Kumusha Takes Wiki spun the frame to activate and support individuals to create and contribute freely-licensed information, texts, images and media about their communities. Kumusha Takes Wiki activated citizens of a Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda in 2014. The project required that the people who hold the knowledge of an area (village, town, peri-urban settlement, inner-city suburb, shanty town,...
Kumusha Takes Wiki spun the frame to activate and support individuals to create and contribute freely-licensed information, texts, images and media about their communities.
Kumusha Takes Wiki activated citizens of a Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda in 2014. The project required that the people who hold the knowledge of an area (village, town, peri-urban settlement, inner-city suburb, shanty town, etc) contribute to the knowledge of and about that community. The knowledge collected and disseminated was added to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects.
The project engaged community members by engendering pride in self and place; community pride was enforced by the recognition that all knowledge – including ‘indigenous’ knowledge – should be given equal weight on easy-to-access digital platforms. The project was designed to maximise the potential for activating the online phenomenon of crowdsourcing – where many digital hands make this project a success. The proof of concept in Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda was funded by the Orange Foundation and hosted at the Africa Centre.
WikiAfrica is an international movement that takes place on the African continent and beyond. It encourages individuals, interested groups and organisations to create, expand and enhance online content about Africa. This involves motivating for the representation of the continent’s contemporary realities and history, its peoples and its innovations on the world’s most used encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. WikiAfrica is not owned by one organisation and it belongs to all people and organisations contributing to its scope.
In its various guises and hosted at several institutions (including Lettera27, Africa Centre, Ynternet.org, and Wikimedia CH), the WikiAfrica movement has consistently instigated and led multi-faceted innovative projects. These projects have activated communities and driven content onto Wikipedia. Examples include Share Your Knowledge, #OpenAfrica training Courses and Toolkits, Kumusha Bus (in Ethiopia and Ghana), WikiEntrepreneur (in Ethiopia and Malawi), Kumusha Takes Wiki (Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda) and Wiki Loves Africa.
Over 2016/17 it is working on Wiki Loves Women (in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut), WikiPack Africa, WikiFundi and the WikiChallenge African Schools (funded by the Orange Foundation), WikiAfrica Schools (funded by lettera27), Wikipedia Primary (funded by SUPSI) and Wiki Loves Africa (funded by Wikimedia Foundation).
WikiAfrica was started in 2006 as a collaboration between Wikimedia IT and lettera27, since then – via the support of several organisations and the work of a few people – it has grown to embrace the continent and build communities. It has been pivotal in driving the current contributions done by communities across sub-Saharan Africa.
The projects detailed below form the main backbone of the WikiAfrica movement. They have all been conceptualised, instigated and led by three members of Wiki In Africa, although until 2017 through the agency or fiscal sponsorship of different organisations.
2006
2009
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
The organisations that have hosted or are collaborating on Wiki Africa projects include: