Build Your Own Road Map for Igbo Language Digital Activism

Five workshops birthed five distinct language communities Digital Activism Workshop. Each community workshop, a representation of an endangered culture and people. The Rising Voices collaborative initiatives (Build Your Own RoadMap for Language Digital Activism) with five Wikimedia affiliates, of which the Igbo Wikimedians User Group is one of them, is an initiative intentionally designed to support minority language speakers on how to Build their own Road Map for Indigenous Language Digital Activism.

From 31st May to 1st June, 2025 members of the Igbo Wiki Fan Club, Imo State University and Igbo Wiki Fan Club, Alvan, an offshoot of the Igbo Wikimedians User Group, converged together to learn and get equipped with the right tools and approaches to define their own strategies for using digital tools to promote and revitalize their indigenous language – Igbo. During this two days workshop, participants get to learn and understand how digital activism fits into broader strategies (such as human rights advocacy and/or language revitalization) with a contextualised case study shared by the guest speakers and presenters. Being highly attended by Linguistics and Igbo Language university students, it became an avenue for networking and knowledge exchange as the participants get to share some of the challenges they face as indigenous language students and also the benefits they enjoy as such.

Key Highlights of the Workshop:

Day 1 – Sharing and Learning from Experts

The first day of the workshop took the theoretical and discussory approach. Joined by two experienced Wikimedians who are in the field of indigenous language advocacy, participants get to learn from their real life experience as experts in the field. One of the speakers, @tochiprecious spoke on the need to document indigenous languages and the various means through which this can be achieved. She spoke on and cited various case studies of indigenous languages going into extinction as a result of lack of proper documentation on the digital space. She goes on to share best practices, tools and approaches in sustaining indigenous languages on the digital spaces. The second speaker, @dnshitobu presented on how participants as indigenous language advocates and Wikimedians can leverage on the Wikimedia projects as tools for indigenous language documentation and digital activism. He cited Wikimedia projects such as Wiktionary which can be used to document indigenous terms and phrases, Wikimedia commons for documenting indigenous oral history and culture and making it accessible to those even outside the indigenous communities and for posterity sake. The Day 1 of the workshop came to a wrap with some of the participants sharing their experiences in the indigenous language field and why they chose the path for indigenous languages studies. They were also encouraged to utilize the digital tools within their spaces to ensure that there is maximum and full representation of their indigenous languages and also to be able to compete with their peers at the global space.

Day 2 – Getting Busy

Having discussed on leveraging on the Wikimedia projects for indigenous language digital activism, on the Day 2 of the event, participants were trained on leveraging the Wikipedia project to digitise their indigenous language through the Content Translation tool. In this phase of the workshop, articles related to indigenous languages, dialects and indigenous language advocates were made available and shared among the participants for a practical work through. With the aid of the Content Translation tool, they translated over 70+ articles from the English Wikipedia to the Igbo Wikipedia, thereby contributing to the pool of knowledge in the Igbo Wikipedia, bridging the knowledge gap as well as etching their indigenous language on the digital space.

Outcome & Conclusion

With the incorporation of the elements of the Rising Voices – UNESCO toolkit project “Digital Initiatives for Indigenous Languages,” which has been adapted to a number of virtual and in-person workshops over the past several years the Build Your Own Road Map for Igbo Digital Language Activism participants were equipped with the practical knowledge contextualised for their understanding to help them excel in their indigenous language advocacy. They were also made to realise that they are not alone in the journey of digital language activism which served as a means to rejuvenate their enthusiasm in pursuing their passion and interest for indigenous language advocacy. By the end of the session, the participants were equipped with the right mindset, tools, and clear roadmap for indigenous language advocacy.

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