Africa is a continent filled with incredible people, fascinating culture and enthralling stories. The continent is enriched with all these components that ought to be documented on the internet for the sake of the future generations. However, only about 5% of the content on English Wikipedia is about Africa currently.
This is why Open Foundation West Africa seeks to bridge the content gap on the web by organizing a content drive campaign (a writing contest) specifically to achieve this goal. The Africa Wiki Challenge has over the past two years collated over four thousand (4000) articles about Africa, contributed by participants all over the world including countries like Ghana, Nigeria, U.K, Canada, Russia, Rwanda, USA among others.
The campaign has been recognised by the African Union and the Africa Knowledge Initiative as a great way of projecting the continent on the web.
In line with the African Union Day theme that seeks to document Africaâs stories to increase the visibility of stories around Africaâs free trade, the African Knowledge Initiative (AKI) seeks to leverage Wikimedia tools and platforms to breed innovative solutions to bridging the content gap on global digital knowledge networks.
This initiative will be implemented through Open Foundation West Africa’s annual writing contest and is themed ‘The African Continental Free Trade’
On Thursday, 18th May, 2023. The Africa Day Campaign was officially launched globally and we were happy to host over 50 people from various countries across the world.
The launch event was graced by speakers from the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat in the person of Mr. Peter Sewornoo the Senior Advisor to the Secretary General and Ceslause Ogbonnaya, the Wikimedian-In-Residence for the Africa Knowledge Initiative project. Wikimedia Foundation respectively.
How to participate?
We can’t do it alone. We need your help to create and improve content about Africa in relation to the campaign theme on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms. There are two ways to participate in this contest. You either apply as a participant or an organizer
Participant
Join the one-month intensive continent-wide Africa Day Writing contest from 20th May to 20th June 2023 to create, improve or translate existing articles around the topic.
Register and also sign up for the contest by signing on to the Africa Day Writing Contest Campaign Dashboard. Visit the campaign meta page Learn more about how to participate in the contest.
Organizer
Are you participating as an affiliate, usergroup, organization, Institution, campaign organizer? Here are a few ways you can participate:
Fill the form for organizers HERE
Visit the campaign Meta Page for more information on how to participate in the contest.
Follow us on all social media handles, Instagram, Twitter: @ofwafrica and on Facebook and LinkedIn on at Open Foundation West Africa.
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