Six Months of Growth: How the Language and Diversity Hub Mentorship Is Strengthening the Fulfulde Wikimedia Community

For many emerging Wikimedia communities, building a sustainable contributor base while growing high quality content is a significant challenge. For the Fulfulde Wikimedia Community User Group, the past six months have demonstrated how structured mentorship, collaboration, and community support can accelerate progress. Earlier this year, our community was selected to participate in the Language and Diversity Hub Mentorship Program, an initiative designed to strengthen underrepresented language communities across the Wikimedia movement. Since joining the program, our journey has been marked by continuous learning, meaningful guidance, and tangible community growth.

Learning from an Experienced Mentor

One of the greatest strengths of the mentorship program has been the opportunity to work closely with Oscar Costero, a Wikimedia administrator (Sysop) on the Spanish Wikipedia and former President of Wikimedia Venezuela. Throughout the first phase of the mentorship, Oscar has provided invaluable guidance, helping our community identify practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by small language Wikimedia projects. His support has been particularly instrumental in addressing issues related to dialectal variation within the Fulfulde language and editor retention, those two challenges shared by many emerging language communities around the world. Beyond technical advice, the mentorship has encouraged strategic thinking about community governance, sustainability, partnerships, and long-term growth.

Achievements During the First Six Months

The mentorship has already produced measurable outcomes for the Fulfulde Wikimedia Community User Group.

Growing Fulfulde Content

One of our most significant achievements has been the continued expansion of Fulfulde-language content. During the six-month mentorship period, the Fulfulde Wikipedia grew from approximately 15,000 articles to more than 18,000 articles, representing thousands of new knowledge resources made available in one of Africa’s widely spoken languages. This milestone reflects the dedication of our volunteer contributors and demonstrates what can be achieved when community members receive consistent guidance and support.

Building Institutional Partnerships

Another major milestone has been establishing a partnership with the Centre for Languages and Folklore Studies at Bayero University Kano (BUK). This collaboration creates new opportunities to promote the documentation of Fulfulde language, culture, and knowledge while connecting Wikimedia projects with academic institutions that share similar goals of language preservation and research. Partnerships like these strengthen the long term sustainability of minority-language Wikimedia communities.

Supporting Community Engagement

We were also delighted to receive USD 500 in financial support through the Language and Diversity Hub to organize a physical community gathering. In addition we would like to appeal to the hub to emphasis on establishing more Microgrant Program as one of the core services of the hub. The program will help to provide small, accessible funding opportunities for emerging and underserved language communities, enabling them to document, preserve, and promote their languages through Wikimedia projects.This kind of event provides an opportunity to bring community members together, share lessons learned during the mentorship, discuss future priorities, and ensure that the knowledge gained throughout the program reaches volunteers who were unable to participate directly in the mentoring sessions.

Looking Ahead

Although the first six months have been productive, we believe this is only the beginning. As we enter the second phase of the mentorship, our focus will shift toward strengthening the technical capacity of the Fulfulde Wikimedia Community. One of our key priorities is working with the Language and Diversity Hub team to receive technical support on Wikidata and related tools. Our long term goal is to enable Fulfulde Wikimedia projects to make greater use of structured data, including the implementation of language-specific infoboxes powered by Wikidata. Achieving this would significantly improve the quality, consistency, and usability of Fulfulde-language content across Wikimedia projects.

Acknowledgements

The Fulfulde Wikimedia Community User Group sincerely appreciates the continued support of the Language and Diversity Hub for creating opportunities that empower underrepresented language communities. We are equally grateful to our mentor, Oscar Costero, whose dedication, patience, and wealth of Wikimedia experience have helped our community navigate important challenges and build a stronger foundation for future growth. As we begin the next six months of this journey, we remain committed to expanding free knowledge in Fulfulde, strengthening our volunteer community, and ensuring that one of Africa’s major languages continues to gain greater representation across the Wikimedia movement. The journey continues, and we look forward to sharing even more milestones in the months ahead.