{"id":7938,"date":"2021-06-18T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wikiinafrica.org\/?p=7938"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:03:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:03:32","slug":"an-unknown-africa-told-by-the-wikichallenge-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wikiinafrica.org\/fr\/2021\/06\/18\/an-unknown-africa-told-by-the-wikichallenge-children\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unknown Africa, told by the WikiChallenge children"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are the unedited testimonies from school children who live in Africa. They have chosen to tell an aspect of their culture, of their daily life, of their history \u2026 they are unexpected, unusual, moving and, above all, unknown. Through Wiki In Africa\u2019s WikiChallenge African Schools programme they have been able to publish their stories online to reveal an Africa that has been ignored by all, and to share the particular perspective of its children.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The third edition of WikiChallenge African Schools<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>writing competition was organised in 9 African countries and resulted in 138 articles and <\/span>869 photos, drawings and videos <\/span>submitted by students from 100 schools. The WikiChallenge African Schools contest is aimed at students between the ages of 9 and 13 that are attending primary schools in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and Tunisia.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As always, the contest was conducted in partnership with the Orange Foundation and its local versions in the countries concerned, as well as Wikimedians and Vikidia members of <\/span>Wikimedia Tunisie<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Wikimedia Community User Group Mali<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Groupe d\u2019utilisateurs de la communaut\u00e9 Wikimedia Guin\u00e9e Conakry<\/span><\/a>, the <\/span>Vikidia Association<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Wikimedians for Offline Wikis<\/span><\/a> User Group.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The WikiChallenge African Schools writing competition utilises the digital kits that the Orange Foundation provided to 1000 disadvantaged schools under their digital schools programme. The recipient schools are without books or the internet, and the Digital Schools programme facilitates daily access to school-level educational and teaching content so that students can explore and learn about the digital world and the world around them. Through this programme, each digitally disadvantaged school child, without textbooks and the Internet, can easily access off-line educational content, such as the Khan Academy, Wikipedia, Nomad Education, Vikidia, etc. thanks to the tablets and Raspberry-Pi servers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another part of the Digital Schools package is the offline editing software WikiFundi<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, which was created and designed by our organization Wiki in Africa. The WikiFundi software has been specially developed and designed to allow students to prepare articles for publication on Vikidia. WikiFundi is\u00a0 accessed in participating schools on their digital kits. WikiFundi comes with numerous teaching resources to guide the teacher in the contest. WikiChallenge African Schools could not happen without WikiFundi on their devices.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 100 of these \u2018digital\u2019 schools participated in the third edition of WikiChallenge African Schools writing competition. The students and teachers who decided to participate in the WikiChallenge were trained and supported by educational mediators as well as by Vikidians and Wikimedians from the usergroups mentioned above.<\/span><\/p>\n

The contest encourages the \u2018Digital Schools\u2019 children to write about and publish articles that reflect a little of their daily lives on Vikidia. In doing so, school children discover how to use digital technology to sharpen their writing skills, whilst sharing their local culture with the rest of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n