iLab's Social Media training: its significance to Liberians

On the 26th of March we certified 17 persons after they successfully completed the social media training at iLab. This was the second social media training held at iLab for non-journalists. Previous social media trainings held at iLab had been exclusively for journalists from various local media institutions.

This 5 day course had one session each that lasted for three hours. Those certified included local IT Professionals and students of various Liberian universities. We covered social media tools like Tumblr, Twitter, Google+ and FronlineSMS.

As a way of showing the practical use of tools taught in the training, it was required of all participants to start their own Tumblr, Twitter and Google+ accounts. Some of the tumblr blogs started during the training were Gabriel Leoanard's http://assescode143.tumblr.com/ Fredrick Horace's http://amuchine.tumblr.com/ and Roosevelt Sackor's http://rooseveltsackor.tumblr.com/.

What makes iLab's social media training significant to Liberia? There have never been any computer institution or tech lab in Liberia offering training in social media. We have also realized that Liberians have spent the last decade reading other people's articles, stories and advertisements online; even stories about Liberia online are often told by ex-pats who live here. The participants saw the training as a new means through which their untold stories could be read and seen.

With such an eye opening training, we believe Liberians can now get online and contribute stories about all happenings in Liberia.

Luther D. Jeke

Training Director

*iLab_Liberia