Over 500 articles added onto Kinyarwanda Wikipedia

Articles featuring Rwanda’s education, health, religion, sports and entertainment topics have been added on Wikipedia through WikiVibrance.

The over 557 articles are a WikiVibrance initiative that engages young Wikimedians and the entire Wikimedia community in events that contribute to content related to the specific selected thematic areas across Wikimedia projects, thus creating synergies, sharing knowledge and building capacities.

Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit that hosts Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopaedia, working to create a world where every human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Wikimedians are users of any Wikimedia project and members of the Wikimedia movement.

Rwandan Wikimedians are part of Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda. In line with WikiVibrance 2022, the non-profit organisation organised a challenge from September 14 to 30 with an aim of enhancing reading and writing culture among youth as they contribute new content on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia in the fields of education, health, religion, sports and entertainment.

According to the organisation’s Co-founder, Clémentine Nyirahabihirwe, WikiVibrance challenge saw 557 new articles being created while they had a target of creating 60.

She noted that it was ‘incredible’ seeing 27 young Wikimedians participating, creating important articles associated with the five selected topics.

She added: “With this challenge, we contributed to the Rwandan community by enhancing the culture of reading and writing among youth. We also helped in increasing the country’s visibility by sharing true information regarding what is being done here. The articles about institutions and individuals we feature are not only read by Rwandans but also internationals. It is easier for them to get information shared by Rwandans about Rwanda without carrying extensive research.”

Deo Nkurunziza was one of the participants in the WikiVibrance challenge. He created 211 new articles on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia.

He said that his passion for reading, writing and researching as well as the topics that the challenge covered, especially religion, entertainment and sports, led him to participate given that he was well-informed about them.

Nkurunziza also noted that he featured different church leaders, pastors, choirs, and churches that operate in Rwanda as well as cycling and football teams and their players, among others.

“While creating these articles,” he continued, “I realised that we need to feature more different people operating in different fields in the country because they have good activities but are not known. We need to put them in the spotlight so that the world can know and value what they do.”

He urged other people, especially youth, to read and share information by writing, letting the world know the truth regarding what is happening in Rwanda.

Rosine Igirimpuhwe, another participant, wrote 44 articles, focusing on education and health-related topics.

She noted that among other topics, she created articles about different health-related projects, statistics of those with HIV/AIDS and prevention measures in place, Rwandan women and girls who faced unwanted pregnancy and how the country is handling the issue as well as the role youth can play in providing solutions.

“When we write these articles,” she continued, “We also learn how we can help and where we can start by highlighting districts that are most affected by a particular issue, where there are insufficient health facilities, etc.”

Among the articles she created, Igirimpuhwe also featured different schools, universities and highlighted where there is gender gap in education and what is being done regarding that.

She believes that the articles can help different people, including students doing research, to get information and understand different issues related to social well-being in Rwanda and what needs to be done.

She added: “Being a Kinyarwanda Wikipedia editor helps one to learn because they write after reading what others have written. To write about something, you first have to understand it and get the latest information about it. It is also a good platform to network with different people from diverse backgrounds hence increasing the chance of getting more opportunities.”

By Patrick Nzabonimpa/NewTimes