From Application to Notability: My Journey Through the Wiki Afrodemics Mentorship Programme, Cohort 1

When I first came across the call for applications for the Wiki Afrodemics Mentorship Programme, I almost scrolled past it. I had seen calls like this before, applied to a few, and heard nothing back. But something about this one felt different maybe it was the clarity of the focus countries, or maybe it was simply timing. I applied anyway, not expecting much, and a few weeks later found my name on the list of Cohort 1 fellows for the Anglophone group.

That single email changed the next three months of my life on Wikimedia.

The Application and the Wait

Applying was straightforward enough: a form, a short statement of interest, a bit about prior contributions. The harder part was the waiting. Mentorship programmes like this one are competitive, and I remember refreshing my inbox more often than I’d like to admit. When the selection list finally came out, and I saw my name among the twenty participants chosen from across the five focus countries, it felt like validation not just of my interest in Wikimedia, but of the small, scattered edits I had been making before anyone was watching.

A Setback I Didn’t See Coming

Not long into the programme, I ran into a wall I genuinely didn’t expect: I was temporarily blocked on Wikimedia. I won’t pretend that moment didn’t sting. For a brief period, I couldn’t edit directly, and I had to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of being sidelined from the very project I had just been selected to contribute more to.

But this is where the structure of the programme and the patience of the mentors made all the difference. Instead of treating the block as a dead end, I learned to treat it as a detour. I kept writing. I drafted articles offline and in my sandbox, and submitted them for review by experienced Wikimedians who could push them through on my behalf or guide me on how to get back in good standing. It taught me something I didn’t expect to learn from a mentorship programme: that contributing to Wikimedia isn’t only about the edit button. It’s about the work itself: the research, the sourcing, the drafting, and there is always a way to keep that work moving, even when the front door is temporarily closed.

Mentors Who Knew How to Teach, Not Just Tell

If there’s one thing that stood out across the three months, it’s the quality of the mentorship itself. It’s one thing to know Wikimedia inside and out; it’s another to be able to teach it well. Our mentors managed both.

The Wikidata sessions, in particular, stretched my thinking. Wikidata isn’t always intuitive when you’re coming from a Wikipedia-first mindset, but the structured, month-long training broke it down in a way that made the structured data side of the movement click for me. Moving between Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia diff and Wikimedia Commons over the course of the programme gave me a much fuller picture of how the projects connect, how an image uploaded to Commons, a claim modeled on Wikidata, and an article written on Wikipedia all reinforce each other.

The Lesson I’m Taking With Me: Notability

Of everything covered across the cohort – content gaps, gender representation, cross-regional collaboration – the single most valuable thing I walked away with is a real, working understanding of Notability.

Before this programme, notability was a word I associated with rejection, articles I have seen tagged for deletion, drafts that sat untouched because I wasn’t sure they would survive scrutiny. Now I understand it as a framework rather than a gatekeeping obstacle. Knowing how to evaluate whether a subject meets Wikipedia’s notability guidelines, and how that maps differently onto Wikidata’s notability expectations, has changed how I choose what to write about in the first place. I no longer draft and hope. I check first, source deliberately, and build a stronger case for inclusion from the very first sentence.

That shift alone from guessing to evaluating is worth everything else I gained from this cohort.

Looking Ahead

As Cohort 1 closes out for 2026, I am left with a mix of gratitude and momentum. Gratitude for mentors who gave their time generously over three months of training, listening, and patient correction. Momentum because I now have both the skills and the confidence to keep contributing, blocks, setbacks, and all.

I am already looking forward to the 2027 cohort, not as a participant this time, perhaps, but as someone who might be in a position to give back the same kind of guidance I received.