[Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki

[Peter Southwood]

Hi Florence,
How much of the information is likely to be usable in Wikipedia? Will there 
be any requirement for reliable references, NPOV and NOR?
Will photo-uploads go to commons?
Regards,
Peter Southwood
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Florence Devouard" <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
To: <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 2:03 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki


> 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
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