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A Movement for Open Knowledge and Digital Literacy:

Author: Rugamba Robert

In an era where digital literacy is a key driver of progress, ensuring young people have the skills to navigate, create, and share knowledge is more important than ever. The Wikimedia Rwanda Wiki-Club initiative is designed to do just that—empower students and youth across Rwanda with the tools and confidence to become active contributors to free and open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and other Wikimedia projects.

At its core, this initiative fosters a culture of knowledge sharing, research, and collaboration by establishing student-led Wiki-Clubs in schools and communities. These clubs serve as hubs for learning vital skills such as critical thinking, research, writing, and digital content creation, while also encouraging students to document and share Rwanda’s rich heritage and culture in underrepresented languages, including Kinyarwanda.

Why This Initiative Matters

Access to information is a fundamental right, but not all voices are equally represented in the global knowledge ecosystem.

The Wiki-Club initiative aims to bridge this gap by ensuring that young Rwandans not only consume knowledge but also contribute to it.

Here’s why this initiative is transformative:

• Closing the digital divide: Many young people in Rwanda have limited exposure to digital content creation. Wiki-Clubs equip them with the necessary digital skills to engage meaningfully online.
• Amplifying local narratives: By encouraging students to document Rwanda’s culture, history, and contemporary issues, the initiative ensures that Rwandan voices are represented on global platforms.
• Enhancing education and literacy: Through participation in Wiki-Clubs, students develop research skills, improve writing abilities, and cultivate analytical thinking, which in turn enhances their overall academic performance.
• Promoting inclusivity in knowledge production: The initiative fosters an open and collaborative environment, where every student, regardless of background, can participate and contribute.

How Wiki-Clubs Work

Educate youth educate the nation.

The Wikimedia Rwanda Wiki-Club initiative operates through structured activities that provide hands-on learning experiences. Each club is led by students, guided by trained facilitators, and engages in activities such as:

• Editing Wikipedia: Students learn how to write, fact-check, and improve articles, contributing to a more accurate and diverse knowledge base.
• Uploading media to Wikimedia Commons: Encouraging participants to capture and share images and media related to Rwandan culture, landmarks, and significant events.
• Workshops and training sessions: Covering topics like copyright awareness, information literacy, and responsible digital citizenship.
• Community engagement: Collaborating with local historians, educators, and cultural institutions to ensure the accuracy and depth of contributions.

The Impact and Vision for the Future

The Wiki-Club initiative is more than just a project—it’s a movement to inspire young Rwandans to see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of knowledge. By fostering a culture of information literacy and open collaboration, the initiative helps equip youth with crucial skills in the modern digital economy.

As the program expands, Wikimedia Rwanda aims to reach more schools and communities, ensuring that more young people can actively participate in shaping global knowledge. By doing so, we not only create a more informed and engaged generation but also contribute to a world where knowledge is truly free, open, and representative of all voices.

Wikipedia is one of the top websites in the world relied on by students, scholars, journalists, and citizens. However, it is still battling gender disparity.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the encyclopedia’s top editors are male and most of its content is about men.

The need to close the gap is what sparked Wikigap, an initiative that aims at surfacing the achievements of women in the world’s largest encyclopedia.

It gathers people around the world to increase the representation of articles by, and about women on Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda, a non-governmental organisation which, among other activities, sensitises and trains different communities in Rwanda about Wikipedia with much emphasis on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, has embraced Wikigap and it seeks to feature several notable Rwandan women on Wikipedia through the initiative.

This, according to Derrick Orta Ndahiro, founder and president of the organisation, will help close the gender internet gap in Rwanda.

On April 30, the organisation launched the Wikigap challenge for the second time, training new and existing Wikipedia editors. Their first edition which happened in 2021 and lasted for two weeks, and left 89 articles about different women in politics (including members of parliament and ministers whose biographies couldn’t be found on Wikipedia), published.

This year, according to Ndahiro, the challenge targets over 100 articles written about notable Rwandan women in different fields such as sports, journalism, creative industry as well as education.

“Anyone can edit content on Wikipedia as long as they follow the guidelines,” he said. “Since we write articles in French, English and Kinyarwanda, it requires the editors to know well how to write in any of the languages as well as how to edit.”

Valentine Uwimpuhwe, a student at the University of Rwanda has so far curated over 50 articles about women, human rights and environment.

She is aware that Kinyarwanda Wikipedia still has a few articles that talk about women, and that editors who contribute are also few hence, she urged fellow youth to play their part in bridging the gap.

“When you write, you grow a writing culture and know how to do research instead of copying everything you find on the internet. Wikipedia is a good platform that teaches you how to curate content and how to add references while avoiding plagiarism,” she said.

“Youth should play their part by adding content to Wikipedia. They can write biographies of notable Rwandan women to also help their country.”

Publishing more content about Rwanda helps in preserving history

According to Ndahiro, adding more content on Wikipedia about Rwanda helps in preserving the country’s history.

“Most of the time, our history is transferred to next generations orally and the problem with that is unearthed when those people die or disappear then it becomes hard for someone to get accurate information. What we do is to collect that history, curate content out of it and publish it on Wikipedia. If it’s written, it can’t get lost even when the sources die,” he said.

Ndahiro also called for awareness for people to notice how Wikipedia works.

“Many read content on Wikipedia and sometimes complain about false or incomplete information they find there, not knowing that they can contribute to correcting that by editing the pages. If you see false information, you can research and add the accurate one,” he said.

He also highlighted that much content on Wikipedia was written by foreigners who have limited information about Rwanda, adding that Kinyarwanda content is still limited since most Wikipedia editors write in English or French, which to him is still a challenge.

Emmanuel Ndikumana, a member of Wikimedia Users Group Rwanda has been editing and curating content on Wikipedia for over two years.

“I have curated over 700 articles about education, women empowerment, gender equality, entrepreneurship, as well as biographies of Rwandan women that include Violette Uwamutara, CEO of Dot Rwanda and Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju, Minister of Sports, among others,” he said.

He noted that the work helped him to improve his knowledge about real life as well as his digital and technological skills.

He plans to preserve Rwandan history by adding more content on Wikipedia, compelling other people to do the same by helping them understand how important it is.

By Patrick Nzabonimpa/NewTimes

Popular free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia is calling on Rwandans and citizens from the region to be more involved in curating content about the country, culture and other aspects to reduce underrepresentation.

Wikipedia which last week marked its 20th anniversary is inviting Rwandans to be more involved in curating content to address the underrepresentation of content on Rwanda as well as tell little known stories about the country.

Wikipedia currently has more than 55 million articles that can be accessed in over 300 languages, for free, and without advertisements, all created by volunteers. The platform is increasingly relied on as a source of information by students, researchers and others.

In an interview with The New Times Katherine Maher, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation which operates Wikipedia said that going forward, it’s important for Rwandans and other countries in the region to be involved in curating content about them on the platform.

This she said will undo underrepresentation where a significant portion of the content on Rwanda is not by Rwandans or people in the country and could often miss crucial elements or facts.

“It is important for Rwandans to tell their own story, in their own context and narrative. Often, a majority of content is by people in North America and Europe and is told in their perspective and could miss the viewpoint of Rwandans,” she said.

With Wikipedia increasingly relied upon as a go to encyclopedia on most topics by millions across the world, the platform says involvement in content curating will change a dominant narrative and share facts on Rwanda which are previously unknown.

Maher said that at a time when misinformation and false information is increasingly becoming common, it’s important for previously little represented parties to develop and edit content.

On the platform, members of the public can put up and edit content on condition it quotes reliable sources.

Derrick Ndahiro, the Team Leader and Founder of the Wikimedia User Group Rwanda which is involved in developing and editing content on the platform said that their involvement was out of realization that a majority of content on Rwanda was not by people in the country and hence often lacked context or now updated.

“Wikipedia is often considered a valid source of information across the world and people use it as a reference for their articles, books and other content. Often you find that an article is written by one who has never been to Rwanda or adequate understanding of the country and information put out may not bring out the real perspective or context,” he said.

Ndahiro said that through the platform, Rwandans can tell stories of achievements such as Cathia Uwamahoro a Rwandan female cricket player broke a Guinness world record for the longest cricket net session by a woman in 2017.

Ndahiro and his team are running sessions to teach the general public on editing and curating content on Wikipedia to increase involvement.

The platform is built out of belief in free knowledge, open collaboration, and trust on the internet.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic broke, Wikipedia has had a significant increase in daily traffic with a growing community of medical professionals contributing knowledge about Covid-19 to the platform and also collaboration with the World Health Organization.

By Collins Mwai/Newtimes