VikiProject:WikiChallenge African Schools

WELCOME TO THE WIKICHALLENGE AFRICAN SCHOOLS

WikiChallenge African Schools is an annual writing competition for children 9-13 years old in African countries. The French version of it (WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique) has run annual editions since 2017. In 2023, a pilote version of an English edition will be launched in Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone[edit source]

Facilitators

User:ODC-SIERRA-LEONE (Finnah Stevens) and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ODC-SIERRA-LEONE
User:Anthere (global project organizer)

Participating schools

Région	School name
Fort street	St. Edwards Primary
Allen Town	Dele Preparatory
Hill Station	Ilmo Zikre Islamic Primary
Towerhill	Bethel Temple Nursery & Preparatory
Gloucester Village	Church of Christ Primary
Guma gate Regent	Saio International Academy
Regent rd Lumley	Emmett Primary
Syke st Brookfields	St. Anthony Girls
Sumaila Town	Providence International Elementary
Adonkia	Kelmond Prepearatory School

Articles written in 2024[edit source]

Sierra Leone national Paddle Masquerade - By Saio International Academy
Farming in Gloucester village Sierra Leone - By Church of Christ Primary School
Fishing in Sierra Leone - By Providence International School
The krio's Print Dress in Sierra Leone By-Dele Preparatory School
Harvesting and processing of palm oil - bY Saint Anthony Girls High School
How to prepare Peh-mahui a local dish in Sierra Leone - By Emmet Primary School
krio marriage in Sierra Leone - By Kelmond Preparatory School
The Raffia palm in Sierra Leone - By Bethel Temple Nursery & Preparatory School

Calendar and news[edit source]

15 November 2023 : launch of the contest
15 February 2024 : close of the contest

Where to find us

Follow and leave messages on our Facebook page.
See also our playlist on Youtube !

Context and goals[edit source]

Presentation of the WikiChallenge in English in October 2022

The initiative is a training and writing program designed for schools. It is targeted at the education community towards using wikimedia and mediawiki tools to acquire and share knowledge to develop skills of the youth and of their teachers. The program help the kids to gain new skills, such as digital skills (using technology), collaborative writing, knowledge sharing, or information searching. Additionally, they experience critical thinking and peer review. It is also the opportunity to get an initial understanding of intellectual property rights and open source. It is hoped that this project will participate in helping the students grow up as informed and active e-citizens. The project team provide training the trainers activities, hence bringing new skills to the teachers as well. Finally, the project result in the production and publication of information on the Internet, under a free license, for use by the greater public. This participate to the visibility of Africa on the Internet, and bring a feeling of pride to under-represented and poorly-served communities.

Practically speaking, the pupils from participating schools are invited to write encyclopedic articles on a subject relating to their immediate environment. The competition is open to schools that are part of the network of Orange Digital Schools Network. It also propose to use WikiFundi, a platform of Wiki editing in offline mode.

Indeed, one of the peculiarities of most of these schools is that they are not not connected to the Internet! Their participation therefore implies the presence of an on-site digital facilitator (and possibly the help of Wikimedians and Vikidians) responsible for training, facilitating and ultimately collecting the content produced by the students. There is unfortunately very little opportunity to have the children edit directly Vikidia.

In short, the WikiChallenge is meant to :

support the teachers as they lead students to acquire new essential skills, in particular in digital litteracy,
provide capacity building, resulting in increased and practical use of digital equipment, tools, and resources made available to the schools,
build a true digital based culture collaboration amongst the youngest, and offer them the joy of creating together valuable texts , published online and accessible worldwide,
increase the presence of african culture and daily life on the web.

It is meant to support in particular the Sustainable Development Goal 4 ("Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all") The WikiChallenge Ecoles d'Afrique was conceptualized to support the WikiAfrica movement and participation to wiki projects across Africa.
It was initially set up by Florence Devouard of Wiki in Africa and Luc Héripret of Orange Foundation.

Impact: facts from french editions 2017 – 2023[edit source]

5 years of WikiChallenge, presented at Wikimania Singapore 2023

General impact figures:

11 participating countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroun, RDC, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Sénégal, Maroc and Tunisie)
457 participating schools
467 texts submitted by the children
2608 photos, drawings and videos
62 Wining schools

fr Winning articles and participants in 2022-2023 : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_%C3%89coles_d%27Afrique_2023/Articles
fr Winning articles and participants in 2021-2022 : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Écoles_d%27Afrique_2022/Articles
fr Winning articles and participants in 2019-2021 : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Écoles_d%27Afrique_2021/Articles
fr Winning articles and participants in 2018-2019 : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Écoles_d%27Afrique_2019/Ecoles
fr Winning articles and participants in 2018-2019 : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_Ecoles_d%27Afrique/Ecoles_2018
Wikimedia Commons : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiChallenge_African_Schools

Rules and winning criterias[edit source]

Read the full 2022-2023 document proposed to the jury for the selection : [File:Rapport de jury WC 2022 2023.pdf here]

The competition will start in November 2023. The submission of articles will close mid-February 2024.

The competition is only open to primary schools that are part of the Orange Foundation's digital schools network. The schools will be registered via the local Orange Foundation referent (registration is done per establishment, not per student or per class)

Schools can submit 1-3 articles. When multiple articles are submitted by a school, they will be clearly separated articles on Vikidia.

The theme is free... but it is strongly suggested to create an article about the immediate environment of the school: the city, village, a point of geographical interest, a cultural site located nearby, or a local curiosity. The writing style should be suitable for an encyclopedic publication. In terms of article structure, it is recommended to stick to a maximum of 3-5 sections, with an expected length of between 500 and 1000 words (these figures are not strict values and should only be considered as a recommendation).

Article contributions will only be accepted if:

Articles are published on http://en.vikidia.org
All texts, photos, illustrations or video or audio files must be distributed under the CC-BY-SA license. This means anyone can use and reuse them, as long as they acknowledge the source and keep it under the same license.

An international jury will select the best contributions proposed by the institutions. The selection will be based on the following criteria:

Technical quality (structure, encyclopedic style, neutrality of point of view, and layout)
Writing quality (spelling, syntax, style, typography)
Article length (number of lines, words, or characters)
Originality, value, and usefulness of the shared information (educational, historical, economic, and/or cultural)
Quality of article citations, links, and illustrations (photos, maps).

Special attention will be given to illustrated articles. Relevant media (photos, illustrations, diagrams, audio or video files) and/or maps illustrating the text will be plus, provided they are free of rights and imported in advance to Wikimedia Commons. Maps can be created by the participant or may come from OpenStreetMap.

Prizes will be awarded to the winning establishments (in French speaking and English speaking countries).

one winning school per country (2500 euros). This value can be transformed into school material (schoolbags, notebooks, dictionaries, computer etc.)
three big winners (5000 euros per grand prize)

The prizes will be awarded to the winning establishments during ceremonies, organized during 2024.

A short text to introduce the schools as well as some photos taken on site during the editorial work will be appreciated (typically, visits outside of the schools to document the topic).

Teams and partners[edit source]

Current partners are

Wiki in Africa (porteur)
Orange Foundation (financial and operational support, communication)
Wikimedia Tunisie
Wikimedia MA User Group
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group
Vikidia Association
Wikimedians for offline wikis usergroup

Organizing team

Anthere (Florence Devouard), (Wiki in Africa) (project lead and coordinator)
Daniel (Commons), (Fondation Orange)

Digital and educational support

French facilitators : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Projet:WikiChallenge_%C3%89coles_d%27Afrique/Equipe_2024

Vikidians and interested people

Magasin3 (t • c • b) (pour apporter mon aide si besoin)
Macassar (t • c • b) pour les catégories et liens
Rome2 (t • c • b) : pour la relecture, la mise en forme et répondre aux questions si les participants en ont.
Matteo1234321 (t • c • b) : Pour les questions et corrections d'orthographe et typographie.
Anouk 222 (t • c • b) : Pour les questions, corrections orthographiques et typographiques ainsi que pour les ajouts de portails et catégories.
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