AfroCROWD talk on Wiki Diasporas at Wikimania 2023: transcript

Key points

• AfroCROWD began in 2015 at a library in Brooklyn, founded by Alice Backer, who did not see herself represented on Wikipedia.
• The group has expanded across the United States, the Caribbean and Africa, working with schools, GLAM institutions, grassroots groups and others.
• Antoine says less than 10 percent of Wikipedia participants are people of African descent, and that diaspora connection drives interest in the work.
• Examples include a class on African diaspora languages in New York, the African Student Union at MIT, and events in Ghana and Puerto Rico.
• Mermoz Adodo says Wikimedia Benin works with AfroCROWD to fill the information gap on Africa and let Africans tell their own story.
• He says the aims are more contributors, skills exchange across regions such as Togo and the Caribbean, and demystifying who can contribute to Wikipedia.

Chapters

1. 0:05Introductions and the speakers on the panel
2. 1:13AfroCROWD's history, founding and methods
3. 3:34What diaspora means and why it drives the work
4. 5:47Partner events: schools, MIT, Ghana and Puerto Rico
5. 9:18A small initiative built on partnerships
6. 12:20Mermoz Adodo on Wikimedia Benin and the information gap
7. 14:49Skills exchange and demystifying contribution
8. 16:45Joining projects across Africa and the diaspora

Full transcript

0:05Hi, 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 and 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.

0:37Mehmoz Adodo from Wikimedia Benin, who's an Afro Crowd liaison. Linda Fletcher, who's the Wiki coach at Afro Crowd Associated Wiki Club Alkibellan. Carmen Collymore, who's an Afro Crowder, who is also a part of Wiki Alkibellan. In short, Afro Crowd is an initiative to champion and increase awareness of the African diaspora on Wikipedia. You can read through the long version. We've been around since 2015, and we've been working throughout, since almost the beginning.

1:13We'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,

2:17who founded AfroCrowd, 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'm still here, we worked tirelessly to find ways, lots of different ways, whether it's a translatathon, which focuses on translating articles on Wikipedia, or whether it's trying different modes of connection, both online, in person, and elsewhere.

2:57and so many other ways. We enjoy 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.

3:34Diaspora meaning those, in our case, those living outside of African continent, whether it be the most recent from the transatlantic safe trade, some of y'all can Wikipedia that later, or those more... It's 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.

4:14oh 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 percent 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 from many different backgrounds, cultures, And also, we've had a presence in Africa.

5:09The folks down here are from Mali, 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.

5:47And, of course, AfroCrowd, 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 attempt to always be flexible to what our partners desire as well as what our mission is. as long as this matches our mission, we work with the partner and their aims as well.

6:21For example, if you take a look at the bottom right, you'll see partners at a school, a college 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 focused on African diaspora languages, and the students work to create articles in this, as well as different forms of wiki contributions.

6:59If 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.

7:31And 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...

8:02Is 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.

8:41We also had a Wikipedian 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 that diaspora there. So you see there's just so many ways to connect. I want to touch on this briefly. Actually 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.

9:18For example, diasporans in the Caribbean, in small towns, and also in cities where the, 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 AfroCrowd is a small initiative. We began, like I said, with one person, expanded to two people.

9:52And 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 um since our beginning days but it began as a meetup a small meetup and an idea of a wikipedian who wanted to make a difference who by the way is part of the haitian diaspora um as well and i am also part of the caribbean diaspora um since then uh people have come to our events um 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.

10:42To continue to connect through with us as liaisons in their community. And we have one such person here today by the name of Melk Mose Adodo. So without further ado, I want you to listen to their story and why they connected with AfroCrowd to extend the arms of what we can do within the world, and especially in our connection and our connective tissue with diasporans, as well as those wanting, in general, to participate in the phenomenon of Wikipedia and Wikimedia.

11:14Please, Mernos. Please give him a round of applause. One moment as we switch slides. You mentioned that some of this is going to be in French.

11:45So if you are with us on Eventye, there should be translation available for you. And I'm going to do my best to translate some of what Mermos has said. Please. What? Ah oui. Tu peux continuer où je te parlais?

12:20Hello everyone, my name is Mermoz Adodo, I am founder of Wikimedia Bene, since we started working with Cherie Afro-Crodes. Et l'objectif, c'est de collecter AfroCode avec toute l'Afrique et sa diaspora parce que nous avons remarqué que l'Afrique, il y a un gap informationnel au niveau de l'Afrique et qu'il est très important que nous-mêmes puissions travailler à le combler.

12:57C'est dans ce cadre-là que nous avons commencé à travailler, à faire une connexion avec AfroCode et plusieurs personnes, plusieurs pays se sont joués à nous. When you see, for example, the potential of Africa, it's that there are more than 300 million internautes in Africa, but what do we do with these internautes? What do we do with the connection? It's that the people share just information.

13:28Alors, nous sommes en train de travailler à ce que les gens puissent utiliser l'Internet grâce à AfroCloud pour partager l'information, pour combler ce fossé informationnel là sur l'Afrique. Parce que nous avons remarqué que quand on présente l'Afrique, c'est surtout la fin, les guerres et tout ça, donc nous voulons partir de là pour pouvoir combler le fossé informationnel. Ok, pour 300 millions d'habitants. pour les Africains c'est important de faire partie de la racontation de leur propre histoire est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un ici qui peut parler en français meilleur que moi?

14:13non? ah oui, je traduis en anglais mais s'il vous plaît continuez vite, merci Okay. Well, please continue in French and I will do my best. And so, the objective for us is to work so that we can increase the number of contributors. There are a lot more contributors that are written on Africa and its diaspora. There are many Africans who have contributed both in Africa and the diaspora.

14:49Okay. Faire le transfert de compétences, c'est-à-dire échanger ce que, chérie, elle a comme connaissance et partage avec nous. Si c'est le Togo, le Togo partage avec nous. Si c'est le Caraïbes, le Caraïbes partage avec nous. Et nous allons faire, voilà, un échange de culture et de connaissance. By participating with the Afro Crowd, as well as bringing in folks from places like Togo and elsewhere, we've been able to exchange knowledge, exchange experience and culture.

15:19We also want to work to demystify the contribution to Wikipedia, because there are some who think that to contribute to Wikipedia, you have to go to school, you have to have a competence. We want to demystify that so that everyone can contribute to it. If it's Wikipedia, then people can contribute. If it's a photo, then people can contribute. If it's a Wikisource, then people can contribute. So that's why we want to work with AfroCrod. We, I'm going to just read from there. We're going to make a, we exchange skills and editors with editors that exist. We gave, we create articles and update articles in Wikipedia on Africa and people of African descent.

16:10and 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 and that's some of the reasons why we work with AfroCrowd. So, join us in the project that you have, if it's a photographic course, if it's a bibliography course, if it's a project related to biodiversity, you can join us.

16:45We will be able to work together, whether in Togo, whether in Madagascar, whether in Guinea, whether in the Caraïbes, whether anywhere you can join us. We've participated with places like Togo and Madagascar. uh which other places ben of course benning uh beckina faso and more so guinea with uh different projects sorry i'll just don't make it but um we need to stick to time and i know there's transport uh translation which takes double time so keep in mind we do have to stick to time so i think you get the the idea that we have quite a good connection that's building within the group if you see in here this comes from one of the photo walks that we've done with wiki benin and africa as well as with other folks who participated and the kind of contributions that this kind of partnership creates

17:45for those hoping to maintain a connection with africa as well as increased knowledge and competencies can't be understated. Thank you very much, Memos, for your dedication.

Source and licence

Recording: File:Wikimania 2023 - AfroCROWD Talk on Wiki Diasporas.webm by Wikimania 2023 (2023-08-19), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. The transcript, summary and chapters on this page are shared under the same licence (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.