Wiki N’zuñdeuh in Cameroon: beyond documenting culture, combating misinformation and prejudice

Since July 2023, Women Association for Technology and Innovation (WAFTAI) is actively implementing Wiki N’zuñdeuh, a promotion and saving initiative of the cultural identities of the Cameroon people. In this initiative, WAFTAI is being accompanied by partners; which are Cameroon Ministry of art and culture (MINAC), Wiki Loves Museums, Kiwix, Cameroon Institutes of fine arts, and some museums. On the following lines, we share with you the highlights of Wiki N’zuñdeuh.

What is Wiki N’zundeuh?

Definition

Wiki N’zuñdeuh is a program which has as its objective the promotion of production, access and  exploitation of knowledge around culture through the projects of Wikimedia and Kiwix technology. Based on the gender approach, this project has the merit of seeing in majority women taking part. The registering analysis reveals 21 new editors of which 14 are women thus 66.7% of women representative.

Program key domains

Wiki N’zuñdeuh interfered in axes notably culture, education and tourism.

Culture is the central object of this program. The knowledge produced is related to the cultural domain. It includes notably knowledge on museums, festivals, traditional dances, stories and many more.

Education is the second axis, it comes to enlighten the production views and the exploitation of knowledge. The focused schools of the program notably the Institutes of fine arts of higher éducation (IBAI Garoua and IBA of Nkongsamba) have the merit to conciliate the other two axes. The participating students and teachers are at a time who produce through edi-a-thons, upload -a-thons, data-thons and who in a large dimension exploit them through Reading Wikipedia in the classroom.

Wiki N’zuñdeuh integrated tourism as the third axis. It is the result of the preceding axis facilitating the access and exploitation of knowledge produced. Products of technology are upcoming, this is the case of QR-code which would be created according to the tourists’ different languages.

Through the Kiwix technology, a mobile application is witnessed with a goal of rendering internet access everywhere, at every time, anywhere and even in localities with no internet access.

Methodology of the put in plan of the program for the first year 

Documenting on culture is the central point of this program, for this has defined a way that will facilitate us to attain this goal. It brings different activities from the diagnostic to the training session.

Diagnostic

To document culture, the ideal would be to know it, understand it and experience it. Discovering the Cameroon museum universe helps us to really understand the realities of museums and equally to verify the information. The diagnostic held from the 10th, August to the 20th, September 2024, was based on secondary data furnished by MINAC. With the help of the diagnostic, an evaluation with experts in the domain of museum brings out the existence of about 40 museums in Cameroon of which 15 exist on Wikipedia and 29 on Wikidata. Still on the aspects of museums, some specifities were brought out to know the categories of museums. They are public, private and communitarian and integrate in the register of ethnographic and/or contemporary museums. All these informations help us to produce a documentation which takes into account the context. The elements have been introduced in the documentation template of the different Wikimedian projects (Wikidata, Wikipedia, Commons Wikimedia and soon WikiVoyage)

Guided visit

If the diagnostic had as goal to facilitate the understanding of the culture environment  by the project team, the guided visit held on the 26th, October 2024, the day of the project launching had as fonction to bring the editors in the museum field and also in the Wikimedian World what we call “Socio-Wikimedian immersion“. The participant had a practical approach to the Commons Wikimedia project. After the different museal mediation and the views, a great part was given to training sessions and to uploads. Starting the program by guarded visits help editors develop a practical and heuristic interest for the program.

Training and contribution sessions

Digital is the base of our organisation, the technological approach is prioritized for this activity. We have opted for the training. The experienced trainers who accompanied the program intervene very often online and the training assistant facilitates in the rooms. This strategy in addition to permitting the editors to accomodate to the numerical principles assures the backup of trainers. Participants through this strategy acquire abilities in animation technics of online and physical training. The issue of internet network forced some experienced trainers to also move to training  rooms. The working sessions are cumulative, that is the training and contribution sessions. The editors are in totality the new contributors. Launched on 26th October by Commons Wikimedia. The training and contribution sessions are in multiples. They are based on projects like Wikipedia, Wikidata and soon WikiVoyage. With a goal of ensuring a good acquisition of skills, the follow up sessions are organised the thursday which follows the training weekend. These moments are occasions to find solutions to the different problems of editors and boost those that don’t still meetup.

Diversity and Inclusion

The approach on diversity and inclusion was taken into consideration as well as on the object of the program as by the editors.

The object of this year’s program is the museums. We have targeted all the museums of  Cameroon so different cultures since museums are cultural identities. A major point brought out during our training is that of the 15 museums existing on Wikipedia, no museum from the Far North of Cameroon figures. This has been taken into account in the project since articles on the museums of that part will be created.

For the editors, it is important to signify that this approach was one of the reasons for the choice of partner schools. It is in the issue of including the different social groups that we have solicited a partnership with a school in the Far North Cameroon (Institute of Fine arts and Innovation Garoua- IBAI). This implies that the spatiotemporal and cultural realities are Taken into account in the project. Beside the cultural diversity, the linguistic and religious ones are brought up. The editors are of French and English expressions; Christians, Muslims and traditionalists. 

Challenges and high tips of Wiki N’zundeuh 

We faced large difficulties which were treated as the project was going on. We share with you the majors:

Lack of computers

Of the 21 new publishers registered, only 6 have a permanent computer, even though owning a computer was one of the prerequisites for taking part in the programme. Unfortunately, as confirmed by a teacher in IBAN,

”if we should only respect the order of selecting only students having computers, this program would be done with less than 5 students because the majority of the students don’t have computers”.

The same remark was done by the IBAI administration. This observation also implies that the students have limited knowledge in the numerical domain. Although the students’ phones are not always highly performant for technology and lesser for contributions (particularly for Wikipedia), trainers do their best to transmit the Wikimedian knowledge in this context. Knowing the difficulty, we have decided to give rewards to the three best contributions that are one computer each.

Difficulty of holding the Reading Wikipedia in the classroom 

The Reading Wikipedia in the classroom has a goal to help teachers understand the knowledge production process through the Wikipedia project, equally to train on the exploitation technics in the room of the knowledge produced by Wikimedian editors on Wikipedia. Being in the fine and arts domain, we wanted to prioritize the didactic methodology through Wikipedia. This was not possible due to the prejudices about the university world in general and great schools in particular of this free encyclopedia. To solve this problem, with our experts, we thought that instead of Reading Wikipedia in classroom train teachers on WikiVoyage through WikiLearn is more advantageous. These schools have for example needs in tourism, WikiVoyage help as a useful tool for this sector. It was thought a project Wikimedia for Education (WFE) which integrates read WikiVoyage and many more. This will permit in a specific way to the didactic method in these fine and arts schools and to further ensure a good quality of knowledge produced.

Fight against prejudice and misinformation

The program for this new year was hardly accepted in schools due to the prejudices they have on the encyclopedia. They talk about a lack of information. In addition to the production of knowledge, we have carried out awareness to the administration, to teachers and students on what is Wikimedia and particularly Wikipedia and other projects. On our social network and even during our working sessions, we have multiplied the fight against these stereotypes and misinformation. The editors are invited to produce documentation based on credible sources. We celebrate here the work of experienced trainers and the administrators in the Wikimedian projects (Wikipedia, Wikidata…) who strengthen this fight through the checking of contributions. The editors, who at the beginning of the project; used to discredit Wikipedia, support  that “Wikipedia is the most difficult project and requires more care and discipline during the contributions“. The prejudices fade gradually in the university sectors through IBAN and IBAI.

Community membership

The project as mentioned above was accompanied by the government of Cameroon through the Ministry of Art and Culture (MINAC). In addition to this accompaniment, communities involved in the program. We were touched by the consideration of the promoters and museum directors. During our launching activities, the promoters didn’t stop manifesting their joy of having such an initiative in Cameroon. Receiving calls from traditional leaders and museum promoters is a great source of motivation.

The move towards the documentation of cultural aspects in Cameroon through the Wikimedian projects is launched. We are thankful to all those who accompanied us in this initiative we think principally of the experienced trainers and Wikimedian administrators who work so that the contributions should be of good quality. Thanks also to all our partners, to the editors, to the Wiki N’zuñdeuh teams and to our followers.