Wiki Loves Nigeria

Background

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Wiki Loves Nigeria is a content liberation project related to Nigeria. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse society. The culture of Nigeria is shaped by Nigeria's multiple ethnic groups. The country has over 521 languages and over 250 dialects and ethnic groups. The four largest ethnic groups are the Hausa and Fulani who are predominant in the north, the Igbo who are predominant in the southeast, and the Yoruba who are predominant in the southwest.

Nigeria is famous for its English language literature, apart from the 'pure' English speaking population, Nigerian pidgin (which uses a primary English lexicon) is also a common lingua franca. Roughly a third of Nigeria's population speak Pidgin English which is a simplified form of the language, for instance "How you dey" would be substituted for "How are you". Because of the great diversity of people and culture, Nigeria has distinguished herself over the centuries in the field of arts. Nigerian versatility in the arts is so great that it is generally felt that all African nations should view Nigeria as the principal trustee of the most durable fruits of black artistic genius.

The country aptly described as the 'Giant of Africa' and the Heart of Africa is richly endowed with ecological and cultural resources, which are of universal recognition. The richness and diversity of the Nigeria culture is a manifestation of the socio-cultural differences of the over 250 ethnic groups that inhabit the land for ages. Nigeria is Rich in Culture, Heritage and Beautiful Landscapes. Amazingly, only few of these are covered by on Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikipedia, the world largest encyclopedia and other sister's projects, including Wikimedia Common, Wikiversity and so on.

Wiki Loves Nigeria

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Wiki Loves Nigeria is a content liberation project related to Nigeria. It focuses on the coverages of Nigeria, her culture, heritage and landscape on Wikimedia Project. The project will focus on content about these subjects and participation by people from Nigeria. The project is designed to leverage Wikimedia project's role as a global repository of information to achieve accessible and fair online representation of countries in Africa. The project will achieve its objective through partnership with established cultural institutions in Nigeria and established Wikipedia Volunteer groups to disseminate this information among the Wikimedia projects. In addition, the project will encourage the activation and support of new and established editors (both female and gender-sensitised male Wikipedians) in Nigeria.

Project goals

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  1. Increasing contents on Wikimedia projects
  2. Increasing contributors from Nigeria
  3. Increasing awareness of Wikimedia projects
  4. Regional skills transfer, collaboration and networking
  5. Increased visibility and understanding of the Wikimedia projects: through the project activations, programs and events.
  6. Provided training, support and encouragement that has built the volunteer base of contributing to Wikimedia and other open movement projects
  7. Strengthened Wikipedia as a source of information and access point for Africa-related content.

Strategy

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The project will achieve its goals through

  1. Collaboration with established user groups and chapters in Africa
  2. Collaborative work with a broad array of institutional content partners (archives, museums, libraries, NGOs) as well as with communities and individuals;
  3. Encouraging sustainable donation by implementing a long-term strategy for information, data and media from focus-related suitable organisations (content partners)
  4. Community development and encouraging active and sustained participation: providing support and activities to activate, galvanize, and increasing editors in Nigeria by involving content partners, network partners and working with existing editor groups

Timeline

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Wiki Loves Nigeria Writing Contest

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As a launching event and to celebrate the 15 years of Wikipedia, a writing contest is organised starting 28th of January 2016, to end 29th of January 2016. The goal is to write (at least 5) articles related to Nigeria. See Wiki Loves Nigeria Writing Contest for more information.

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