Activate Africa (Prince Claus Fund)

The project aims at employ two Wikipedians in Residence (WiR) who will based in Ethiopia and Malawi respectively for a period of one year. The task of the Wikipedians in Residence, will be to work with a total of 11 arts, cultural, heritage and activist organisations each, over the period of 11 months (one institution per month, with the first month allocated to training). Each WiR will draw together existing Wikipedians, and encourage new individuals in order to activate a formal Wikimedia Chapter.

The two Wikipedians in Residence will: 1) establish a presence for the institution on Wikipedia through uploading basic biographic information; 2) begin the process of uploading existent data onto Wikipedia, whilst training members of the institution in the benefits of contributing to Wikipedia archival and on-going information about their organisation, and especially information about its core focus and its affiliated subjects; 3) create institutional systems to make the WikiAfrica project sustainable, and ensure the institutions’ online participation going forward; and 4) gather an energised and active Wikipedian community.

In summary:

• After initial online training and immersion in the project, the two Wikipedians in Residence will provide guidance, training, and on-going support to institutions based in Malawi and Ethiopia, specifically covering how to create, expand and upload articles with relevant content onto Wikipedia for one year starting in June 2013.
• Each month, each institution will produce a minimum of 6 articles on Wikipedia (this includes a minimum of 1 article per organisation, 3 articles on the organisation’s specialist area/s and 2 subject-specific articles within their field of expertise).
• The WiR will assist and train a member of each institution in the donation of a minimum of 100 photos onto Wikipedia, released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license.
• During training, the individual will assist each Content Partner in how to develop and implement sustainable processes that will ensure their continued contribution to Wikipedia.

We hereby request funding from Prince Claus to train and employ the two Wikipedians, to be based in Malawi and Ethiopia respectively, as well as providing any expertise in these countries to ensure the successful implementation of the WikiAfrica Project.

Wikipedia is a collaborative online encyclopedia that allows universal, multilingual access to information. Wikipedia aims to provide free content, and an objective and verifiable encyclopedia that anyone can add to, change and improve. Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has become a powerful tool that allows its users access to information on virtually any subject, and vitally, provides a country’s citizens with access to information about their country. Thus providing citizens of a country with the ability to truthfully represent their own historic and contemporary realities in all its complexities. Wikipedia has become a rich, dynamic and effective education tool that provides free learning materials and information. Use of this online encyclopedia continues to grow, as access to new technology (including cell phones and computers) increases in the developing world. Despite their global ambitions, the African continent is the least covered and supported collective of cultures, histories, ideas and languages on Wikipedia. Africa also has the fewest contributors per capita of any other territory. And yet, as more people across the continent access the internet via mobile technology (Africa is now the world’s 2nd largest cell phone market with 600 million phones being used daily), there is an imperative for Africa’s historic and contemporary realities to be truthfully represented. Access to information and the free flow thereof is a cornerstone of democracy, able to empower a country’s citizens. WikiAfrica seeks to contribute to freedom of information through availing information and knowledge, currently existent in institutions and organisations working in the fields of culturally-sensitive heritage and marginalised communities, by making contemporary, socially relevant information freely available online (a primary channel being Wikipedia). WikiAfrica aims to increase the quantity and quality of African content on Wikipedia by creating new articles, as well as expanding and enhancing existing content on Wikipedia about Africa and its people.

In Africa, truthful contextual information contributed by Africans has the power to alter how Africans see, believe in, and interact with themselves, each other, their communities, countries and their continent. The true reflection of information, correctly placed on a platform that is open and accessible to all, will also fundamentally change how people outside Africa view and interact with the continent. If the wealth of information, the complex histories, heritage, ideas and contemporary cultures are truthfully represented, Africa can no longer be defined only by war, famine and crisis. Access to information enables and empowers, and is vital to democratic processes. With this in mind, WikiAfrica seeks to encourage institutions to make relevant information and knowledge freely available through Wikipedia primarily. Artists have the power to interpret and relay emotionally-arresting, poignant works that can an alternative view of contemporary issues. Similarly, heritage and activist institutions can correct misinterpreted or distorted histories by placing current issues into the correct historical and social context. Only through the free flow of information and readily accessed knowledge, can Malawians and Ethiopians be in a position to understand their pasts, their histories, and their rights. In turn, this knowledge will allow them to participate as full and equal citizens in their respective countries. Both Malawi and Ethiopia, as indeed in many countries in Africa, are inadequately represented both off and online, in terms of self-reflected histories, artistic and cultural practices, its people, and contemporary realities. In both countries, human rights abuses, ubiquitous attitudes (often violently enforced) against minorities and alternative sexualities, and challenges regarding freedom to information are widely reported. Although in Malawi, the accession of Joyce Banda to the presidency has provided hope that the situation will change, discrimination against women, LGBT community and smaller ethnic groups pervades society. In both countries, many of the discriminatory attitudes of society are shaped, incited and endorsed by the information relayed in state-owned broadcast and print media. Ethiopia^[1] is widely considered one of the world’s most restricted media environments. In 2012, Ethiopia was registered by Freedom House as one of three countries that exhibited the greatest declines in internet freedom since January 2011. This reflected intensified censorship, arrests, and violence against journalists and bloggers as the authorities sought to quell public calls for reform (a response to role played by internet based social media in the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia). As the world’s most used online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia is a powerful tool that begins the process of correcting this one-sided imbalance of information by providing a balanced, neutral viewpoint. WikiAfrica therefore seeks to train 11 institutions in each country to create, add to and enhance information on Wikipedia, through a cohesive and collaborative effort. Through the co-ordinated approach adopted by the WikiAfrica Project, several vital institutions in these two countries will begin the process of making information and knowledge that is currently existent in archives, freely available. Thereby contributing to the process of democracy and freedom of information in both these countries. WikiAfrica fulfils the vision of the Africa Centre across the African continent by: celebrating the intellectual, visual and performance heritages of Africa; formulating innovative models for presenting, debating and encouraging cultural production and the pursuit of knowledge; providing broad access to the creative work and ideas of historical and contemporary African thought leaders and artists; and re-examining the role, identity, transience and creation of art and intellectual expression. [IE2] <#_msocom_2> WikiAfrica’s role in supporting the mandate of the Africa Centre to encourage and nurture African excellence includes encouraging access to knowledge, and the support of freedom to information, complements the directive of the Prins Claus Fund to encourage and nurture freedom of information and work against censorship by promoting the free flow of information and knowledge.[IE3] <#_msocom_3>

WikiAfrica Wikipedian-in-Residence Programme objectives:

• Create training materials to train and activate two Wikipedia savvy individuals in Malawi and Ethiopia; as well as activate further Wikipedians-in-Residence across Africa
• Assist 11 activist, arts, culture and heritage institutions (Content Partners) in Malawi and Ethiopia respectively with all aspects of uploading their content to Wikipedia.
• Provide guidance, training, and on-going support to institutions based in Malawi and Ethiopia on how to create, expand and upload articles with relevant content onto Wikipedia.
• Produce a minimum of 6 articles on Wikipedia per Content Partner
• Assist each Content Partner in donating a minimum of 100 photos to Wikipedia, released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license.
• Activate regional individuals to assist and train smaller, resource-limited WikiAfrica content partners to upload their content to Wikipedia.
• Activate a pool of experienced and supported individuals that can initiated and drive the Wikimedia chapter in their country.
• Assist each Content Partner to develop and implement sustainable processes that will ensure their continued contribution to Wikipedia.

Events and Activities (final products, participants, expected results and follow-up, promotion and audience):

Impact on Wikipedia:

• Each WiR to facilitate the creation of a minimum of 6 articles on Wikipedia per institution resulting in the creation of a minimum of 132 articles by the end of the programme;
• Assist each institution in donating a minimum of 100 photos onto Wikipedia, released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, resulting in the donation of a minimum of 2,200 images to Wikimedia Commons by the end of the programme;
• Activate and support the members, friends and subscriber programmes of each Content Partner to become contributors;
• Initiate outreach activities (such as edithons, hackathons and training) at Universities and other learning institutions to activate new Wikipedia volunteers;
• Support and advocate for smaller Content Partners to join the programme;
• Leverage networks to activate and expand the local, volunteeer Wikipedian community with the intention of creating a meaningful and self-sustaining Wikimedia Chapter in that country;
• Instigate the international Wiki Loves Monuments competition, in collaboration with Content Partners, in that country to run during the month of September 2013; and
• Create systems within WikiAfrica project to activate, train and support additional WiR across the c continent.

Language:

• the majority of the entries will be to the English Wikipedia site – additional work will be done to encourage local Wikipedians to translate all successful articles into the local language/s

Publications:

• A full evaluation will be undertaken during the project, and at the end of the 12 month period.
• Written/video & audio training materials will be developed, including an online WiR training module.
• Case studies on Content Partners and the project’s impact per country
• Analysis of the project, its results and successes per country.
• A research paper on the project will be submitted to relevant journals.

Communications

• Blogging of process by trainer, WiR and Content Partner staff
• Updates and news on website, Facebook page, twitter feed, linked in pages, etc.
• Posting and updates on relevant Wikipedia pages
• Public relations in both countries
• Liaison with content partners and other institutions to harness their marketing and communications channels

A project was conceived by Isla HaddowFlood (WikiAfrica, at the Africa Centre) in 2013. The project and all its documentation is under Creative Commons attribution sharealike licence.

Project management by WikiAfrica at the Africa Centre. WikiAfrica is an international collaboration between the Africa Centre and Lettera27 that encourages individuals and organisations to create, expand and enhance online content about Africa, its history, its people, its innovations and its many contemporary realities, on the world’s most used encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. It is under the auspices of WikiAfrica that this project will be conducted.

The project has an extensive list of partners in the two countries. As they are officially signed to the project, they will be added to a list under this section.

• WikiAfrica Ethiopia
• WikiAfrica Malawi
• Wiki Loves Africa
• Kumusha Takes Wiki
• Activate Africa
• Africa Portal