As part of our ongoing commitment to promoting national languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, WikiLinguila continues to advocate for rigorous language learning, formal recognition, and the official integration of these languages into the education system. This commitment is reflected in the production of relevant and well-documented content on free platforms, particularly Wikipedia and its sister projects within the Wikimedia ecosystem.
Following the WikiForMotherTongue campaign and our participation in the Constructive Public Communication Workshop organized by CEPAS, DYPOL, and MONUSCO at Hôtel Sultani, we also took part in the joint UNESCO–MONUSCO workshop held at Hôtel Memling from June 18 to 19, 2025 for Congolese journalists. Once again, we reaffirmed that local languages are powerful vectors of social cohesion as we have always maintained. Access to information and documentary resources in these languages is impactful, both educationally and civically, that is why we are committed to ensuring free and open access to knowledge in national languages through Wikimedia projects.
In the same spirit, we are launching a series of training workshops for media professionals, to be held at the Institut français of Kinshasa. This initiative aims to strengthen journalists’ capacity to understand, use, and contribute actively to Wikimedia projects, while promoting the national languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is part of a broader effort to support free, fair, and verifiable contribution.
We specifically aim to:
- Encourage the production of journalistic articles and media content in Kikɔ̂ngɔ, Lingála, Tshilúba, and Swahili;
- Demystify the concept of a “source” within the Wikimedia ecosystem.
We also engaged in fruitful discussions with several key authorities, including Dr. PhD Isaias Barreto da Rosa, UNESCO Representative in the DRC, Ms. Habibou from MONUSCO’s Political Affairs Office, and Mr. Cléophas Malaba, Secretary General for Communication and Media because it is essential to promote and recognize underrepresented languages as legitimate languages of publication, and to challenge the idea that only dominant languages are valid for citing or producing sources. Through this initiative, we hope to continue imagining a world where everyone can access knowledge in their own language.
Note that June 18 is the International Day for Countering Hate Speech : https://acp.cd/urbain/kinshasa-les-langues-nationales-presentees-comme-vecteur-de-paix-et-de-cohesion-nationale/
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