Wikimedia South Africa

What we do

Wikimedia South Africa is a non-profit organization that promotes free knowledge that is freely accessible to all. We support Wikipedia and its sister projects by encouraging volunteers whilst working to make knowledge and education more accessible for all.

About us

Wikimedia South Africa (ZA) is a non-profit volunteer membership organisation that exists to promote open knowledge, community, and outreach in the southern Africa region. Wikimedia South Africa is affiliated with, but fully independent from, the global Wikimedia movement that includes over 40 other chapters and user groups around the world in addition to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit foundation that is best known for running Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Open knowledge

At Wikimedia South Africa, we champion open knowledge - precise, impartial information that is freely accessible to all. Knowledge that is free to use, reuse, and redistribute without legal, social, or technological restriction. We promote free access to open knowledge at the individual, organisational, sectoral and public policy levels. The chapter strives to sustain and develop the open knowledge movement through active outreach activities and community support.

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Community

At Wikimedia South Africa, our mission is to foster a thriving community of volunteers, editors, and chapter members who sustain the open knowledge movement. To achieve this, we provide a range of services. From hosting open knowledge community meetups, to organising high quality training, competitions, community engagements and representation, and other forms of support to facilitate their open knowledge volunteer activities.

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Outreach

Wikimedia South Africa collaborates with cultural and education sectors to create and promote innovative approaches that foster participation in Wikimedia projects. By partnering with other organisations, we aim to eliminate barriers to entry and add new content to the digital commons that will benefit all.

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The process to become a member of Wikimedia South Africa is simple. Simply fill-out the membership form (the button below) and then make a donation of any amount to the chapter. If you have any questions then please contact us.

Become a member

Wikimedia Projects

Wikimedia South Africa supports the open knowledge movement primarily by supporting the growth of Wikimedia project wikis. Here are some of the Wikimedia projects we are focused on.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Wikimedia Commons, a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos, and other media.

Wikidata, a collaboratively edited repository for open data.

There are over 11 other open knowledge Wikimedia projects that we help support. You can see a complete list of them here.

Chapter activities

Community support

As a membership organisation for Wiki editors in South Africa we run activities and projects to keep our community of unpaid volunteer editors strong, both within South Africa and in the wider southern Africa region. The chapter also connects our community with the global open knowledge movement.

Community resources

Training

Wikimedia South Africa supports the growth of the open knowledge movement by running workshops and running editathons that introduce new volunteer editors to contribute to the Wikis, such as Wikipedia. If you want to learn more about getting started on Wikipedia then please let us know; alternatively you can learn more by clicking on the button below.

Edit Wikipedia

Supporting the Open Movement

Another way Wikimedia South Africa supports the growth of the open knowledge movement is by supporting the work of mission aligned organisations. These range from open and free software that we encourage the use of to advocacy groups that support our free knowledge mission.

Open movement

Advocacy

Learn more about Wikimedia South Africa’s efforts to support Wiki editors & contributors in our region through advocacy. Wikimedia South Africa has been working on getting Freedom of Panorama adopted into copyright law since 2012.

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Keeping informed

Want to be kept informed of all of the latest news happening in the global Wiki community? Then checkout Wikimedia Diff. A community blog by, and for, the Wikimedia movement.

Wikimedia Diff

The Signpost is the Wikimedia movement's online newspaper. Managed by the volunteer community, it is published online with contributions from Wikimedia editors.

The Signpost

Join our email mailing list. It is the best and most reliable way to be kept informed of chapter events and projects. You will also learn about a number of events involving the global Wiki community.

WMZA mailing list

We keep a record of all of our meeting minutes and reports on Metawiki. You can see an old version of our website on the Wayback Machine here.

Chapter records

Learn more about Wikimedia South Africa’s founding values including our mission statement, articles of association and memorandum of incorporation.

Our values

African language Wikipedias

Wikipedia is available in many different language versions. Wikimedia South Africa strives to promote the growth of Wikipedia in all of the languages of southern Africa. Below are the 5 most active African language Wikipedias in South Africa.