 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the East Africa Community Session. My name is Winnie Kabinti from the Wikimedia Community in Kenya. Before we proceed with our session, I would just like to say that our hearts and thoughts are together with the people of Haiti in these tough moments and we are with you. So, for this particular session, you're going to learn more about East African communities where we are as communities and we have two amazing speakers who will be taking us through the session. We have Douglas from the Wikimedia Community User Group in Uganda and we have Anthony Mttavango from the Wikimedia User Group in Tanzania. So, at the end of this session, you will have a deeper understanding about the major and upcoming Wikimedia communities in the East African region and you'll also be getting a glance at some of the challenges that these communities face and how they're even trying to navigate them. So, just before I introduce Douglas to give you a quick background about the East African region. So, basically, outside the Wikimedia Community, the East African region is actually a block containing six countries namely Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan and these six countries actually enjoy quite a historical, political and economic partnerships and when we come to the Wikimedia Community, the communities are trying to leverage on this existing historical partnerships so that we can grow together as communities. So, Douglas, I will welcome you to take the stage and share your presentation and tell us more about what you do as well. Thank you. Thank you so much, Winnie. My name is Seba Gladia-Glas. I'm the co-founder. I'm one of the co-founders of the Wikimedia Community Youth Group in Uganda and I welcome once again to Wikimedia for our session. I'm delighted that we are doing this together as a community at the East African region and also joining the rest of the Wikimedians on this historical event, the very first batch of Wikimedia session. So, I'm sharing my screen. I hope you can give me a thumbs up if you can see my screen. Yes, Douglas, we can. Right. So, as Winnie has explained, the East African region is a block of so many countries and we are doing this as a region. There are quite a number of activities that have happened but we are just going to highlight key events that really, really brought us together as a region in the last couple of years. And through this, we were able to make some commitments that we can work together and we can make a reality as humans collaborating for a common goal. As the title of our session suggests, these are commitments we made as a region and we are really working towards making them a reality as a community and we are very glad to share some of the previous current and upcoming activities that we do as East Africanists. It all started around three years ago in 2019 at the East African Capacity Building Training in Dawasalam. This happened somewhere in April 2019 and it was, it was, it encompassed very many different topics including capacity building sessions, capacity building in terms of technical skills in wiki data editing, training on licenses, pretty common licenses and wiki media licenses as well as other areas that involved grant making and also proposal writing. So one of the key elements that arose from this capacity building training was the need for East Africans to increase collaboration and work together. We learned a lot about volunteerism and how it can benefit us as individuals and how communities can benefit from volunteerism but the key outcome was how East African, how us East Africans can be able to work together as a community and collaborate in terms of making wiki media projects work around our region. Six months later we had another key milestone which was the East African Strategist Summit that happened in Kampala. This was mainly about movement strategy and demystifying some of the key facts and areas that are involved in movement strategy how underrepresented communities can be able to participate in the movement strategy and this was at a point when there were very many working groups that are doing work. We were able to understand what free knowledge meant and what the strategic direction was. There was a kind of myth around what free knowledge meant. Some of the participants, some of the individual community didn't understand it. They could relate it to economic, political or culture spheres but in the end we were able to come out at the same page and countries were able to make national and regional commitments. Most of the countries that got together were not at the same level as far as acclation is concerned because in the East African region they are around to be wiki media affiliates. That is in Uganda, in Tanzania and they are in Congo. But in the end we realized that we need to work together as a region be able to lend a hand to communities that are lagging behind so that they can be able to come together for a common goal which is criminal for the world in 2013. Over seven countries were able to make commitments that they would be able to do when they go back to their national communities and also commitments that can get us together as a region. We will later on share the links to those commitments. Maybe we will put this in the etherpad but we made quite a number of commitments per country in terms of what each country would do nationally and regionally. So the question always is there, there are always differences in making a commitment is one thing and fulfilling it is another. But as wiki medians we have principles as wiki medians. Principles being working in an open way and in an transparent way and we can be able to finish what we started. There has been small bits of this that have been done because some of the communities that we worked with didn't know anything about the wiki media movement but ever since we held these two major conferences we've been in touch working together openly and transparently with most of the communities. We keep in touch both through wiki media channels and then wiki media channels. So wiki media channels being we work collaboratively meter and then wiki media channels being we collaborate on other communication channels like WhatsApp and Telegram but we have a long way to go and we are ready to finish what we started. Yeah, trust is something that is not built overnight but with time we have been able to build trust together as wiki medians and also being able to trust the wiki media movement as we travel along with it. Since we have a common goal we think that if we trust each other in an open and collaborative way we can be able to fulfill this goal and if the goal is free knowledge if the goal is to fulfill some of the commitments that you have made we are ready to fulfill this in an open and transparent way as we move along. Trust is a key component in all the activities that we always do as wiki medians as a community. This has been manifested one year later where we still had the same group of people whom we've been collaborating with for the past year. They were able to join together and attend or be part of the movement of the global discussions. This is something that could not have easily happened if it wasn't for the different interactions that we had made that we had been making with the community. But one year later we were able to get together once again as a community and collaborate online to attend the wiki media the wiki media movement strategy discussions to determine our future. This was one of the other key milestones in the activities that we do as wiki medians and currently we are wiki mania and I would like to hand over to Anthony to take us to the next slides. Over to you Anthony. Alright, so thank you so much Douglas and hello everyone. I'm so happy that I'm meeting you victory through this wiki mania conference the historical and ever virtual conference. So yes, my name is Anthony Ntavangu and I'm a co-founder of wiki media community in the group Tanzania. So I'll be taking you through these slides that are remaining that led to what we have been doing within the East Africa region. So yes, for this year as you remember some of you you have some information that we did try to organize the wiki mania pre-conference in late July and in the beginning of August but unfortunately it didn't happen because of various reasons such as COVID-19 issues that the WMF was not able to find the international travel and so other factors. So this we saw like it was the first step to come together as East African region also as wiki medians from the East African region since we share the common background such as some challenges solutions that can solve the problems that we are facing in relation to contributing to wiki media foundation projects in East Africa region. So after the wiki mania pre-conference was cancelled we got another way to come together luckily we were allowed to apply for a joint wiki mania scholarship that for this year some communities that are not affiliated was not eligible for applying for wiki mania scholarship so the idea was like one affiliate within the East Africa region should apply on behalf of the others. So that's what we did wiki media tenure upon discussions with other representatives within East Africa region to apply on behalf of the others. That's what we did. So yes, sorry Douglas back to the yes, this is the joint grant that we applied and somehow it delayed but we have been telling the people to use their own resources then it will be funded because it will be on the way right now as I'm speaking. Okay, so the question is as the East African communities wiki communities, what can we do in the future? First we have the implementation plan last year during the movement strategy discussions there was a point where each region, each individual communities was asking to do some implementation plan for the initiative and the recommendations that they prioritized to work on. Then yes, as East Africa Douglas on behalf of all of us need to apply for the grant so we have the implementation plan for the entire East Africa region and we will be having some multiple calls and discussions around this. Then yes, back in 19 we had a summit in Uganda and we need to commit ourselves like okay we will be collaborating as East Africa region and then we are doing this to work on what we have been committed to do. Also we are trying to find another ways, another project, another opportunities, another way of collaborations such as exploring new projects engaging and collaborating in other aspects of projects that we have never worked before as a unity. I mean as a collaborative project so that's what you're looking. Next slide please. Yes, so in terms of implementation plan some resources available including the grant that Douglas asked. Also we'll be looking for the other opportunities to apply for another funds if possible to implement whatever we are thinking to do within the East Africa region. Also we are thinking of bringing to you some discussions around the concepts of region hubs you know there is a lot of questions like okay what should the region hub should be should it be like an online platform should it be like physical address or something so we have some discussions going on and we'll be having more. Next slide. Yes, work on what we committed to do as I've said before resources can be shared yes we have some resources and luckily the foundation is supporting us on whatever we are doing so yes resources in terms of resources is something that we learn to worry because it's here and also we'll be in future discussing more about regional and the thematic hubs. Meaning despite of discussing regional hub in terms of geographic locations like which countries are in East Africa or whatever but also we can think of thematic hubs like okay we can be focusing on this topic in this area maybe tourism, agriculture or whatever so these are the thematic hubs we are talking about a specific topic we can choose to work on as a collaborative project. Next slide. Yes as I said before apart from what we are already doing we are looking forward to the exploring new potential areas of collaboration for example we have several ideas like we can have maybe East African East Africa summit each year for example in a rotating way maybe this year in Tanzania this year in Kenya next year another country within our region for the aim of focusing on some projects such as Glam, Wikidata, Wikivoyage etc. these are just examples but we can always have some topic to collaborate with. Next slide. Yes the ball is in our hands meaning there is no a layout there is no layout that is already there everything we can always think from our head start something new that didn't exist before for the future of our community so it's the job of me you to think of what can or which area can we work together as a collaborative project. Yes next slide. Alright so we explained about which countries they do constitute the East African community she mentioned like six countries but actually when we are talking of East Africa wiki communities we are talking beyond even the countries that are geographically located in East Africa we have Somalia then we have next slide yes we have Somalia sorry August next slide Yes South Sudan, Zambia Botswana, Mozambiki wiki in Africa is not a country but a project that supports us or join our efforts in East Africa because they normally work on things or topics that are led to East Africa so they are supporting us on this. Also we have Somalia South Sudan I think South Sudan is part of the East Africa region then Somalia Ethiopia, Congo Zambia yes it's here so it's quite of and we still welcome other communities or countries that you want to if they think this is a good initiative to collaborate with us they are warmly welcome we not limit countries based on geographical location so next slide Yes in here I will be welcoming Bak Doglas because he has to talk about Wikindaba 2021 in Kampala Uganda so after Doglas I will be coming back again to wrap up my presentation Welcome Doglas. Right thank you Anthony for that this will really be quick because we have a Wikindaba table at the community village tomorrow you can check it out but taking up countries to join us in this initiative Wikindaba is happening in Kampala so we urge everyone to spread the word about this you will be coming up with the call for volunteers call for sessions look out for those and we think this will be like a very good platform for us to give the community an update of where we have reached as East African Wikimedians so we are at Wikimania right now and we believe that by the time that Wikindaba happens in November we will have a major update about the activities that we've done and how they have been able to impact the rest of the East African Wikimedians so watch out for that and we'll be glad to have you join us for Wikindaba thank you so much back to you Anthony Thank you Doglas so just in case you are new to what Wikindaba is can you go back to the last slide please Yes, so Wikindaba is a conference that is specifically for African Wikimedians to come together and discuss some topics that leads to Africa Not only Africa, even the people that are living in diaspora they are always welcome to join this for the past years it has been happening as an important conference but for this year I'm not sure Doglas didn't say we need to be virtual or we need to be like in the past one It will be virtual, we need to be a virtual conference Yes, so it will be virtual conference So yeah, thank you I just wanted to clarify about that Thank you for that Anthony Yeah, so we are the three here who just tried to create something that can be going in terms of East Africa community but we really value your contribution and support that we have been receiving so far from many of you as individuals or representatives of different communities within our region So maybe the last thing as the next step will be organizing another event I mean the discussion around which is the next event we can have for the East Africa region Hopefully the wiki endeavor is the next but we can always think again instead of the wiki money pre-conference that was cancelled we can have another conference and we have been told it is very possible if we apply under the conference and the events run So we are looking forward to that we will be sending the invitation and come together to discuss about what should we plan for the conference that can bring up together is a virtually of any person or the hybrid both the virtual and the in person So thank you guys I'll be handing back the mic to Winnie Welcome Thank you very much Anthony and Douglas for that elaborate presentation Douglas I think at this point you can stop sharing your screen so that we can have you back Great thank you So we will now move to our question and answer session Q&A where we are going to open up the floor to answer any questions that you might have whether you are watching from Rimo or YouTube you can share your questions and the speakers will be able to answer but to start it off Douglas and Anthony you are also some of the established you come from some of the established Wikimedia communities in East Africa actually you are part of the only three existing affiliates and for I know for most members within the East African communities they are actually joining Wikimedia for the first time so what would you tell or rather what would you encourage any participants joining this conference what are some of the things that you will tell them are important in a conference what are some of the things that they can expect to learn as Wikimedians during this 5D conference Let me start It's good to attend with many for the first time we are good enough there are many numerous sessions that are out there so what I would encourage the first time participant is to really network and keep the networks moving network and also network as much as we can and keep in close contact with the people that you interact with at the conference this is like the right you are the right place because Wikimedia only happens once in a year it's an annual event so it brings together all the Wikimedians across the world and this being a virtual conference at least there's a chance that you can create as many networks as you can and you can utilize those maybe learning from them and also keeping in close contact with them not only at Wikimedia but beyond Wikimedia Great thank you Douglas Anthony do you share the same thoughts so maybe my advice is that there is a point where you can feel like whatever is discussed during the Wikimedia can be somehow advanced to you this are tough things and I never heard about them before so yes it can be true because you are new but don't be discouraged grab whatever you can listen the good thing is that most of the East African communities will be having the post-Wikimedia events they need to apply for that so that would be a good part for digesting whatever is discussed during the Wikimedia so that you can understand better if you don't get it in a much percentage for this Wikimedia so it's a good platform it's a good thing that you attended commutation for that but don't be discouraged if you think like okay some contents are somehow advanced than I know so I can advise maybe new people who are just joining for the first time thank you Anthony and in the same bread if I may also ask what do you think is the role of mentorship as far as helping the younger communities to grow within the community not necessarily just within East Africa Anthony is this a question for me yes thank you I think mentorship is very important for the growth of Wikimedia movement to both the Wikimedia communities to individuals who want to participate in contributing to Wikimedia foundation project because through mentorship that's where somebody can fetch some knowledge from the person who understands better a specific topic for example in East Africa we might be good at editing Wikipedia uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons but we might be not knowing much about Wikipedia and other projects that we have never implemented before so mentorship will be helping us to be acquainted with the right skills and the right knowledge on how we can better contribute to our movement so this can be done by outsourcing not necessarily we should be depending on people from the same Africa community it can be yes same with African communities Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia but what I can say here that we are not limited to who should we involve just to teach us to mentor for the future of our movement that's what I think thank you Anthony I will move to Douglas is a question on the Ida Pad from Kelsey from WMF and she's asking what areas of movement strategy implementation are the most important for East Africa thank you for that we need thank you for the question Kelsey well at the moment we think since we are looking at East Africa as a region we have identified an initiative initiative for the regional hubs so one of the most important initiatives is the regional hubs that we think can work for us as East Africans because we already have this in some of the commitments that we made we need to work together as a region and we are already working towards commitments that can get us together as a region so the good thing is that we also additionally have the media foundation creating regional structures so we can be able to tap resources and also be able to support and work together with the foundation to make this a reality so regional hubs are putting up regional hubs as one of the key important implementation plans for the East African region thank you and if I might also comment on that another area is on leadership and capacity building and I know that was one of the initiatives that most of the East African countries actually prioritized during the movement strategy discussions and the other aspect was on the areas of improving user experience for editors and new entrants I don't know if Anthony has anything else to add as far as that question is concerned I think most of the priorities in East Africa region have been explained and the capacity building has been putting a lot like some communities within the East Africa region are still upcoming still emerging so much of the capacity building in terms of how can they grow to the level of having the user groups for example as affiliates as in East Africa for right now we do have only Tanzania and Uganda as the official user groups but other countries are still struggling for that so there need much capacity building on that thank you Anthony for that and I agree as far as the capacity building is concerned because I know for us for our community in Kenya we do a lot of projects and at the pace in which we are also growing some of the skills or other questions most of the organizers actually have and will benefit a lot from mentorship in that area I know it's in how we engage our partners and how to even go about it considering that we are yet to even be recognized as a user group if I'm going to organization aid or a government agency for instance we've been working on the Afrosin project and one of the things we wanted to do this year is to work with the Kenya Film Commission so that we bridge that gap so even when at what capacity are you going to this office and such kind of things so yes I know when it comes to the capacity building it goes beyond just being trained on Wikipedia editing it goes all the way down or rather all the way up to project management yes so that's one of the areas just to answer Kelsey and another question that's both of you can still answer what does the future look like for the East African communities like when you look at the plants that you have as a region as far as the movement implementation plants go where do you see the community in the next five years or even two let's not go far whoever is ready can go fast right so do you want to go first? yes sure there was something that was mentioned in the presentation that the ball is in our hands so we would definitely it's upon us to determine what we can do but we can not only do that like the three of us we are just what we can call a staring committee or one of the community leaders that see a vision in the East African Wikimedians so the moment we work together collaborate as as a region then we can be able to do a lot in the future so it definitely depends on what we can do as a region and also as Wikimedians so we might not be able to foresee what can happen in the next two years but once we get our minds together working together in an open and transparent way then we can be able to work together with ideas that can steer us forward good enough we have the support and the ideas of the Wikimedians of course the world because we work together in an open way everything is in meta if you want capacity building if you want mentorship, if you want resources they are available on the Wikimedia resources so you can be able to collaborate and work together on this so I'm not providing a direct answer to this but as long as we work together that's what I emphasize in an open and transparent way we can be able to achieve a lot probably the next two years we could be able to maybe have like a larger larger team working together to share some of the updates in a project probably have more than three athletes in the region and we already maybe have a regional hub setup in a given country you can have different capacities in there different projects and different skills moving the community and the Wikimedia movement forward Anthony any thoughts? Well I think I'm thinking like there's something but maybe in different words yeah so I'm looking forward to see the communities that are united not necessarily to be a single thing but that are working together towards a common goal vision and vision so I think like together if we work together it's something that will bring energy and the capacity to we as one community because whenever where the certain Wikimedia community is weak some another so sharing working together makes us to be stable and to be able to implement even bigger goals that are ahead of us so yes I'm thinking like in the future I'm thinking like a regional hub that is working together to solve different issues to implement new ideas and throw another potential area that we can work together Great I know we are almost coming to the close of the session I have one more question and it's regarding the East Africa Wikimedia conference that you've spoken about in your presentation that you've mentioned it will be one of the things that you would like to see within the region so what do you envision what are the roles you envision this conference to play within the communities Okay Thank you Win for your question I mean it's not your question somebody ask it there yes so what I'm envisioning that this conference will be looking forward to come together and discuss more about the pending issue that we have Yes back in 2019 in Uganda we had a commitment and we are continuing to do our commitment but it's like we are not there yet we are looking at a certain point that we are not there yet so through conferences regardless if they are any person or if they are actually it's a good platform to come together and share ideas on how do we want to reach or how can we reach there where we want to be so yes that will be one, two the conference should be used as a platform to solve some knowledge gap yielding more capacity for the community that might be lending some interaction with the community that are somehow stronger so this is the that's what I'm thinking it's nothing final yet as I said it's something that needs input from different communities but this is what I'm thinking right now Yeah and if I may add something small like it would ideally be a platform for East Africa New Comedians to rise up and show that like we are not quiet in our underrepresented world to have our voices heard because there is always this saying that we can make them one of the objectives to reach out to the underrepresented communities and it happened to be some of the underrepresented communities but then it will come down to what happens on the ground it's really more than what the outside world sees we don't meant our activities so such conferences are platforms to show what we've been doing to share challenges and also successes as Antonia had mentioned previously we'll be able to determine communities that need the hand and be able to help those rise up for the whole world to know that something that happens within the underrepresented communities Thank you Douglas indeed I am rooting for the East Africa Community Conference and as we come to a close there was a comment that was also shared by Jeron and it's not a question it's a comment and he says Douglas I think that the schooling in 2019 in Tanzania was important but I'm quite sure that there was community activity in Tanzania before that Aki Pala in Okoli was making community work especially for Kiswahili Wikipedia for many years before that so it was very helpful but it was not the only activity that boosted East African engagement I think that was a comment with regards to the earlier presentation that just sought to drew to the events where the activities for the East African community started so I don't know if you want to clarify that for Jeron Yes I will clarify then Anthony will add we do recognize the efforts of the Swahili Wikipedia community and Ingo has done a great job in that regard to actually with him at the East African Kapa Stability Program Training that happened in Darasalam but I mentioned it as one of the key activities that East African together I'm not sure if Swahili Wikipedia has spread has spread beyond Tanzania but we have Swahili as a common language within the region so we do recognize the importance and the work that the Swahili community has done in building the Swahili Wikipedia and I think it is not the East African Kapa Stability Program is not the only key activity that happened in the Tanzania community maybe Anthony can add but thank you so much Jeron for adding to that and thank you once again to Ingo Kipala for the work in the Swahili Wikipedia Anthony can add something Yes definitely Wikipedia community user group Tanzania do thanks a lot Ingo call by user named Kipala he's a German but he speaks very good Swahili he's having a lot of knowledge and he always contribute to Swahili Wikipedia and he's one of the Swahili Wikipedia administrators he's very super useful and he contributed much to the to the formation of the Wikipedia community group Tanzania Swahili Wikipedia do extend beyond Tanzania we had some editors from Kenya from Uganda, Congo et cetera so that's one of the factors that if we do have conferences we can have some sessions that are aiming to do some more provide some capacity building on how can we contribute to the Swahili Wikipedia because now Swahili the language that is not only spoken to Tanzania or Kenya but a lot of the static countries are already adopted as a working language so thank you Kipala for your contribution and yes East Africa also can be looking forward to learn how to contribute to Swahili Wikipedia thank you so much I think we have one minute to go and we can save this minute to thank everyone who has tuned in to watch this session and yeah I think where are we telling them we are meeting next is it at the is it at the wiki endeavor or where are we meeting next at East Africa wiki endeavor but then wiki mania has just started so we have three more days ahead of us we meet in the other sessions so enjoy wiki mania and thank you for watching wherever you make out thank you so much everyone indeed we have the community village thank you so much for joining