AfLIA receives grant from Wikimedia Foundation

6 JULY 2020

AfLIA is pleased to announce that it has received a grant of $54,098 from Wikimedia Foundation. The grant is to enable AfLIA employ the services of a Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) for one year among other activities. The WiR will work alongside a Curriculum Development Consultant and the AfLIA team to adapt the OCLC ‘Wikipedia + Libraries Better Together’ curriculum for the sole purpose of making it more relatable to African Librarians. 

Dr. Helena Asamoah-Hassan, Executive Director, AfLIA

AfLIA is particularly pleased that the course which will run in two Cohorts is geared towards equipping African librarians and Library educators with the requisite skills to become active digital citizens in collaborative spaces who can help tell our stories and accurately amplify Africa’s voice in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia which has more than 54 million articles in different languages and has grown to be the world’s largest reference website. It is expected that the course will train at least 10 librarians each from 30 African countries who will be able to carry out community outreaches and help their different user communities to be adept at using the resource for learning, research and telling their own stories.

Monthly updates about the Project will be provided on the grant page in WikiMeta – https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/AfLIA/Wikipedia_in_African_Libraries. Furthermore, anyone who is interested in learning more about the project, and wishes to follow the progress of the project through regular updates can submit his/her email address to afliacomm@aflia.net requesting for ‘Regular Updates, AfLIA Wikipedia Project’.