Wiki In Africa is pleased to announce that the winners of the Wiki Loves Africa photographic and media competition were declared at Wiki Indaba in Tunis. The international jury had the daunting task of selecting the final set of amazing photographs depicting people working across the continent from a record 18,294 photographs (entered by 2,473 people). Other prizes for photo essays were chosen by the organisers and fellow Wikimedians. There are 6 winners at the international level.
In addition to these prizes above, and in a new category devised for this year, there were prizes given to photographic collections or photo essays that illustrated either Women at Work or Rare or Traditional ways of working. There was an amazing response to this request. You can read more about the category and the criteria for selection here and view the photo essays that were submitted.
The winners in the photo essay category for Rare or Threatened Traditional Ways of Working was The making of thatch in Nigeria by user:Eric Atie and the winner for the category Women at Work was Zanzibar seaweeds in Tanzania by user:Rachelclarareed.
Congratulations to all of the winners !!
In 2017 Wiki Loves Africa celebrated People at Work as the central theme for the annual visual celebration of Africa’s cultural diversity on Wikipedia. The competition ran from the 1st October to 30th November 2017 and entries were welcome from anywhere on the continent and beyond.
Everyone was encouraged to contribute relevant photos to the competition. Events were held in 11 countries – Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Tunisia – to build Wikipedia savvy communities around the competition. These events took on the form of introductory workshops, photographic excursions and upload sessions . The events also encouraged ongoing pride in local heritage and cultural practice, as well as to foster a culture of contribution to the internet to shake up the single story of Africa.
For the last four years, the Wiki Loves Africa contest has encouraged the donation of around 40,000 photographs to Wikimedia Commons for potential use on Wikipedia. In the first year, under the theme Cuisine, 873 people contributed 6,116 photographs. Cultural fashion and adornment was the theme for the next year, 2015, which saw 722 people contribute over 7,500 photographs. In 2016, Music and Dance contributed 7917 files from 836 people. In 2017, under the theme “People at Work” 18,294 photographs were entered by 2,473 people.
Wiki Loves Africa is activated by the Wikimedia community that created Wikipedia in support of WikiAfrica movement. The competition was conceptualised and is managed by Florence Devouard and Isla Haddow-Flood of Wiki In Africa as a fun and engaging way to rebalance the lack of visual representations and relevant content that exists about Africa on Wikipedia. The competition is supported by Ynternet.org. It is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and supported in-kind by UNESCO and a host of local partners in individual countries. The images donated are available for use on the internet and beyond, under the Creative Commons license CC BY SA 4.0.
###
USEFUL INFORMATION:
Key Links:
- On Wikimedia Commons: http://bit.ly/WikiLovesAfrica2017
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WikiLovesAfrica
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/WikiLovesAfrica
- Winners: https://commons.wikimedia.org/…/Commons:Wiki_Loves_…/Winners
- Photo Essays: http://bit.ly/WLA17PhotoEssay
- Local Events: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2017/Local_events
Media release by Wiki In Africa
For international media queries contact:
English: Isla Haddow-Flood
Cell: +27 76 077 3135
Email: isla @ wikiinafrica.org
French: Florence Devouard
Cell: +33 645 60 62 77
Email: fdevouard @ anthere.org
NOTES FOR THE EDITOR:
LOCAL ORGANISING TEAMS
To see what’s going locally and to contact the teams, please click here.
PRIZES:
- 1st prize: US$600
- 2nd prize: US$400
- 3rd prize: US$200
- Organiser’s prize: US$200
- Winner of Women at Work Photo Essays: US$200
- Winner of Rare and Endangered Work Practices Photo Essays: US$200
Each winner will also receive a Wiki Loves Africa branded power pack and a Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt.
INTERNATIONAL JURORS
Born in Cape Town in 1962, David Brazier studied photography at the Harare Polytechnic after which he travelled extensively with his camera. In the early 1990’s he founded a small professional studio in Harare focusing on architectural, environmental and development assignments and worked as a stringer for Agence France Press in Harare. His architectural work has been published in the New York Times, the International Ove Arup Journal and the Architectural Review. His photos have been featured in the Zimbabwean Review journal, Revue Noire, the cover of TIME Magazine (Africa), National Geographic Africa, Claiming Landscapes, Warscapes, Ogogii magazine. www.davidbrazier.photography
Doris Anson-Yevu aka Kafui is a Ghanaian photographer and social entrepreneur. She is the founder of Photowalk Ghana and works as Programme Manager at Impact Hub Accra. Find her work on www.flickr.com/photos/kafuiday. Follow her on www.instagram.com/kafuiday and www.twitter.com/kafuiday.
Habib M’Henniis a long time Wikipedian and Wikimedia, amateur photographer, and contributor to Wikimedia Commons. He is very actively involved in Wikimedia Tunisia User Group]. He also was a member in Wiki Loves Africa Jury from 2014 to 2017. Contact: http://about.me/habibmhenni
Ibtihel Zaatouri is a Tunisian photographer and a French language teacher. She created an ONG of Tunisian photographers in 2012 in Tunisia and participated in many exhibitions. Her photos are published on the cover of the German newspapers DW and Ijab magazine also in web journals. Her photographs can be found under her Flickr channel: www.flickr.com/photos/ibtihel_zaatouri
Jacques Kouao is a professional photographer who, with bloggers and friends, decided to visit various cities of Ivory Coast in search of these men and women that provide real and pragmatic solutions to the problems of their communities. The story of their adventures since January 2015 is available on helloafrika.net. Jacques is also co-founder of the Wikimedia User Group Ivory Coast.
Michael Maggs is the Chair of Wikimedia UK and is an administrator and bureaucrat on Wikimedia Commons. He has been a keen photographer for many years. Examples of recent projects to record theatre and opera performances can be found here and here.
Sebastiaan Ter-Berg is a dedicated open-licenced photographer who is based in the Netherlands.
RULES OF THE COMPETITION
- Media can only self-uploaded or uploaded during a registered mass upload session by the person who took that image.
- Media can only be entered during October and November 2017. The media can have been created at any time; e.g. historic photographs can be entered as long as you own the copyright.
- All entries will have to have the following licence: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0).
- All eligible pictures must be categorised under Wiki Loves Africa 2017. This is assigned during the upload process.
- Any entries with watermarks or signatures embedded on the image or file will be disqualified.
- Participants must register on Wikimedia Commons and have e-mail enabled to be eligible for prizes.
ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED IN THE COMPETITION
About Wiki In Africa
Wiki In Africa empowers and engages the citizens of Africa and its diaspora to collect, develop and contribute open educational and relevant content that relates to the theme of Africa under a free license; and to engage in global knowledge systems by encouraging access to, awareness of, and support for open knowledge, the open movement and the Wikimedia projects, working in collaboration with like-minded organisations.
Wiki In Africa is a non-profit organisation that is based in South Africa. It is the financial and legal structure that operates global initiatives in support of the WikiAfrica movement. The organisation is currently lead by Iolanda Pensa, Florence Devouard and Isla Haddow-Flood.
During 2018 it is working on WikiFundi and the WikiChallenge African Schools (funded by the Orange Foundation), WikiAfrica Schools (in collaboration with the Moleskine Foundation), Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women.
About WikiAfrica
WikiAfrica is an international movement that takes place on the African continent and beyond. It encourages individuals, interested groups and organisations to create, expand and enhance online content about Africa. This involves motivating for the representation of the continent’s contemporary realities and history, its peoples and its innovations on the world’s most used encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. WikiAfrica is not owned by one organisation and it belongs to all people and organisations contributing to its scope.
In its various guises and hosted at several institutions (including lettera27, Africa Centre, Ynternet.org, Short Story Day Africa, Wikimedia CH and Wiki In Africa), the WikiAfrica movement has consistently instigated and led multi-faceted innovative projects. These projects have activated communities and driven content onto Wikipedia. Examples include Share Your Knowledge, #OpenAfrica training Courses and Toolkits, Kumusha Bus (in Ethiopia and Ghana), WikiEntrepreneur (in Ethiopia and Malawi), Kumusha Takes Wiki (Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda), Wikipedia Primary (funded by SUPSI), Wikipack Africa, WikiAfrica Schools, WikiFundi, WikiChallenge, WikiAfrica Schools, Wiki Loves Women and Wiki Loves Africa.
www.wikiafrica.org
About Ynternet.org
Ynternet.org Foundation was created in 1998 on the invitation of Swiss Confederation to facilitate, identify and promote new learning culture within digital environments. In 2006 it changed its status from association to foundation, as an independent body within civil society. Based in the university campus of Battelle (Geneva, Switzerland), it is serving public interest in multilateral projects and private-public partnership. 60-80 contributors each year, including experts, social entrepreneurs and volunteers, are contributing to Ynternet.org mission of promoting responsible behaviours in digital environment. Ynternet.org has been successfully audited for its activities (2013 – 2015), at European level, both as coordinator and partner on two separate EU projects.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is the nonprofit charitable organisation that is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, a top-ten internet property.
