Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipack Africa Content/WikiFundi:Wikimedia activities in Africa

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia and is hosted by a non profit organisation called Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Participants to Wikipedia are called wikipedians. WMF host other projects, collectively called Wikimedia projects. Those are Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, WikiVoyage etc. By extension we refer to wikimedia mouvement or wikimedia community when we talk about all the participants to Wikimedia projects. Members of the mouvement may sometimes organize themselves in structured organizations, called Chapters or UserGroup or ThematicGroup (see WikiFundi:Wikimedia in Africa to read more about those organisations). Every wikimedian can organize activities around Wikimedia projects if they wish so. It is not mandatory to be in an organization to do so (but often, that can help...). The page below list some of the activities organized by wikimedians. Feel free to join in, or let them inspire yourself if you want to organize a new activity.

Some examples of wikimedia activities available the African continent
It would be difficult to name them all. The examples listed below are there to give some ideas of on-going projects.

Wiki Loves Africa
It's a yearly photo competition, taking place in Fall/Winter on the entire continent and following a different theme each year. In 2014 the chosen theme was Cuisine, in 2015 it was Traditional Clothes; in 2016, the chosen theme is Music and Dance. To participate to this competition, keep an eye on: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016

Wiki Loves Women
it's a project centred on the African woman. It's about emancipating and allowing the general public to have access to existing and verified cultural and educative content that is present in public institutions, civil society or organisations but that are poorly visible or accessible. The content and the data collected will particularly focus on women and their contributions to politic, economy, sciences, culture and heritage or on the actual socio-political status of women in each country. This project takes place in 2016-2017 in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana. To know more : http://www.wikiloveswomen.org

Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo competition taking place yearly in September with the aim to promote and valorise Heritage properties. Since its creation in 2010 in Netherlands, the event encourages people to take photos of historical monuments and Heritage sites of their region and to then upload them in the Wikimedia Commons repertoire. Several african countries take part in the competition each year. To know everything about this competition: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments

Wiki Loves Earth
Also a photo competition... more recent than Wiki Loves Monuments. Wiki Loves Earth is an international photo competition taking place yearly in May with the aim to enhance the natural Heritage. Since its creation in 2013 in Ukraine, the event encourages people to take pictures of natural Heritage and to then upload them in the Wikimedia Commons repertoire. In 2016, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia were part of the competition.

WikiChallenge African Schools
WikiChallenge African Schools from the Orange Foundation is a writing contest in 8 African countries during 2017 that creates a fun, engaging way to learn about contributing to Wikipedia. The contest encourages students from the same school to work together to create an article about their area. Their article could be about their village or suburb, a notable person or a local historic event or a geographic feature. http://www.wikifundi.org

Competition « Villages of Cameroon » (#Wikivillages)

 * 1) Wikivillages is an encyclopaedic writing competition based on the theme 'villages of Cameroon' and organised by Agripo from the 20th of May to the 20th of November 2016. The village forms the basic administrative and cultural structure  of Cameroon which counts around 13000 of them, all linked to 360 towns. Yet, in May 2016, less than 80 villages  had one article in French available on Wikipedia, 36 in English. At the same date, Wikimedia Commons – the database common to all the projects –, was hosting only 266 photos about 31 identified villages. Through a competition open to public, this initiative from Cameroon - pioneer in Africa - aims to give to villages their well deserved place in the 'largest encyclopaedia in the world', by creating new articles, uploading new images, in accordance with the strict rules of Wikipedia (neutrality, production of sound sources...) and of Commons (images free from copyright...). Participating is simple. If you are Cameroonian, you have no excuse to not feel involved :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikivillages_of_Cameroon

Afripedia
Afripédia was a project sponsored by Wikimedia France, the French Institute and the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie with the support of Kiwix. Its aim was to give an off-line access to the Wikimedia Foundation projects contents and to Wikipedia especially, as well as providing training to contribute to these projects in the French speaking Africa. To know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afripedia_Project

Contribution Month
For the French speaking countries, there is an activity and a group named WikiFranca. WikiFranca is a collaboration between Wikimedia French speaking chapters and its affiliated working groups.This collaboration aims to encourage activities in French in different Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and its sister projects on the Web and on the field. It not only allows working groups which do not have chapters in their countries to organise activities and events in their location and their own language, but it also allows to build a bridge between the countries who participate to the French language projects of Wikimedia. WikiFranca organises every year the French Speaking countries Month (which takes place in March). It gives the opportunity to organise training or Wikipedia's contributions workshops in French speaking countries. In 2015, workshops have been recorded in France, Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guadeloupe, Madagascar, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, Switzerland and Tunisia. To know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contribution_Month_in_Canada. Check out as well : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Mois_de_la_contribution

Conferences and other meeting events
The Wikimedia community gathers regularly, to simply have a relaxing drink and chat in the evening or to organise photoshoots all day or during national and even international meetings.

Wikimania (yearly)
At an international level, the Wikimania conference is organised once a year and has been going on for more than 10 years in different places each year. In 2011, it occurred in Haïfa in Israel and in 2008 in Alexandria in Egypt. The next conference will take place in Québec in summer 2017. To know more: https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania

WikiConvention francophone
At a French speaking countries level, WikiFranca organised in summer 2016 a French speaking WikiConvention in Paris. To know more (and look at the interventions, people involved etc): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConvention_francophone/2016

WikiIndaba (2014 and 2017)
The African Wikimedians' conference... At the continent level, the first one took place in 2014 in Johannesburg - South Africa (http://wikiindaba.net). The UserGroup from Ghana is getting ready to prepare the second edition which should take place towards in January 2017 in Accra. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2017

WikiArabia (2015)
Slightly more local, the WikiArabia conference, dedicated to the contributors of the Maghreb's region was organised in 2015 in Monastir in Tunisia. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiArabia/2015