WikiForMotherTongue is an initiative that draws attention to the need to strengthen the online presence of digitally underrepresented local languages. While languages such as English, French, or Spanish have complete and active versions of Wikimedia projects, many African languages remain absent or underrepresented. The challenges are numerous, most notably, the lack of educational resources in local languages and limited access to knowledge, which is primarily reserved for dominant languages, thereby excluding a large portion of native speakers. This situation poses a genuine problem of cultural recognition and the transmission of knowledge, particularly within indigenous and minority communities.
That is why we wish to engage our communities and involve their members more deeply in order to reduce the digital divide between smaller and larger wikis. We thus encourage contributions in African local languages throughout the month of February. This campaign is part of a broader effort aimed at bridging the digital and cultural gap by promoting mother tongues.
As a reminder, this initiative was launched in November 2023 under the name Wiki na monɔkɔ mua bíso. In January 2024, it evolved into the Mother-Tongue Contribution Month (see on Facebook), mobilizing numerous contributors from all corners of the world who have shown a keen interest in the activities of the International Mother Tongue Contribution Month. We have therefore chosen to dedicate the month of February to this event.
During the opening conference on February 22, held at the Centre culturel Plateforme Contemporaine with the support of CeriseProduction, which provided a cultural framework for the ceremony, presentations, exchanges, and folk-style awareness shows marked the day. The closing conference, scheduled for February 28 at the Centre culturel Boboto, will be preceded by two days of training workshops at Silikin Village in Kinshasa.
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