The Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 was an event of its kind that brought together Wikimedia enthusiasts in the Igbo community to promote African narratives and preserve cultural heritage. This initiative, organized by Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA), aimed to enhance African content on Wikipedia and its sister projects, focusing on issues central to Africa’s history, development, achievements, and ongoing struggles. The challenge’s theme for 2025 is “Reclaiming Our Narrative: Justice for Africans and the Diaspora through Reparations,” aligning with the African Union’s movement for justice and reparations.
Participants were encouraged to create new articles or improve existing ones related to African content, emphasizing justice, reparations, and historical redress for Africa and the Diaspora. The event hosted different activities, including a physical and online. These sessions were designed to equip participants with essential skills in translation, campaign goals, and documentation guidelines, emphasizing the importance of Africans documenting their own history and traditions.
Empowering Participants through Training
The African Wiki Challenge 2025 event in Igbo Wikimedia Community featured a series of events; a physical session at Book Foundations, Awka, Anambra State, on July 12, 2025, and an online session on July 21, 2025. The training sessions, facilitated by Akwugo (in-person) and Christlike (online), equipped 43 participants with essential skills to translate English Wikipedia articles and Wikidata labels and descriptions to Igbo while adhering to the campaign goals, and documentation guidelines. Hence, highlighting the importance of Africans documenting their own history and traditions. The focus was on promoting self-representation and preservation of cultural heritage, aligning with the Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 theme, “Reclaiming Our Narrative: Justice for Africans and the Diaspora through Reparations”. Training Slides
Key Takeaways
The project successfully positioned participants to challenge misrepresentation, promote African narratives, and amplify African voices. By contributing to the Africa Wiki Challenge, they enriched the Igbo language content on Wikimedia platforms, demonstrating the power of collaboration and community engagement.
Translation Skills: Participants learned to translate articles and Wikidata items from English to Igbo.
Effective execution of campaign objectives: The training emphasized the Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 theme, “Reclaiming Our Narrative: Justice for Africans and the Diaspora through Reparations.
Cultural Preservation: The event promoted self-representation and preservation of cultural heritage. It encouraged participants to create and translate content into Igbo, enhancing the language’s online presence and making it more accessible to a broader audience. As this in a long way will help preserve the Igbo cultural heritage.
Outcome and Impact
The initiative in our community addressed the underrepresentation of African content online, most especially the Igbo content, leveraging Wikipedia and its sister projects to document Africa’s true story written by Africans. By participating, individuals contributed to increasing Igbos representation online, empowering participants and individuals to tell their own stories authentically. Hence, with its well-organized structure and successful sensitization, the project has set a strong foundation for future initiatives. Event Dashboard
The Africa Wiki Challenge is a new project focused on translation, and its success in the Igbo community has set a strong foundation for future initiatives. The event’s well-organized structure and successful sensitization have paved the way for continued efforts to promote African narratives and preserve cultural heritage.
The Igbo Wikimedia Community’s participation in the Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 is a testament to the community’s commitment to promoting African content and preserving cultural heritage. The event’s impact will be felt beyond the Igbo community, contributing to a more inclusive and diverse online landscape.
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