The “Open Data Key for NGOs” Project Supporting Raise of Data Literacy

A 4-day workshop organized by the “Journalists for the Future” NGO jointly with the “Ampop Media” Initiative within the framework of the “Open Data Key for NGOs” educational project took place on April 19-22. The project goal is to provide NGO representatives with skills and experience used in working with open data for them to be able to afterwards apply these skills actively in their daily activities, thus promoting the NGO capacity building and ensuring productivity of their work.

The project implementation has been made possible by the support of the American people, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the “CSO DePo: CSO Development Program”. The project partner is the Eurasia Partnership Foundation.

Throughout the workshop, the participants studied a range of online tools, gained knowledge on searching and researching online databases. They learnt differences between diagrams, infographics and visualization, the importance and nuances of the color, size, volume and numbers in the graphs.

One of the project participants Mariam Arakelyan from the Caucasus Research Resource Center-Armenia noted that she works for an organization, which collects data and has open databases, but do not have the resources to visualize them, so this workshop was the best option to obtain the required skills.

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“Also I will share the knowledge gained during the workshop with my colleagues so that my organization can work more effectively,” says Mariam. “In these few days, I managed to get all the skills which, I can say, were slowing down my work before. Of course, the stuff delivered here was familiar to me, but I understood I still needed for some small but essential steps.”

According to Mariam, the practical assignments prepared by the experts of the “Journalists for the Future” NGO are very valuable. “It is obvious that a huge work has been done to provide both theoretical and practical knowledge. The training was well organized also in terms of its schedule so that the workshop participant would not get tired and bored,” she says.

Another participant Mariam Zadoyan from the “Lawyers’ Association of Armenia” stated that it is a unique project since she has not participated in such kind of project before.

“I had some skills in getting data, but I was able to improve my skills. Surely, I will use all the skills and tools I learned here during the analysis I am going to carry out in my workplace and, of course, within the framework of this project,” says Mariam Zadoyan.

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According to her, thanks to the way the workshop agenda was built, it was impossible to get bored since each participant was provided with an individual approach, and no question remained unanswered. “The most important thing is that through practical work each participant could test the knowledge he gained on the spot.”

Varduhi Aramyan from the “Armenian Camp” NGO highlighted her participation in this project since the NGO, where she works, needs the knowledge and skills provided during the workshop.

“We studied many tools and skills during this workshop. It is very important that the workshop sessions are interrelated and subjected to realization through practical tasks. This was evident here, moreover, the training was quite extensive and at first, I thought it would be impossible to learn everything over that short period of time. It was not just a workshop, it was a very serious mentoring, which was implemented with a high sense of seriousness and responsibility.”

Mentoring with the participants will last for about 6 months. The first block of workshops will be followed by an intermediate block of webinars, and a final workshop block at the end of the project. At all stages of the project, participants will be provided with theoretical and practical knowledge, relevant literature, as well as practical assignments and consultancy. Throughout the program, participants will work on their own projects that will be published on participating NGO’s websites and other media platforms.

“I think the path we should pass within the framework of this project will help us become well-qualified professionals in months, and also will enable to share the obtained knowledge with our colleagues,” says Varduhi Aramyan.

Source: JFF