 Hi everybody, my name is Sherry Antwine. I'm the director of Afrocrowd and some of you may also know me from Wikimedians of the Caribbean. Today, we're going to be doing a short presentation on the work of Afrocrowd in the diaspora. Today, you're going to be hearing from a few groups within Afrocrowd that help us represent not only the diaspora's connection to the greater world, but also the importance of it. You're going to be hearing from me, of course, Mechmos Adodo from Wikimedia Benin, who's an Afrocrout liaison, Linda Fletcher, who's the wiki coach at Afrocrout Associated wiki club Alkebelen, Carmen Collimore, who's an Afrocrouter, who is also a part of wiki Alkebelen. In short, Afrocrout is an initiative to champion and increase awareness of the African diaspora in Wikipedia. You can read through the long version. We've been around since 2015 and we've been working throughout since almost the beginning. We've been working throughout the year to hold events, whether it's training talks, whether it's reaching out through different organizations. We've worked with groups like the United Nations. We've worked with grassroots groups. We've worked in GLAM. We've worked with a lot of schools and students and professors. We started out in a library in Brooklyn, New York. And then a few short years later, we have expanded throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and now have partners all over the world, including in Africa. You can read through some of our successes. We've enjoyed the ability to connect with a lot of organizations. But the banner for us and our main goal and our main central point is to amplify the diaspora and amplify representation. When Alice Backer, who founded Afrocrout, started it in 2015, it was because she looked into wiki and didn't see herself, which is not unusual for a lot of black women. But here was an opportunity to do something about it. So when I joined her a few months later, and obviously I was still here, we worked tirelessly to find ways, lots of different ways, whether it's a translatathon, which focuses on translating articles in on Wikipedia, or whether it's trying different modes of connection, both online, in person and elsewhere. And so many other ways we have, we enjoyed experimentation and finding ways to reach the people that we are working with. We've also worked with many different kinds of groups who share our mission. And here's a little bit more on some of our accomplishments. All right, now I want to talk a little bit directly about our outreach and partnerships. Like I mentioned before, the diaspora is extremely important to our mission. The diaspora meaning those, in our case, those living outside of African continent, whether it be the most recent from the transatlantic slave trade, some of y'all can Wikipedia that later, or those more generationally connected to the diaspora within a few generations, for example, Africans in the diaspora and so forth. Diaspora you can find all over the world. How many of you apart here are part of a diaspora, meaning that you have heritage and roots to a place where you do not live or reside currently. Oh, fantastic. So when you think of diaspora, you think of a connection that goes beyond a place, but rather is deep into our blood, into our roots and our identity for ourselves. And that is another reason why it empowers the work of Afro crowd, because that connection is what builds interest in an area where less than 10% of participants on Wikipedia are people of African descent. And here you can see some of the groups that we've worked with. And I'm just going to move on, but I want to highlight the group at the bottom left and the groups at the top. As you see, we pull from folks who are willing to work with us for many different backgrounds cultures. And also we've had a presence in Afro crowd. The folks down here are from Molly and you can see students and librarians in different slides. I just want to quickly glaze over this case study. We believe in connection. We have created connections, for example, almost since the beginning. We make it a point to get to know folks and experts within the wiki community. And in this case, we connected folks in the diaspora and allies at Oregon State University, as well as librarians and partners in Nigeria. And of course, Afro crowd, our community, which is a fairly diverse community in general online. Now we hold several different kinds of events. And I want to mention that these events are never limited to what we come up with. We're always, we, we attempt to always be flexible to what our partners desire, as well as what our mission is. As long as it matches our mission, we work with the partner and their aims as well. For example, if you take a look at the bottom right, you'll see our partners at a school, a college in in New York City that focuses on languages of the African diaspora. Now, for us, this professor, she wanted to highlight how you can use Wikipedia in the classroom to talk more, to participate more in our knowledge of languages. And this class focus on African diaspora languages and the students work to create articles in this, as well as different forms of wiki contributions. If you take a look at the top left, you'll see students, African students of the diaspora at MIT. We had the opportunity to connect with the African Student Union at MIT. And they also, their connection is a different kind of connection than sometimes you think of when you think of the diaspora, because they are Africans within the diaspora, although their homes, after they're done with school, are mostly going to be their home countries. And finally, at the bottom, you'll see some of the ways that we've connected during the pandemic and beyond. We've invested wholeheartedly into the hybrid system and finding ways to connect online, no matter what. And I'll touch on that later as well. One more thing I wanted to mention that's really connected to the diaspora is if you took a look at the top, you'll see a woman in yellow. Now, the story with her is she wanted to, she is an Afro-crowder who happened to be going to Ghana during the year of return. The year of return, which is in 2019, reflects the memory of the start of the slave strait in North America. Now, she, on her own dime, with a little support from us for food and transportation, was able to go down and connect with our friends at Open Foundation West Africa in Ghana. And there, we had the event remotely. And I just want to quickly touch on the bottom picture where you see right next to the Wikipedia globe, that's an event that we held in Puerto Rico. We also had a Wikipedia friend who's going to be in Puerto Rico, and we worked with him as well as our connections and partners in Puerto Rico to hold an event in the diaspora there. So you see, there's just so many ways to connect. I want to touch on this briefly. Our connection diaspora also goes in the form of the sources that we read. We were part of a program that a partner and I began to focus on ensuring that regions within diaspora are not forgotten. For example, diasporas in the Caribbean, in small towns and also in cities where the, for example, the information is held within community mostly. All right. These are just some of the other items that we do. I want to make sure that you understand that Africa is a small initiative. We began, like I said, with one person expanded to two people, and then we depend on our partners and works within our partnership and our ability to reach out. We've also connected, obviously, with way more people than that since our beginning days, but it began as a meetup, a small meetup and an idea of a wikipedia and who wanted to make a difference, who, by the way, is part of the Haitian diaspora as well. And I am also part of the Caribbean diaspora. Since then, people have come to our events and have stayed and invested time and effort into Afrocrowd and what it's becoming. And one of those people is a woman by the name of Linda Fletcher. We've also reached out and connected with partners within the continent to continue to connect through with us as liaisons in their community. And we have one such person here today by the name of Mel Mose Adodo. So without further ado, I want you to listen to their story and why they connected with Afrocrowd to extend the alms of what we can do within the world and especially in our connection and our connective tissue with diaspirants as well as those wanting in general to participate in the phenomenon of wikipedia and wikimedia. Please, Mel Mose. Please give them a round of applause. One moment as we switch slides. She mentioned that some of this is going to be in French. So if you are with us on event day, there should be translation available for you. And I'm going to do my best to translate some of what Mel Mose says. Please continue. Hello everyone. My name is Mel Mose Adodo and I'm the founder of wikimedia. And so since the moment we started working with Shiri Afrocrot and the goal is to connect Afrocrot with all Africa and its diaspora. Because we have noticed that Africa has an informational gap in terms of Africa and it is very important that we can work with it. It is in this case that we started working to make a connection with Afrocrot and several people, several countries joined us. And so when you see, for example, the potential of Africa is that there are more than 300 million Internet users in Africa. 300 million. But what do we do with these Internet users? What is the need for connection? It is that people share information. So we are working on what people can use the Internet with Shiri Afrocrot to share information, to fill out the informational gap in South Africa. Because we have noticed that when we need Africa, it is mainly the end of the war and all of that. So we want to go from there to fill out the informational gap. Okay, for over 300 million, for Africans, it is important to be a part of the telling of their own story. Can someone here speak French better than me? No? No? Yes, do you speak English? No. But if you please, continue quickly. Thank you. Okay, well, please continue in French and I will do my best. And so the goal for us is to work on what we can increase the number of contributors. There are many Africans who have contributed, both in Africa and in diaspora. Okay. By participating with Afrocrot, as well as bringing in folks from places like Togo and elsewhere, we've been able to exchange knowledge, exchange experience and culture. We also want to work to demystify Africa's contribution to Wikipedia. Because there are some who think that to contribute to Wikipedia, you have to go to school, you have to have the skills to demystify it. Why can everyone contribute if it is Wikipedia that makes people contribute? If it is a photo that makes people contribute, if it is a source that makes people contribute, that's how we want to work with Afrocrot. Again? I'm going to just read from there. We're going to exchange skills with editors that exist. We create articles and update articles in Wikipedia on Africa and people of African descent. We create more visibility for the projects in Africa and their diaspora and participate with other people and organizations with the same ideas and experiences that expand horizons. That's some of the reasons why we work with Afrocrot. We want to connect biodiversity so that we can work together. Whether it's in Togo, Madagascar, Guinea, the Caribbean, or anywhere else, we want to work together. We've participated with places like Togo, Madagascar and other places. Of course, Benin, Burkina Faso and more with different projects. Sorry, don't mean to interrupt, but we need to stick to time and I know there's translation which takes double time, so keep in mind we do have to stick to time. I think you get the idea that we have quite a good connection that's building within the group. If you see and hear, this comes from one of the photo walks that we've done with Wiki Benin and Afrocrot as well as with other folks who participated. And the kind of contributions that this kind of partnership creates for those hoping to maintain a connection with Africa as well as increased knowledge and competencies can't be understated. Thank you very much, Mimos for your dedication. Thank you.