Every day, millions of people search for reliable health information online, yet many encounter significant language and digital barriers. Language barriers are a well-recognized challenge in global health. The World Health Organization emphasizes the importance of communicating in multiple languages to ensure effective outreach.
The Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF) helps address this challenge by playing a key educational role through translating evidence-based content, extending access beyond connectivity constraints, and building partnerships with organizations and communities around the world.
2025 at a Glance
In 2025, our collective efforts translated into measurable impact across languages and communities:
- 252 volunteer translators actively participated in translation and editing efforts
- 1,985 medical articles were created or expanded
- 391,519 words of health content were translated
- Content was published across 49 languages
- These articles reached more than 2 million pageviews (2,053,083) worldwide
Translating content is just the beginning. Our main goal is to make sure this knowledge reaches the people who need it most. To help close the digital divide, we use tools such as Internet-in-a-Box, and offline apps to make Wikipedia and MDWiki content available in areas without internet.
Key Highlights
In 2025, we focused on building and strengthening partnerships and expanding our translation task force. Here are a few highlights from our work:
- On August 2025, Dr James Heilman facilitated a WikiMedicine workshop in Kigali, organised by Wikimedia Rwanda. Participants learned how to translate, edit and create health content for the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia. This initiative supported the broader objectives of the Wikimedia Foundation, the Rwanda Biomedical Centre and the Rwandan Ministry of Health, who are collaborating to promote “health for all” through open knowledge.
- In December 2025, we led a special session for the Fellowship Program for Health Editors in Africa organized by Wiki Health Africa.
- We collaborated with the Open Language Initiative to organize the 2025 Summer Medical Translation Practicum. Students from the MA program in The Theory and Practice of Translation at the University of the West in Timișoara, Romania, and other Romanian translators, joined us. This practicum connected academic training with Wikimedia work and introduced students to editing together, reviewing quality, and learning about the ethics of open knowledge.
- We attended Wikimania in Nairobi, where the members of WPMEDF team led several sessions, such as Adding Our World in Data (OWID) Visualizations to Wikipedia (session link) and State of Offline.
- Thanks to the efforts of our volunteer translators and the guidance and support of Alaa Najjar and the Arabic Wikipedia community, we have finished translating all the currently available medical articles on our dashboard into Arabic.
- To mark World Mental Health Awareness Month, 52 of our volunteer translators took part in a translation drive, making important mental health content available in languages including Amharic, Arabic, French, Galician, Indonesian, Pashto, Portuguese, Sinhala and Thai.
- We strengthened our support of volunteer translators by providing onboarding sessions and SME reviews. These efforts helped ensure the accuracy and reliability of their contributions. These efforts helped guarantee the quality and dependability of their work. We collaborated closely with Translators Without Borders, ProZ, and other partners to coordinate translation efforts.
What we learned
Over the course of 2025, several lessons became clear:
- Translators need ongoing support with Wikipedia’s editing norms, templates, and referencing standards.
- Community mentoring and structured onboarding help sustain contributions and improve quality.
- Strategic collaborations are essential for overcoming challenges and connecting translators with editors who can provide mentorship and support.
We invite you to support WikiProjectMed efforts
WikiProjectMed is an ongoing effort, and we welcome new contributors. Whether you’re a seasoned editor, a user group, a translator, or someone passionate about open health knowledge, you can help.
- Help with translations: Translation Dashboard
- Reach out to us: volunteers@wikiprojectmed.org
Every contribution helps. Together, we can ensure high-quality medical knowledge reaches every language and every community.
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