Happy Birthday Awoko
By David Krueger
This week Awoko celebrated its 13th birthday. I’ve been here for 48 of its 4,745 days of operation, and in that short time I learned early on how important this paper is to those who work for it.
The people at Awoko care about the paper. The reporters, for example, want to go out and cover programs. They want to write stories that help inform the public. They have journalistic standards that help them find the news value of a topic and write about it in a balanced and fair way.
Those are just the names you see in the paper. Meanwhile, there are countless others that make the paper possible. From the cashier and security guard at the office, to the people who run the presses and actually print the newspaper, everybody works, usually around the clock, to get this paper out to its readers.
Mr. Kelvin Lewis, the editor of the paper, cares about it the most. He’s very involved in the process of putting the newspaper together (in a good way). He even sanctioned sending groups of reporters around the country to look at the Free Government Healthcare program to see if it’s successful in helping the citizens of Sierra Leone.
Then there are the other editors, who go through my stories to make sure they’re perfect before they’re put in the paper. I try to make their jobs fairly easy, but more often than not there are quite a few corrections to make. I appreciate their work greatly. Because of it, I will be a better reporter, columnist and writer when I leave Salone.
After I had been here for about a month I finally asked the two questions that had been on my mind since my first day of work. What does “awoko” mean and why does the logo have a parrot in it?
It turns out “awoko” means “somebody (or in this case, something) that talks a lot.” I feel like this is a very appropriate name for a newspaper. We talk a lot and hope the general public listens and remains informed.
The use of the parrot also suddenly became clear. Besides humans, I’m not sure if any animal talks more than a parrot. I’m not really sure if any other animal talks, but I still really like the parrot idea.
In the United States daily newspapers are closing every day. My home city of Seattle, a major metropolitan area, used to have two daily newspapers, The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The latter closed over a year ago, leaving The Times as the only daily paper for over 3.4 million people.
Here there is no lack of newspapers. I read over 10 per day. Some appear more balanced than others, but all are informative and give me a glimpse of journalism in Sierra Leone.
I became very proud the other day while looking through my “Lonely Planet” guide to West Africa. The section on Sierra Leone is fairly short, but it includes an
information box that lists Awoko as one of “the most respected newspapers” here.
Obviously, I agree with Lonely Planet’s assessment.
Awoko has been hosting interns from the University of Washington for the last five years, starting with Michael Carter in 2007. Michael came to one of my classes last December and talked about his experience in Sierra Leone. He spoke about it, years later, like it was the best time of his life.
It was largely because of Michael that I applied for the Foreign Intrigue Scholarship, which sends students around the world to work for various news organizations. I made it very clear early on that Freetown, Sierra Leone was my first choice. I had googled Freetown and the first picture to show up was an incredible sunset over the ocean from Lumley Beach.
From then on, no other city could top Freetown.
I talked to two other people who had come to work at Awoko, Yu Nakayama (who came the year after Michael) and Lillian Tucker (last year’s intern). Both of them spoke incredibly highly of the newspaper, Mr. Lewis and Sierra Leone in general. Yu obviously misses it here. So does Lillian, who had to leave after only a month on the job because of health problems.
I’m very proud to be the fifth in what’s hopefully a long line of Washington Huskies that come to work for a summer in Freetown. I hope that next year’s intern finds me and I get to tell him or her all about my experiences, while informing them of how much fun their going to have working for Awoko.
For a journalist student there really is no better way to spend a summer. I’m living my dream job.
I get to report (which I’ve always wanted to do) and write a column (which I’ve really always wanted to do) about whatever I want in West Africa (which I’ve always wanted to visit).
Whatever happens to me I get to write about it and share the feeling with anybody who wants to read it. Some people don’t really care, and I understand that. But others I’ve talked to said they really enjoy my column, or a particular column. When someone tells me that it’s one of the best feelings in the world.
I’m going to be very sad when I leave not just because I’ll miss all the people and sights of Salone, but also because I’ll be leaving a job that I might never be able to top.
That just means I better enjoy it as much as possible while I can, which I think I’m succeeding at. I love my job, and anybody who talks to me quickly learns that. Everybody that I’ve met here quickly learns what I do.
So, I’d like to say thank you to Awoko for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime. Congratulations on putting out a great product for the last 13 years, and I wish you many more successful years of publication (and interns) ahead.
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