As Ghana approaches the momentous crossroads of the polls, it is essential for the peace we enjoy as Ghanaians to be sustained in order to prevent avoidable losses. This has urged almost everyone to preach peace one way or the other.
Recently, musician Yaw Sarpong launched a star studded peace song and Stonebwoy is said to launch a unity health walk this November.
It is in this same light of promoting peace during the 2020 elections season that a Non-Governmental Organization namely, Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA) launched a campaign to propagate peace in Ghana before, during and after the 2020 elections.
#TheGhanaPolls2020, is a campaign targeted at educating the Ghanaian people about the need to exercise their constitutional rights. More importantly, it is aimed at encouraging peaceful elections for the 2020 electioneering process.
Ultimately, it is a campaign to increase Ghana’s visibility on Wikipedia and the web at large by curating and creating content about Ghana’s election process and the stakeholders involved.
The team at OFWA with this peace campaign is embarking on a project to update the Wikipedia pages of persons, groups, topics, events and places that matter to the polls in real-time.
The team will help curate such information relevant to the 2020 election polls on Wikipedia and invite members of the general public to use the hashtag #TheGhanaPolls2020 when sharing information on social media to help with easy access.
Speaking with The Vaultz Media,the Communication officer of OFWA, Jeffter Kobby Donkoh said :
“#TheGhanaPolls2020 looks at editing pages on Wikipedia pages in real time to show that Wikipedia is a different type of encyclopedia”.
He went on to mention that the entire project is to “tell the Ghanaian story and give a whole representation to Ghana by having proper documentation of the 2020 election process”.
He stated that the only way they can track and get access to information concerning the elections, that is being shared universally is through the hashtag #TheGhanaPolls2020.
He made it known that, since they are an NGO, they are advocates therefore, the project cannot be done in a vacuum thus their advocacy for peace.
That notwithstanding, he emphasized that, since Wikipedia is an open site, they have put in place measures to avoid peddling of falsehood that will incite conflict. He said:
“So for anyone who is familiar with Wikipedia, you will know that there are other sister projects. What we are using for this project mainly is the project called meta-Wikipedia … for Wikipedia everything you put on there has to be referenced, it is how we know that what you are saying is authentic or credible. So what we want to do is, after the elections all that information we have gathered obviously is going to be written about by media houses. We have a list of information outlets we consider credible and those are going to be our sources”.
“Because we are the ones running the meta-Wikipedia, we are the ones basically going to be editing it. It is freer and not too many people visit it and edit there. But we are constantly monitoring it so if anyone edits and place a false information there we will take it down”.
More so, he mentioned that the main reason why they are using social media to propagate their peace message is because of the Covid 19 period we find ourselves in. Therefore, in the bid to keep physical contact to the minimum and save lives, they decided to use social media instead of the traditional peace walk or seminar. He also added that most people now are on their phones more than ever and therefore it is the best place to push their message. He reiterated that since the whole project is a pilot, they have not partnered with any other institution but will do that in the future when the whole project goes right.
Read also: Protect Peace Before, During And After Elections- Asantehene Urges Political Parties
