It’s the end of the year and for us at Free Knowledge Africa it’s been an exciting one. We had a lot of things planned out for the year and we are glad that we accomplished them. If you missed it, then this blog post is for you. Here are the things we did at Free Knowledge Africa in 2022.
Explore Nigeria
In December 2021, we started the Explore Nigeria campaign. The campaign ran through till January 2022. The campaign was created to promote travel information and tourism in Nigeria by improving existing and creating new articles about cities, villages, geographical areas/regions, churches, monasteries, buildings, and schools on the English Wikipedia and English Wikivoyage. At the end of the campaign, 101 participants registered and were trained, 428 articles were created and improved, 605 photos were uploaded to Wikimedia commons, and 174 of them were used in Wikipedia and Wikivoyage articles. We also successfully trained travel and tourism professionals in Wikivoyage. The participants were able to bridge the knowledge gap on travel information in Nigeria.
Public Domain
In January we had the public domain day and till March we worked on creating awareness about the public domain. We had awesome speakers including Susanna Anas, Douglas McCarthy, Helen Chuma Okoro, Bolaji Alabi, and Hilman Fathoni come to speak to us on the public domain and the importance of the public domain. 28 people participated in the contest and we had about 20 attendees in the webinar. We had 1744 database items added to the public domain. The public domain videos shared on Facebook and Instagram had a total of 261,000 views. We also had members of our team educate us on the public domain on our YouTube channel. You can click this link to watch.
Afrosports Nigeria Contest
From May to June we had African games and sports writing contest. We had a lot of articles written on African games and sports with lots of prizes given to the participants ranging from $100 to $50. The first prize winner got $100, the second prize winner $80, the third prize $70, the diversity winner $50 and the gender equality filler got $50. With 53 well-trained participants, we were able to create and improve 1956 articles on African games and sports.
Open GLAM Advocacy in Plateau State
In the month of September, the free knowledge Africa team visited the beautifully serene state of Plateau for the GLAM Advocacy. The open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Advocacy was carried out across various Cultural Heritage Institutions within Plateau State. The team started from the National Museum Jos, but didn’t stop there we visited the Nigerian Tourism development corporation Plateau State and Plateau State ICT Development Agency. The team also watched the Ndengdeng cultural dance and visited the Gunnung village in Pilgani. You can read up on the visit here and watch the documentary here.
Explore Africa
Finally, to wrap up the year, we are currently running the Explore Africa Contest with over 200 participants across five African countries and have created over 100 pages promoting tourism and travel information in Africa on Wikivoyage. The prizes to be won range from $500-$100, including prizes for phrasebooks and itineraries.
The year was indeed eventful and fun packed with lots of contributions towards free knowledge in the public domain. We thank all our sponsors and facilitators for making this possible and we cannot wait to unleash the more amazing plans we have in the coming year.
Merry Christmas!
