Mission

Wiki In Africa’s mission is to rebalance the type and diversity of information and perspectives that are available online about and from Africa, using Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects as platforms for the dissemination of this information to multiple peoples residing on and off the continent. In short, it’s mission is to help people and organisations create and preserve open knowledge, and to help provide easy access for readers to knowledge and perspectives relating to Africa.

Objectives

Empower and engage citizens of Africa and its diaspora to collect, develop and contribute content and perspectives relating to the theme of Africa under a free license and engage in global knowledge systems by encouraging access to, awareness of, and support for open knowledge, the open movement and the Wikimedia projects, working in collaboration with like-minded organisations.

Wiki In Africa exists as part of an international movement of organizations and volunteers that aims to increase the world's knowledge. This work takes place in four parts:

1. Establishing, through research, the gaps in knowledge that exists on Wikipedia about each country and community in Africa and find innovative and unexpected ways of drawing this information onto Wikipedia;
2. Activate, train and support a self-sustaining new generation of dedicated and proactive Wikipedian editors from across the continent that are able to generate new articles and subjects relevant to contemporary Africa by changing online behaviour and offline attitudes to knowledge,
3. Activate, train and support the growth of new User Groups and Wikimedia Chapters across Africa to effectively organise, deploy and reward these new editors through national and continental activities, and
4. Assist and support the upload and expansion of content that already resides in heritage, culture, news-gathering and academic institutions across Africa.

Key emphasis

The achievement of the objectives will be measured using the following key emphases:

• Engagement - event attendance, continued contribution, social media
• Content - wikimedia metrics tracking,
• Community health - activity, growth, visibility, challenges and successes
• Funding - long-term funding, pilot funding, prizes, etc.
• Visibility - understanding of Wikipedia, media coverage, etc.

Target Groups

Target Areas

Wiki In Africa will focus on the following key areas:

• Gender gap
• Youth and education
• Cultural heritage
• Volunteer development and community support
• Awareness of the projects and project participants within the Wikimedia community
• Integration of the project within Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

In the diagram “Wiki In Africa Projects according to Focus” you can see how the projects work across some of the focus groups, but also how they specifically target each focus.