the goan I network
PANAJI
Konkani Wikipedia got a major fillip as 139 students from St Xavier’s College Mapusa, most notably from the Konkani Department in collaboration with the librarians uploaded 46 new articles on the lives of tiatrists.
The students created the articles themselves, with the help of resource persons John Noronha and Vaishali Parab, according to Fr Luis Gomes, Assistant professor of Konkani Department.
The idea was initiated by Fr Gomes, an active contributor to the Konkani Wikipedia for the past several years. Fr Gomes told “The Goan” that articles on noted tiatrists M Boyer, Roseferns, C D’Silva, Wilmix, Joe Rose, Young Chico, Master Vaz amongst many others had been added by the students. The Konkani Department even managed to rope in students and lecturers from diverse other departments to volunteer to the project.
The students then worked and uploaded the articles over two days with a lot of help from the librarian Keshav Dhuri, said Fr Gomes. On the first day, March 11, students worked from 8:30 to 10:30 in the morning, and on the second day, March 12, students worked from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon.
Fr Gomes is an ambassador of the Konkani Wikipedia along with Supriya Kunkumbikar, John Noronha and Vaishali Parab. Darshan Kandolkar and Melissa Simoes were later added, and the Konkani Wikipedia was made live on June 14, 2015 after being in the incubator for several years. Kandolkar and Simoes were also resource persons for the workshop held, said Fr Gomes.
The Konkani Wikipedia project was started in 2006, and later revived in the year 2013, explained Fr Gomes. “The late Dr Madhavi Sardesai introduced our MA batch to the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) Bangalore. Though I initially served as program associate for the Konkani Wikipedia at CIS, I’m now just a permanent admin of the Konkani Wikipedia,” he said.
This is Dr Gomes’ fourth year of teaching in St Xavier’s College. “I organise this workshop every year,” he said. “I feel as a “konknni mogi” (lover of Konkani), it is my bounden duty to promote the Konkani Wikipedia, so I motivate my Konkani students to contribute something to our language.
