As part of it’s efforts to draw attention to environmental changes in Africa, the Wiki for Senior Citizens group Abuja hosted an Edithathon under the program Africa Environment Wikifocus.
The program which saw mostly senior citizens and some younger persons introduced to and trained on how to create Wikidata articles from a list of African environmentalists was facilitated by Dr. Obiageli Ezeilo.
Speaking to our Correspondent, she said the purpose of the session was to draw attention to various issues affecting the environment and generate interest in helping to address them.
“We are inputing information about Nigerian environmentalists,it is supposed to be all over the world but we are particular about Nigerian environmentalists and Nigerian climate change activists because we don’t have much information about them on Wikipedia,also we are educating senior citizens about environmental problems “.
Ezeilo said there has been an increase in participation over the years and was optimistic the number of senior citizens involved would continue to grow.
” When we started we were just 12 but now we have over forty senior citizens participating”.
According to her, the initial challenge was a lack of know how when it comes to the use of computer and internet as well as how to navigate the Wiki interphase by many of the senior citizens but that has been overcome and some bring along their grandchildren to learn.
Dr. Obiageli Ezeilo is an Igbo language teacher, creative director,translatorĀ and co founder of Wiki Igbo community. She is interested in volunteering and creating an avenue for senior citizens to network and learn.
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