Engineering Hope: How Sudan’s Wikimedians Built a “Digital Ark” Under Fire

In October, I was honoured to be invited to help the Wikimedia Sudan Usergroup as a Strategic Mentor to help the group shift from handling emergencies to building something more stable. But in Sudan, things are rarely straightforward.

I was glad to get this opportunity to work with a group of volunteers who decided to answer that question by turning knowledge into a form of resistance.

Before this recent initiative, the Wikimedia Sudan community was operating in what we identified as “Survival Mode.” Efforts were brave but scattered. Individual editors were trying to contribute, but they were drowning in the daily trauma of the war.

We set out to build capacity through our intervention, but it ultimately helped people feel more grounded. Our goal shifted from just helping people work through pain to actually to helping them heal.

We created the 2025 Training Program because we needed to regain control, and while we worked on the group’s structure, drafted bylaws, established governance, and planned workflows, our goal was to build a user group that could operate independently. We wanted to ensure that, even if the war changed our environment, we could still decide our own direction.

It would be a disservice to frame this recent success as a sudden miracle. It is, in fact, the culmination of five years of “digging through rock.” The Wikimedia Sudan usergroup has been laying the groundwork for this moment long before the current crisis escalated.

The last four months stood out because of the challenges we faced. The usergroup managed to organise a 35-hour training program with Mervat Salman, along with other trainers and Arabic Wikipedia administrators. Coordinating this effort took careful planning and teamwork, especially given the circumstances.

We kept things moving by managing each Zoom call and turning in the workshops’ assignments, even when it was difficult. I am glad I could help make sure our work continued and that we set up a structure so the community could keep going, even if some had to leave.

The usergroup learnt the art of digital preservation. In a country where archives, museums, and historical sites are under physical threat, Wikimedia projects become a Digital Ark.

Participants, through the workshops, looked at their surroundings with a critical, documentation-focused eye. An impact that metrics often miss in “normal” circumstances. The traditional era of encyclopedias was always proud of gatekeepers. Now, the Wikimedia communities continue to gain guardians, facilitators and coordinators! We need an awful lot of them!

One of the cruellest aspects of conflict is isolation. The war in Sudan has often felt forgotten by the world. This program, however, became a bridge through partnerships with the Nile Valley Initiative and Wiki Love Monuments, and with the support of mentors from the wider Arab region, the Sudanese community reconnected with its ecosystem.

The trainers and the usergroup core team showed real commitment, not just doing their jobs but going further. The Movement is real, supporting us when our local systems let us down. Looking over the final reports for this program, I can see how much we have grown as a group.

Wikimedia Sudan has successfully pivoted. They have moved from the reactive chaos of survival to the proactive stability of an institution. They have proven that with the proper governance structure (the “skeleton” we worked so hard to build) and the right spirit, a community can do more than survive a war: curate its history!

We snatched this success from the jaws of impossible circumstances. The training changed the people before it changed the articles. And in doing so, it proved that in the face of destruction, construction is the most radical act of all!