the YCC’s commitment to building public awareness on climate change through Wikipedia. “ YCC is committed to the open sharing of knowledge and resources to improve climate awareness in Ghana.” He added. 

Associate Trainer at Open Foundation West Africa, Maxwell Beganim expressed delight at the level of engagement from the participants. He encouraged the youth to join Wikipedia user groups and invest time and effort in editing the online encyclopedia.

The Youth Climate Council (YCC) is an institutional mechanism to enhance inclusion and accessibility for the youth climate movement in climate and environmental decision-making processes.

Implemented by the Green Africa Youth Organization, the YCC Ghana aims to provide an official avenue for youth-led organizations, individuals and civil society to participate in policy despite their geographic location or resource constraints.

It aspires to be a hub to share resources and expertise and provide financial, technical and knowledge resources. YCC aims to contribute to building a unified and collaborative movement in Ghana that delivers a high positive impact for the collective across Africa and the Global South.