Written by Over the course of the past six months we implemented our project “Young Innovators: Using Digital Media to inform about Regular and Irregular Migration Issues”. Together with our partner organisations Kumasi Hive, Impact Hub Accra and Wikimedia Ghana User Group and with the support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, we aimed at improving the information base on business and knowledge exchange related travel for young Innovators.
Globally about 28.2 million international migrants are aged 15 to 24 and live outside their birth country for various reasons (United Nations, 2017) and the issues of innovation, technology and migration are mentioned in 9 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reflecting their significance in economic development and advancing people’s lives (IOM, 2018). Young people’s migration has a crucial role in fostering innovation. Their movements does not only improve their personal potential and capabilities, but contribute to creating opportunities for those around them (UN Development Program, 2009), bringing knowledge and new perspectives into the host and origin countries as well as contributing to strengthening international cooperation and solidarity.
Between July and December 2019 we conducted desktop research and interviews with young innovators and then brought together new and experienced editors in two Editathon events at Kumasi Hive and Impact Hub Accra to create, update and translate Wikipedia articles on migration into local languages Twi, Hausa and Ewe.
Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia created and maintained as an open collaboration project by a community of volunteer editors using a wiki-based editing system. It features exclusively free content and no commercial ads, and is owned and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization funded primarily through donations. As such it aligns with the Global Innovation Gatherings core values as it promotes openness, collaboration, diversity and democracy and allows for sustainable impact through continued updating and open access for everyone.
Under the hashtag #BorgaLife the outcomes of these events are currently shared on social media. “Borga” is a colloquial Ghanaian expression for the word Hamburger – someone who lives in the city of Hamburg. Today it is used broadly for anyone who travels or lives outside of Ghana.
In a roundtable event in Accra, Ghana on November 25th 2019, stakeholders from the migration ecosystem and young innovators came together to discuss current challenges that young people interested in business and education related travel to Germany face, identify opportunities and formulate recommendations that served as inputs for a white paper that was be disseminated as part of the project’s final phase.
Our work acknowledges the role of young people’s migration in fostering innovation and therefore also discusses the interaction between migration and innovation and how policies and innovative technologies can be used to address migration challenges.
Find more pictures on flicker!
If you are interested in receiving the white paper or would like to get more information, please send a message to [email protected].
