Kumusha Takes Wiki/en

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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 uses community journalism to gather community-relevant information on heritage, culture, notable persons, geographical features, among other things. It gives 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 adds 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

What Kumusha means

Kumusha is the term used by the Shona people of Zimbabwe to denote the place where you come from. Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and Southern Zambia, and the principal language of Zimbabwe and is also spoken in Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique. The term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore.

The name of the project, “Kumusha Takes Wiki” rather than “Wiki Takes Kumusha” is not an error: we want to outline the need for appropriation of the project by African people. This project should not be about Wikipedians hunting for African content, but rather be facilitating freely-licensed content created by African people and raising awareness about the benefits of sharing their efforts with others on Wikimedia projects.

For this project we think "Kumusha" is the most fitting term as it appeals to the project’s participants’ need to claim their own space, take pride in their own heritage and community, and appeals to their sense of belonging. This relates both to their own territory (their place) and to Wikipedia (where Wikipedia becomes an extension or reflection of "their" place).

Context

Communities in countries across Africa possess a wealth of oral, local and indigenous knowledge. This knowledge is not currently recorded for preservation purposes or disseminated amongst their citizens and, for a number of historic reasons and conditions, does not contribute to the global conversations online.

Africa is a large and varied place with myriad cultures and influences, and as such, local knowledge can include, but are not limited to, oral histories, the histories of neighbourhoods and local areas, the histories, legends and cultural values held by praise poets and griots, as well as various forms of cultural expression such as material culture and music.

Current digital media technologies offer the potential to democraticize knowledge, enabling historically marginalised groups the opportunity to publish their own perspectives, and see themselves, history and contemporary experiences reflected on a global knowledge bank.

Recording and sharing this knowledge online has a multitude of benefits for a number of target audiences. The knowledge itself has the potential to create cultural capital for, and pride in, the residents of each community. By using universal global platforms at local levels, the project will lead to a broader understanding of the many different cultural groups inhabiting a country or territory, and a greater understanding of and relevance for their own and others’ histories.

Across Africa there is a dearth of digital media production skills and oral history research. Furthermore it would take a lifetime for one or a team of people to access even part of the information that we are hoping the project will provide.

Credits

Kumusha Takes Wiki was conceived by Florence Devouard and Isla HaddowFlood (WikiAfrica, at the Africa Centre) in 2013. It is under Creative Commons attribution share-alike licence.
The project is supported in 2013-2014 by Orange Foundation in Cote d'Ivoire and Uganda within the frame of Activate Africa (Orange Foundation).

Methodology

Kumusha Takes Wiki activates citizens of a community around a specific geographic area. It requires that the people who hold the knowledge of an area (village, town, peri-urban settlement, inner-city suburb, shanty town, etc) contribute the knowledge of and about that community. The knowledge collected and disseminated will be under open licenses compatible with Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. The project makes the project engaging by engendering pride in self and place; community pride is enforced by the recognition that all knowledge - even ‘indigenous’ knowledge - should be given equal weight on easy-to-access digital platforms. The project is designed to maximise the potential for activating the online phenomenon of crowdsourcing – where many digital hands make this project a success.

Websites and uploads

Games, competitions, OpenStreetMap mapping parties, photography challenges, will be held at a local level to drive direct contributions of individuals in communities across Africa. Kumusha takes Wiki involves national calls for communities, specifically schools, libraries, community centers, in two languages - English and French. The knowledge will be contributed either directly to Wikimedia projects (when relevant), or to the Open Street Map platform (for geographical data) or to another digital platform. The platform will be tied to the greater project via a main website, the Kumusha site [working title], which will be correctly licensed and validated so that it allows for direct links to and from Wikipedia. This site will feature training content, tips and recommendations to maximize appropriation and engagement with the project.

Local team and training

“Kumusha takes Wiki” involves a Wikipedian in Community in each country where the project is active. A Wikipedian in Residence is usually a person who facilitates the relationships between Wikipédia and an institution. This model has not worked to-date in Africa. As such the Wikipedian in Residence must take on a much more active community development role, hence our new name proposal: Wikipedian in Community :)

Within Kumusha takes Wiki project, the Wikipedian in Community has the task of facilitating the maximum engagement and community activation and encouraging, supporting participants, holding events for the communities that are activated by the main project, identifying key community players, engaging their participation in the project and ensuring that their communities (around schools, community organisations and cultural centres) are involved in and contributing to the project. The Wikipedian in Community will also ensure that institutions and organisations that hold each community’s culture, heritage and memory (museums, libraries, archives, arts and craft organisations) will be activated and donate their time and information to the project.

The Wikipedian in Community will loosely manage 3 Community Activators. Those Community Activators will be strategically situated people (located in other provinces than the Wikipedian in Community ), who would conduct on-going work and contribution, assisting, driving, soliciting prizes, and help with feedback and evaluation.

Local contributors will be given digital and community building skills enabling active contribution. Local institutions will be asked to donate the community knowledge they hold within their institutions and thus increase their local and global visibility and viability. These online activations will combine the cultural, heritage and contemporary knowledge that resides within individuals and community institutions. It will connect with and expand its reach through both the Africa Centre and Wikipedia’s networks.

The Wikipedians in Community and the local teams of Kumusha Takes Wiki are supported and trained by an international team.

Content

The communities are encouraged to collect specific content that includes, but is not limited to:
1. basic administrative data (number of inhabitants, mayor name etc.)
2. geographical mapping data
3. images of the local area, including buildings, nearby mountains, important people etc.
4. heritage, historical and cultural specificities, with additional video or audio interviews as needed
5. profiling any notable people, elders, praise poets or griots, and
6. any other other stories that are pertinent to the identity of the community or considered important to the larger community.
Creating and completing Wikipedia pages of all communities (villages, urban districts) within the chosen countries, and in the main languages spoken in that area (international and local). Illustrate content with media to be added into Wikimedia Commons.
Adding geographic data to feed into the Open Street Map project and create free maps of the territory. The Kumusha project takes the opportunity of doing local work to collect knowledge from people, to also collect geographical data to feed the Open Street Map project.
Creating one (or several) Wikibooks with some of the output (for example, collection of pages related to a certain locale, for example). To be advertised to schools and like-wise knowledge centers.
Providing materials and tools that ensures that the project is scalable and easily adaptable for other communities across the globe, but especially in Africa. It will be meant to documents the process and gives the communities added vehicles for discussion and exposure.

Events

An annual photographic contest will be organised where people nationally are encouraged to contribute photographs of their surroundings to Wikipedia

Wiki Loves Africa

Local events will be organised to support the creation of local content and they are managed by the Wikipedians in Residence.

Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Takes Your City

Outcomes expected

Collecting local data for Open Data and Wikidata
Publishing all relevant materials on Wikipedia, contributing to adding vital information about Africa’s communities onto Wikipedia.
Creating an online, easily accessible website that will host and display the community’s contributions, including that which is not suitable for Wikipedia. This website develops a renewed sense of local connectedness and increase community confidence about their rightful position in the global conversation.
Acquisition of various skills for the participants: information literacy, ICT literacy, netizenship, critical thinking and communication skills, and
An increase in international profile and activity of those individuals and communities
Encouraging cultural tourism and economic activity via the dissemination of up-to-date relevant community knowledge, cultural insights and understanding
Drawing communities together. The project facilitates community building around local heritage and knowledge, with positive benefits for local and international partnership development, regional networking, and the potential to truly reflect local reality thus enhancing the ability to promote local tourism to global and regional audiences.

Possible extensions of the outcomes:

Create a mini-documentary in each country around the process
Create a mobile-based game that draws out information about the community in a fun and engaging way aimed at high school children
Revisit, update and translate a freely-licenced book on Wikipedia to be used in the field
Create a printed booklet of guidelines on "how to write about your community" (further dissemination of the project)
Provide training for more participation

People involved

Isla HaddowFlood (co-project leader)
Florence Devouard (co-project leader)
Moses März (researcher)
user:Notconfusing : Maximilian Klein (researcher)
Iolanda Pensa
Cyriac Gbogou: WiC Côte d'Ivoire
Erina Mukuta: WiC Ouganda
African Hope Samuel Guebo: WiC Côte d'Ivoire

Information from WikiProject Kumusha Takes Wiki on English Wikipedia

Participants

en:wp:Category:WikiProject Kumusha members

Templates and categories

Tools

Main tool page: toolserver.org

Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.

Where to find us ?

On Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/KumushaTakesWiki
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/KumushaWiki
On the English Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Kumusha_Takes_Wiki
On the French Wikipedia: Projet:Kumusha_Takes_Wiki
On the Open Street Map Wiki : User:KumushaTakesWiki

News

The Kumusha Takes Wiki project has been working on many different things within the two focus countries. Please find the media coverage of activities here. There is also coverage of activities on the WikiUganda blog.

October 2014

The Kumusha team is happy to welcome Samuel as Wikipedian in Community in Ivory Coast !

Samuel Guebo is born in 1991 in Logoualé, a city located west of Ivory Coast. During his youth, he will discover Ivory Coast from North to South whilst following his parents.

He becomes familiar with Internet in 2005, learn computer programming and discover and embraces Open Source. He joins the Wikipedia adventure a few years later, in 2008 as African Hope. Since then, Samuel invested himself in various projects with high social impact in the education and health sector. One of those and probably the most impactful one is Avenue225, a training project which allowed more than 60 young people to be trained to web journalism and help them fully integrate the professional world.
Graphic designer and software developer, Samuel co-funded in 2011 a start-up specialised in media and web marketing. He has a degree in Public Law from the Université Catholique de l'Afrique de L'ouest (UCAO-Abidjan).

More about Samuel on his personal website: http://samuelguebo.co.

October 2014

Launch of Wiki Loves Africa photo contest.

Wikipedians in Community arrive in Cape Town

Kumusha Takes Wiki's Wikipedians in Residence have arrived in Cape Town to attend the WikiAfrica Open Movement Course where they will learn about all things Wikipedia, Open Access, Creative Commons and how to activate communities back in their countries. With them are delegates from Ghana, Ethiopia and Malawi.

9th of February 2014

The Kumusha team is happy to welcome its second WiC in Wikipedia history; Erina Mukuta Muhame.

Born in 1988 in Jinja, Uganda, Erina Mukuta spent her first childhood years in a small town called kilembe and later moved to Kampala. Erina is married to Brian Muhame. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Surveying from Makerere University. She has since worked with a number of organisations including Ministry of Land Use and Housing, seychelles and Uganda Wildlife Authority as a Land Surveyor and a GIS Analyst respectively. She will join the Wikimedia community under the user name Erinamukuta.

25 January 2014

The Kumusha team is happy to welcome the first WiC in Wikipedia history; Cyriac Gohi Gbogou.

Born on the 02nd of September 1980 in Kpada (Soubré) village located in the south west of the country and the capital of Ivorian cocoa, Cyriac Gbogou runs for years a part of the African continent with his parents as a student-resident respectively in Senegal, Togo, Mali and Congo-Brazzaville. He finally returned to Côte d'Ivoire in 2001 and decided to pursue graduate studies in computer science. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science.
He gets married in August 2009. In 2010, he discovers the world of Web 2.0. That same year, Cyriac chooses to not follow his employer IBM which wanted to relocate its activities in Morocco because of the very sensitive period in Cote d’Ivoire. Loving risk and adventure, he stays to serve his country as volunteer in Akendewa (now former Secretary General). His passion for social networks has grown during the post-electoral crisis of 2011 working with other actors in the Ivorian web projects such as Civsocial #, # Wonzomai who have saved lives with the Internet use [1]. Cyriac is the Chairman of the Association des Blogueurs de Côte d'Ivoire (A.B.C.I)
Since September 2012, Cyriac Gbogou is an independent consultant, a job he does with passion, as an advisor, speaker and trainer. He was named by his peers "Village Chief" of the Ivorian web community.

You can also follow him on his blog where he speaks freely on topics: www.cyriacgbogou.ci

10 janvier 2014:
Max publishes the results of his analysis. The report may be found on his blog: KUMUSHA TAKES WIKI: ACTIONABLE METRICS FOR UGANDA AND CÔTE D’IVOIRE.

Our principal question in this investigation is what makes a good article about a country in the hope of improving articles related to Côte d'Ivoire and Uganda

We will explore several aspects of the quality of the articles and their relationship to different language Wikipedias. First we look at articles literally describing the countries of Ivory Coast and Uganda and compare them to other country articles in English, French and Swahili Wikipedias. This is done to both sanity check our method, and also to determine which subsequent articles to explore. Here we utilise the research Tell Me More: An Actionable Quality Model for Wikipedia by Warncke-Wang, Cosley, and Reidl which is meant to measure points of quality that can be more easily addressed. Secondly, we move to sets of articles about a subject of that nation. These articles are chosen to be most important by how often they occur in a specific Wikipedia. Next we attempt to apply the lessons from Predicting Quality Flaws in User-generated Content: The Case of Wikipedia by Anderka, Stein, Lipka which are about finding user-specified quality flaws.

This report is an IPython Notebook so it contains all the code necessary to reproduce these results. Much of the the code is at the end, to maintain non-technical readability.

25th of November 2013
The Kumusha Takes Wiki is currently calling for applications from enthusiastic candidates in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda to drive the project among selected communities in their home countries. This contract is a full time position for one year. Residence in the country of operation (either Côte d’Ivoire or Uganda) is mandatory, as is travel for a maximum of 2 months to attend a course in Cape Town. Full announcement available here. Interested persons should apply by 11th December 2013.

07th of November 2013
The WikiAfrica project at the Africa Centre is seeking a researcher who has exceptional investigative, data gathering, Wikipedia/Wikimedia knowledge and writing skills for an exciting 4-week intensive short-term project for WikiAfrica’s Kumusha Takes Wiki project.
Proficiency in French is a bonus, as is experience of Uganda and/or Cote d’Ivoire. The researcher will need to start immediately.
Applicants should submit a CV showing relevant research experience to wikiafrica @ africacentre.net.
Application deadline: 15th November.

The person hired for this work is user:Notconfusing (Maximilian Klein). Max has a blog http://notconfusing.com.