Event:WikiCon Australia 2024/Scholarships/WonderAsh

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Yumalundi! (Hello!)

I got interested in Aboriginal and Torres Trait Islander cultures when my son started to sing songs from First Nations people and to use their words at home. This inspired me and we began watching Aboriginal songs for kids together in YouTube. However, most of the translations for these songs are in English. Therefore, someone from Sinhalese background, who is willing to learn more, but with limited English knowledge are challenged.

While I was thinking about a better solution for this, my wife attended a wikipedia editing session and told me that WIKIPEDIA CAN BE EDITED! I was delighted. My wife is my first teacher in wikipedia editing. However, when I started to edit wikipedia I realized many gaps in knowledge sharing in English. Unfortunately, it is worse when it comes to other languages like Sinhalese. Therefore, I like to translate wikipedia pages to Sinhalese to spread the knowledge without language barriers. My personal preference is to translate Australian First Nations literature and culture and also my ever loving sport: cricket. Personally, I see this as a better opportunity for me and my son to learn Australian First Nations people's culture, connect with each other as well as for my son to learn Sinhalese. Broadly I hope my practice will contribute the world to connect better and improve the knowledge and awareness. Also, I do hope migrant Sinhalese people with limited knowledge of English will get benefited. Moreover, this will inspire other language speakers to translate the Australian details in to their first languages.

However, I find editing and translating wikipedia challenging without proper guidance and training. Therefore, my main aim in attending WikiCon Australia 2024 is to get trained to edit and translate. Also I would like to build a good network, so that when I translate the content in to Sinhalese and if I come across difficult scenario like Australian First Nations food culture, I will have some experienced colleagues who could help me.

Given my limited knowledge and experience in editing, I will not be able to teach or propose a session in this event. But I am happy to share my knowledge in informal sessions and in future sessions once I am more experienced editor.

Apart from speaking Sinhalese, I do not belong to any minority group and not from regional or rural Australia.

Given the current financial status (wife being a student and having two children, I am the bread winner in the family), it will be difficult for me to attend without funding. Therefore, I humbly request you to consider my application.

WonderAsh

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