[Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki

[Florence Devouard]

Dear friends

It is my pleasure to announce the launch of a new project, "Kumusha 
Takes Wiki".

Kumusha Takes Wiki is a project that aims at activating communities 
across Africa to create and contribute freely-licensed information, 
texts, images and media about their communities (villages, townships, 
suburbs, inner cities, etc). It will use community journalism to gather 
community-relevant information on heritage, culture, notable persons, 
geographical features, among other things. It will give each community 
an online presence that is 'owned' by the community, provide information 
that can be pulled into Wikipedia, Wikimedia projects or OpenStreetMap 
databases, and it hopes to add immeasurably to the understanding of 
Africa to every human being on the planet (from the people in the 
village to the person in New York, Mumbai or Milan). This project gives 
a public voice to communities across Africa, empowering them to share 
their own histories and, through training, to acquire valuable and 
transferable skills.

The project was designed by Isla (South Africa) and I (France), with the 
support of Iolenda (Italy) (yeahhhh, three wikiwomens !)

Without going much into details (see links below), let's say that this 
project will involve Wikipedians in Residence in two African countries 
(Ivory Coast and Uganda), training in South Africa, local events in the 
two above listed countries and a big photographic contest involving the 
entire African continent.
More information here: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kumusha_Takes_Wiki (available in French 
and English)
For those unaware, the official languages of Uganda are English and 
Swahili, whilst the official language of Ivory Coast is French. Our 
project being bilingual is not a bug, it's a feature :)

I should probably outline that our goal is not so much about getting 
african content in Wikipedia but more about outreach and awareness in 
the field.
As such, the Wikipedians in Residence will not so much focus on getting 
in touch and establishing partnerships with institutions in big cities 
so that content may be freed and added to our projects (see the current 
wikipedia description of a WiR: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence).
Our "Residence" will be the "Kumusha" (a Shona term meaning "the place 
where you come from"). Our WiR will rather try to activate the local 
communities to help them discover our projects and share their heritage 
with us. As such, the events are more likely to take place in little 
villages, suburbs, shantytowns, camps, agricultural communities, than in 
big cities. Participants are more likely to be teenagers with cellphones 
than middle age men in suits. Data collected is perhaps more likely to 
be geographical and social related data about a little city than high 
level politics.

The project is financially supported by the Orange Foundation (France) 
for Ivory Coast and Uganda... starting 1st of October !
A good part of the original submission made last spring is available 
here for those interested : 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Activate_Africa_(Orange_Foundation)

I am very glad to have the opportunity to work on that project :) It is 
a long way from my presentation back in Wikimania 2005 (Wikimedia 
projects in the developing world:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Presentation-FD1)
As for Isla, she is involved in the WikiAfrica project 
(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiAfrica_Cameroon) through the Africa 
Centre, and some of you met her at Wikimania Hong Kong where she lead a 
panel about Activating Africa 
(https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Activating_Africa).

Our twitter handle is @KumushaWiki

You are naturally welcome to comment, criticize, relay, participate, 
support and copy :)

Anthere