 Hello, everyone. Being an interesting session, and I believe you all have seen the rundown of how far we've come with Wiki Africa Hour. And as such, you've gotten a glimpse of what the initiative looks like. With me this hour are some Wikimedians, individuals who have followed our journey from get go in the Wiki Africa Hour broadcasts to date. I will be bringing them on one by one to comment on the impact and contribution of the Wiki Africa Hour broadcast towards the Africa Wikimedia community. First, I will be bringing Wilson Uloha to air his comments. Wilson is a Wikimedian since 2018, if I remember correctly. And he contributes both in the Igbo Wikimedia user group and on the English Wikimedia too. And he has at least seen at least one of our Wiki Africa Hour episodes. And as such, he can make comments on what and what contributions the initiative has made to the movement so far. Wilson, welcome, Wilson. Please go ahead and comment on the impact you have seen or noticed that the Wiki Africa Hour has made towards the Africa Wikimedia community. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear me? Hi, everyone. Hello? Yes, go ahead. We can hear you. Seriously? OK, I suspected you were going to ask me first. And of course, I'm a bit surprised. But then, OK, yeah, I can make a comment. The Wiki Africa Hour. Personally, for me, I'd comment because I watched the one with Catherine. And it felt really good knowing that we had that on our own platform. And I liked the topics, the direct questions you were able to pose. I'd also like to know if you would please guide me if you'd like specific areas you'd like me to talk about. So I'm just trying to give a general feel. Oh, no, just a freestyle for you. Please go ahead. No specifics, just general feeling. I particularly liked the session with Catherine because prior, I'm not sure I have encountered her in a conversation before, even though I missed the live session. But it was good knowing that someone who had similar problems like I was having or who comes from a community that I could identify with was in charge of that interview. And the kind of questions I would have asked if she was sitting beside me at a tea shop. So that's what I particularly liked about it. I also like to hear. We threw around the word diversity. We threw around the word inclusiveness a lot of times. But sometimes when we have the opportunities, actually tackle these things, we don't go in there because most times the people who do the tackling or who do the discussion are not exactly facing the challenges these communities in the inclusive state or the exclusive states or their diverse states may be experiencing. So for me, what stood out was the fact that somebody from outside, somebody who had arch. I think Wilson's network may have timed out for a bit. OK, can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. OK, did you get all I said? Yes, except when you were trying to finish, per se. OK, I was saying that I was excited. I am still excited that a platform like that had someone who had the kind of problems I had or I was having talking to someone on the level of K3 and eliciting the kind of responses I wanted to hear. And it just felt very relatable, very personal for me. And of course, there was also the follow-up you told me about posting events from this side on the Wikiafrican news. Was it news right now? Newsroom. Newsroom, yeah. And while not being innovative, they are welcome ideas, especially for communities in this part. They are ideas we should encourage because as much as we want to bring people from different platforms, we also have to be aware that most times the current existing platforms may not be suitable or may not be as welcoming to these new folks, and they might need something that they can connect with. And for me, that was what the Wikiafrica was. Thank you. Thank you, Wilson, for those kind comments. Let's move over to Joffrey Katturega. Joffrey is from the Ugandan Wikimedia community. Joffrey currently serves as communication support for the Wikia INDABOT 2021 co-organizing team. And he has been on our episode, I think, the first one. I think, prior to that, he has also seen something that we have done on the Wikia Africa our episodes. Joffrey, please feel free to make your comments. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so for me, I think the Wikia Africa Hour is really a big opportunity for us to have that event where you learn something new every time. And it's happening more regularly. And you know, it will be there almost every month. And there is a different topic. And then you come and learn something new. So it's a very good opportunity for upcoming, for even new kind of user groups, to learn more about what is happening in the movement. Because with media is really huge. And it's sad to digest if you're a new person. But have these events which break down things in bits. Like there was the session of people talking about why they are interested in standing for the board. So for someone who is thinking, yeah, maybe one time I should also put my name for that to run for the board, to have a session like that, where you hear people who are standing answering these questions. It's like a building with medians in Africa. So I really like the different topics that come every month for the different sessions that the way they are selected. Because it's not like it's uniform. It's like a new thing every time. And then the other thing is also like it's also an opportunity for us to share what we are working on in our different communities. There is someone from the Week Africa Hour who always reaches out to us in Uganda. And I say, yeah, what are you guys working on this month so that we can share it at the Week Africa Hour? So to give us that platform to share news of what is happening in Uganda with the rest of the media community is also very great. And that's also part of the way we shared about the Weeky endeavor that we are organizing. For us to be able to share an update of where we are and how we'd like people to participate in the conference. So we are already reaching out to a wider audience through the Week Africa Hour. So I think the impact is really huge. And we're just looking forward to more episodes and see it reach all corners of Africa. So yeah, I think for me, that's how I've seen the impact of having different topics discussed every month and people learning something new every time. I personally benefited from that. And I think other Weeky medians in Africa and elsewhere have also benefited the same way. Thank you so much, Joffrey, for those comments. And yes, we're always seeking out a special way to keep everybody in the movement of the day about their respective Weeky communities and their activities. Thank you so much. Let's move over to Huzmedin. Hello, Huzmedin. Hello. Yes, guys, Huzmedin is from the Weeky Media community of Tunisia. And he is a founding member of that Weeky Media community. Tunisia is a group. And he is also a founding member of the Weeky Project in Maghreb, Arabic, and the coordinator of the Wikipedia Library. And member of the Weeky Project Med, an active contributor of Wikipedia, of course, and also the test-weekly administrator in the Weeky Media Incubator. Huzmedin has an idea of what we've been doing with the Weeky Africa our episodes. And as such, I believe he has some comments to make on the impact so far in the movement. Go ahead, Huzmedin. Well, that's right. In fact, let us recognize that there is a need for such kind of campaigns and of tutorials. Well, there is much about documentations in the Weeky Media world. There is documentation about editing Wikipedia, about how to make a Meetup, about how to make a conference. There are thousands of papers. And people in Africa, particularly, cannot have the time to read all this because maybe they are just activists who are working on the ground. And they have to, because they do not have specialized people involved in their movement, they have to read all this documentation to make new things in their community. So this is huge. And when I was in the program committee of Weeky and Daba for two years in 2018 and 2019, we found this. We found that most of the people that were interested in participating in Weeky and Daba, the African conference of the Weeky Media community, have interest in learning how to do things, how to set an affiliate, how to have a user group, how they can organize a conference like Weeky and Daba. And we got stuck with that. Well, the idea of video tutorial online is a very excellent idea because, first, it can be recorded online, you can follow it. It can simply explain things because you have an eye contact with the speaker. You can see what he thinks. You can learn from him through interactions, from Q&A, et cetera, et cetera. So well, the problem is that you do have to see three main factors and ensure to apply them. The first is time, the second is commitment, and the third is audience. And believe me, these three ingredients are very difficult to apply because you have to search a time when all the target audience can be free, for example, Saturday afternoon. And when you are in Saturday afternoon, you have to see that you have not to get in conflict with another session about the same topic. Second, you have to have a team that has the soft keys, but that can be kind of integrated in the project on a daily basis, on a monthly basis, after years, and not just give up after a few months or a few years. And this is very difficult because not all the people have time every month, in every time, in the same time, in the same moment. And that's a huge thing to consider. The third and last thing is the audience. You have to attract the audience. If you do not attract the audience, this will be a huge failure. This will not be successful. I think what Wikiafrica Hour has succeeded to do is to attract the audience, to see what the audience would like to see or to learn. And it reacts based on that. And this is a huge advantage of Wikiafrica Hour, I think. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Medin. I can relate to what you're saying, because you are experienced from what the Tunisia counterparts are actually doing. And we would actually consider these points. Though first people would be interested in different topics and as such, it could affect the number of participants who show up every point in time. But these are your advice and contributions are well noted, and we would go ahead to implement them. Thank you so much, Ms. Medin. I appreciate it. Moving over to Isaac Olatunde. Isaac is the coordinator for Wikipedia Page's Wanting Photos campaign. And he's doing with us from the start. He knows how we started all this. And Isaac, I know you have some comments. And the Wikipedia Page is the one that is running currently and is ending in August. So Isaac, please, why you give us your comments on the effects and contribution of the Wikiafrica Hour episode. If you have any updates for the Wikipedia, please, go ahead and share with us. Thank you very much, text loss, first for organizing this talk here. I'm really very much happy to be here. And I want to thank you for the invite, because this is a very huge privilege for me to speak on this panel. But I must say that currently the only constant office hour we have in Africa is the Wikiafrica Office Hour. And I must say that this has really been very helpful, because it has really given several members of the Wikipedia communities in Africa to get a deeper understanding of the Wikipedia movement and also provide opportunities for the African communities to learn, especially the new people who are just joining us to learn about the community and of course, auto art projects within the movement. So it's really a very big thing that has happened to us in Africa. Because one of the things that we've not really been doing correctly in Africa, it's having a gathering that we unite everybody to get aside the general Wikian dabble that only happens annually. But with the Wikiafrica Office Hour, it gives another platform to network and of course, share ideas and also share our knowledge with people and also provide insights to how we can promote Wikipedia project in Africa. I'm really honored to say that the organizers of this Wikiafrica Office Hour are strong supporters of the Wikipedia pages wanting for this campaign. And that has actually helped the campaign in Africa. Because of the support we enjoy from the Wikiafrica team, the Wikipedia pages wanting for that has really gained a very huge popularity in Africa in terms of getting more people on board to participate in the campaign. So just to give you a brief idea, for those who might not know, the Wikipedia pages wanting photos is a campaign that primarily focus on the use of photos collected from various advocacy programs and the photographic context on Wikipedia articles. So we started in 2020, last year, during the pandemic. And we're really happy that it was a very huge success that year, as we have many people organizing the campaign locally. That year we have about 36 Wikimedia athletes around the world organizing that campaign. But this year, it's very huge. And this year, we had more than 50 hits Wikimedia communities in the world organizing this campaign in more than 50 countries in the world. That's a huge number of organizers. So it's something that we really find very exciting. And I'm really honored to say that, as I speak, Wikimedians across the world have started photos of more than 200,000 Holocausts in Hova, Turin, and Haiti languages. That's a huge amount of traffic, which means a huge amount of knowledge is being shared across multiple language Wikipedia. And of course, we're enjoying that support going to the support we enjoy for the Wikilev Africa team and also the Wikimedia Africa team as well. So medially, I think this is a good thing that has happened to us in Africa. And as a matter of fact, I would encourage everybody to find a way to support this initiative so that it continues. And we can have a lot of benefits in terms of teaching us basic things that we need to know about the movement and also sharing ideas about current projects and all the things that we need to learn that we help us to grow in Africa. Because Africa is a community that is underrepresented in terms of content and contributors. And if we have a more organized meetings like the Wikimedia Africa office hour, I believe we'll never remain the same. So thank you very much for organizing this sex loss and the team Florence and Ilya. This is something we really appreciate. And we want to tell you that we are fully in support of this. And if there are any things we need to do to keep this running, please feel free to let us know. We'll be glad to help. Thank you. Thank you so much, Isaac. And guys, I must mention, these people you see here are people I have been following their footprints. If I would say their wiki footprints over time. Someone like Isaac always has a way of putting things in perspective. While I'm here thinking I'm just into the broadcast thing, Isaac has baptized it to be an office hour. And now I really can sit back and look at it and be like, wow, that's what it really is. And for Guzmending, I have actually studied what they do in the Wikimedia Tunisia is our group. I know they have, let me call it, office hour like Isaac just said, similar in French for francophones. And I must say it was somewhere that I sort of derived inspiration before we hit the ground on this. And Joe Free himself has also been a force to reckon with in East Africa. The minute he mentioned East Africa, first person that comes to mind, Joe Free and the likes of Anthony and Winnie, who is always in our mailing list, giving us updates about Wikimedia and all that. Wasting himself is also a strong person to reckon with in the Igbo Wikimedia user group. And he's been contributing to English Wikipedia as well. It's more like trying to jog a boat when most of us are just streamlined into one particular stream. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for making these beautiful comments and highlighting where we need improvement who's made in in a special way. I really thank you for giving us those three points to look out for and work on why we're trying to build up the Wiki Africa Hour initiative. And Isaac, maybe now that you've brought my attention to this thing being an office hour, who actually will actually be taking a nose dive into, I mean, packaging it in that direction too, to make sure it's bringing out and how do I say, growing in impact. Thank you so much, guys. And thank you the Wikimedia organizing team. Thank you the tech guys at the backstage who are helping us to have these or some virtual experience. Thank you. And I wish to use this opportunity to let you know that our next Wiki Africa Hour will be featuring the winners of Wiki Loves Africa, the photographic contest whose winners were announced yesterday. And they are interesting guys, trust me. If in case you missed the shots, we'll be bringing you an up close and personal interaction with them on the next Wiki Africa Hour. Please remember to subscribe to our Wiki Africa YouTube channel in order to keep tabs on both past and upcoming episodes of the Wiki Africa Hour in that way, you won't miss anything. And in case, like I said, you have suggestions on topics, guests and things we should discuss, feel free to go to our Wiki Africa Hour meta page and put it in the newsroom, the upper section of the newsroom is for suggestions. You can suggest the guests, if you can't reach the person, just put the person's name and we would work on getting the person to come on the episode. Thank you so much everybody who participated in this session. Thank you all the attendees and see you in the next Wiki Africa Hour. Thank you, bye.