Designed jointly with the African Union, and co-implemented with Africa No Filter, the Africa Knowledge Initiative (AKI) seeks to address the issue of knowledge equity by creating opportunities for existing Wikimedia communities and encouraging the general populace to actively take part in contributing content to help bridge the African content gap. \ Over the coming eight months, AKI will issue three calls to action to bridge knowledge gaps about Africa in conjunction with three African Union holidays: Africa Youth Day (November 2022), Environment/Wangari Maathai Day (March 3, 2023), and Africa Day (May 25, 2022).

The Africa Knowledge Initiative (AKI) working group had announced a call for applications for implementing partners for each of the three selected AU holidays. The implementing partner’s role involves organizing the campaign around the AU holiday it’s been selected for, with the help of the Wikimedia In Residence and the AKI working group. They are also supposed to collaborate with local affiliates/communities interested in organising a local event. In all 30 organisations applied for the implementing partner role, from which a shortlisted pool progressed for interviews according to their strengths and campaigns of interest. Successful organisations were notified after the interview, The Africa Knowledge Initiative is happy to announce the various Implementing partners for each of the selected African Union holiday campaigns:

Africa Youth Day 2022 – WikiVibrance in collaboration with Wikimedia Botswana

WikiVibrance has partnered with the AU on executing the Africa Youth Day 2021 campaign in Africa, as a post WikiIndaba 2021 conference event. With the experience they possess from running Africa Youth Day 2021, and the International Youth Day 2022 campaign, and the quality of the bid presented we were compelled to select them as the lead organiser. However we also noticed one other compelling bid from Wikimedia Botswana which encouraged us to suggest a collaboration and sharing of ideas to develop a robust campaign.

Environment/Wangari Maathai Day 2023 – Wiki In Africa and Wikimedia community User Group Côte D’Ivoire

Wiki In Africa has vast experience and network across the African continent through its projects. Their activities have created and reinforced various communities across Africa and beyond. Wikimedia Community User Group Côte D’Ivoire on the other hand, has networks widely spread within francophone Africa and WikiFranca, and have deep knowledge in content creation on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, WikiQuote, WikiData, etc, and have engaged and created communities beyond their shores. We believe the expertise, experience and networks that these two organisations possess could create an authentically Africa-oriented environmental campaign and ensure its sustainability. In view of this, the team decided to bring these two organisations together to co-create a campaign as a joint team.

Africa Day 2023 – Open Foundation West Africa in collaboration with African Library & Information Associations and Institutions – AfLIA

Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA) has been partnering with the AU on Africa Day-related projects on the continent specifically with the Africa Wiki Challenge (AWC). Despite being based in Ghana, the OFWA community spreads within the subregion, through its campaigns and activities. Following their success in running the AWC and a competitive bid, we selected OFWA as the lead organiser of the campaign. AfLIA, the continental library association for all of Africa, entered the Wikimedia movement in 2020 and has since built experience cutting across various levels of editing and content creation, especially the African Librarians Week which has successfully run its third edition. AfLIA possesses a vast network across the 55 African Union member states, a network too rich to be ignored if Africa Knowledge Initiative really wants to make a mark using the Africa Day 2023 campaign. These two organisations have been actively running campaigns around the Africa Day holiday, and will collaborate to execute the Africa Day 2023 campaign holiday marrying both of their skills and experiences.

The Africa Youth Day campaign team will be engaging local communities under the theme,Breaking the Barriers to Meaningful Youth Participation and Inclusion Advocacy. This resonates with the current realityof African Youths across the continent, championing or advocating for one cause or another. The theme is a call to action for more African Youths to circumnavigate the obstacles threatening their participation and inclusion in advocacy/activism. The AKI through the various campaign activities on various WIkimedia projects, shall be handing these young Africans the key to unlock a global stage and platform to amplify their voices across the various issues they’re advocating for — climate, gender equality, equal representation, etc. For the Africa Youth Day 2022 campaign activities, the WikiVibrance team after a Call for application, will be working with at least 11 local affiliates through a micro-grant program. Each of the 11 local affiliates will receive a sum of $2000 to run a local event as part of the campaign.

Stay tuned for activities scheduled for the Africa Youth Day 2022 campaign:

Webinar sessions;training workshops and launch webinars
Write-a-thons; content creations
Translate-a-thons; content translations
Edit-a-thons; content editings and improvement
Photowalks; photo hunts and Wikimedia upload session
Other fun activities to spice up the campaign

At each level of these projected campaign activities, communications on how to seamlessly participate using smart phones and other devices shall be shared through the various AKI communication platforms and Wikimedia mailing lists.

On 29th October 2022, WikiVibrance had the Africa Youth Day 2022 campaign launch webinar. You can catch up on the launch webinar here https://w.wiki/5tpC

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