Wikimedia Community User Group Tanzania/Annual Report 2024
Introduction:
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2023 has been another great year for Wikimedia CommunityUser GroupTanzania Tanzania that passed with mixed emotions. Among other things, the positive side is that Our user group has continued building robust collaboration within the East Africa region and beyond, active participation on building a shared future of the Wikimedia Movement through active participation and shared leadership towards materialization of East African Regional and Thematic Hub (EARTHub) and expansion of Swahili Wikipedia among other Wiki projects. On the other side, its a year that saddened us and the wider movement at large following losing one of the prominent Swahili admin and champion of free knowledge; Ingo Koll (User: Kipala), who passed away on the 10th of July 2023 at his house in his home country, Germany after a long battle with cancer. Hence below is a deep dive of what has generally been achieved in 2023-2024.
Active participation on EARTHub
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Wikimedia Tanzania user group is among the 11 Wikimedia communities forming The East African Regional and Thematic Hub (EARTHub). We are glad that for the year 2023 we have taken active roles in collaborative spearheading of this initiative together with the rest of the member communities.
Some of the activities participated in include:
1.Creation of the Project plan that will span for the first 18 months of piloting. This plan is designed to address key areas around
2.Capacity Building & Leadership Development: Enhance the capacity of EA Wikimedians and communities through training, resources, and networking opportunities. Enhance the leadership development of females in our movement.
3.Content Localization: Increase the quantity and improve the quality of Swahili and other indigenous language content like Kinyarwanda, Luganda, etc. on Wikimedia projects, reflecting diverse cultures, languages, and perspectives.
4.Community Growth and Engagement: Foster a vibrant and inclusive community of Wikipedia contributors and supporters across the East African region.
Partnerships and Advocacy: Forge partnerships with organizations and institutions in our regions to advocate for free knowledge, open access, and digital literacy.
Sustainability: Develop a sustainable operational model for the regional hub to ensure long-term impact and effectiveness.
Engagement and Participation on Enabling Campaigns tools on Swahili Wikipedia
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Our user group is one of the affiliates among Swahili community and has been working actively with the Foundation Campaigns product team on engaging in discussions, testing the prototype tools and provision of community feedback in order to have community tailored products. Recently our Swahili community has voted in favor of enabling a CampaignsEvent extension on Swahili Wikipedia to allow the usage of Event Registration tool for Campaigns and non campaign events on Swahili Wikipedia.
Our community is looking forward to continuing to use the tool for the Campaign events that will be rolled out later this year. Our community is looking forward to use the tool on Facilitating easier event creation and management. Enhancing collaboration and engagement among community members. Improving event discoverability and participation. Benefit from the guidance from the Swahili ambassador to the Foundation Campaigns product team.
Participation at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore
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Our user group participated online and in person at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. Below are some of the presentations and activities we actively engaged and presented in collaboration with other user groups.
The effects of IP address range blocking on the Global South - 8FCWJD
editThe aims and objectives of this panel discussion was to hear first hand from panelists in the Global South how the issue of IP block has affected the region, how best to reach out to stewards to get faster responses from them and how best to review and improve the process of getting editors unblocked.
Networking Processes and Experiences based on the work in CEE & EARTH Hubs
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This session was an opportunity for the Wikimania audience to get to know the East African region context on hubs as the movement progresses to construct the Moment Charter. This will be an opportunity for the EARTH hub team to interact with the audience and share the insights learned from the concluded Research and Planning Phase, and we used the opportunity to discuss the possible future for the piloting/implementation of the hub itself.
Collaboration is the Key to Unlocking Innovation – A Cross-Affiliate Collaboration to Build an Innovation Format for the Movement
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This was a cross region collaboration that aimed at exploring innovation formats that will strengthen the innovative capacity of our Movement, and support the growth of innovative ideas that have potential impact on the future of our Movement. This collaboration included Wikimedia Wikimedia Community User Group Tanzania, Community User Group Kenya, Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda, Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimedia Deutschland, and Wikimedia Serbia. This was a great opportunity for Wikimania Participants to learn about the concepts and aspects of what innovation in the free movement means.
African Women on Wikipedia
editAfrican Women on Wikipedia is an annual campaign that seeks to address the gender gap between men and women existing on Wikipedia. The campaign focuses on African Women in local Wikipedia Languages projects and Larger Wiki projects. This event in particular will focus on writing about African Women on Swahili Wikipedia. Africa Women on Wikipedia Wikimedia Tanzania User group continues to find and embrace new pathways for ensuring there are purposeful means of bridging the gender gap on Wikipedia including on Swahili Wikipedia. African Women on Wikipedia is an annual campaign that seeks to address the gender gap between men and women existing on different African Wikipedias. The campaign focuses on African Women in local Wikipedia Languages projects and Larger Wiki projects. This event in particular will focus on writing about African Women on Swahili Wikipedia. This is one of the new projects by Wikimedia Tanzania User group that will foster gender related efforts and open to partner with other non African gender projects such as Wikigap project. The launch of this project has been done and here are some more details.
WLW SheSaid 2023 in Tanzania
editThe SheSaid is a Campaign run by Wikiloves Women aims to celebrate and recognize women by focusing on enhancing their representation and visibility on Wikiquote. Through this drive, the WLW initiative encourages the creation and improvement of Wikiquote entries related to these influential women, thus contributing to a more inclusive and diverse representation of their voices and perspectives. Wikimedia Tanzania participated in this campaign by creating and editing existing Wikiquote articles in Swahili language in order to celebrate women and enhance the visibility of women.
Miscellaneous- Goodbye Ingo Koll
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Wikimedia Tanzania and Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili User Groups and the movement at large was saddened to lose Ingo Koll (User: Kipala), who passed away on the 10th of July 2023 at his house in his home country, Germany after a long battle with cancer. Ingo Koll was a German who happened to live in Tanzania and Kenya for many years. Being a pastor and a lecturer, he learned Swahili and became one of the super-active Swahili Wikipedia contributors and administrators. He was a reliable cornerstone in the development of Swahili Wikipedia. He was a knowledgeable person who collaborated closely with the Astronomy and Space Science Association of Tanzania (ASSAT) to contribute much on Astronomy topics in Swahili language on Swahili Wikipedia. He was one of the great mentors who helped the formation of Wikimedia Tanzania and also was a co-founder of Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili (Build Swahili Wikipedia). Wikimedia Tanzania and Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili will always remember you and we will cherish the spirit of collaboration that you embraced that much.
Movement Charter discussions
editWikimedia Tanzania user group in collaboration with Wikimedia Rwanda User grouo and Wikimedia ZA actively worked to organize two Movement Charter community conversations for East & Southern Africa region events. The events brought toegtehr Wikimedians and discussed on the cotext of the proposed Movement charter. Movement Charter community conversations for East & Southern Africa region was intented to bring together Wiki communities from East and Southern Africa region to discuss what MC means to them and use the opportunity to provide any feedback to the MCDC team. The target language communities for this discussion is basically Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda and Zulu. We warmly welcome Wikimedians from this region to join us as we explore how envision MC in relation to our cultural heritage from this region. More info can be accessed on Movement Charter community conversations for East %26 Southern Africa region and on Movement Charter community conversations for EA & Southern Africa region
Conclusion
editWikimedia Tanzania User Group extends its thanks and appreciate the cooperation, collaboration and engagements from all organizations, individuals, affiliates and Chapters for the productive collaboration.