Knowledge, Creativity and Activism

Moleskine Foundation and Constitution Hill partnered with Afropunk Army to run an AfroCuration edit-a-thon session under the theme ‘Writing Black Women into History’ in Johannesburg, December 29th, 2019.

Photo: This segment of the youth in South Africa are digital natives, and both politically engaged and opinionated. Technology plays a huge role in their lives. Aged between 18 and 25, they got used to the Wikipedia platform in no time.

Over 60 young South Africans attended to create 70 articles, which have since been viewed over 60K times. Afropunk Global Initiative (AGI) is the civic engagement arm of the Afropunk music festival and online community. Its tentpole program is the volunteer corps, Afropunk Army, which serves as a central hub for taking action, volunteering and garnering awareness for critical social justice issues that are dismantling communities.

The opening panel talk on the day , contextualizing what the WikiAfrica Education program is, the aims of the AfroCuration format, and the need for a vehicle like this within South African society was delivered by Moleskine Foundation CEO Adama Sanneh, Lwando Xaso, project manager for the Constitution Hill Trust as well as historian and constitutional lawyer, and chaired by Manushka Magloire who is the Global Head of the Afropunk Army Initiative

With 3,000+ members in Johannesburg, the cultural power of the collective drives progressive social change within society. Young South Africans from the Afropunk Army were the participants who expanded the scope of digital storytelling on Wikipedia by adding new content, and discussing key new learnings and critical reflections from the session. For AfroCuration in December, Constitution Hill developed the theme “Writing Black Women into History: 12 female artists and activists erased by history, who are essential to South African culture”. This theme was chosen in light of gender inequality and violence in South Africa, and also in response to a deep area of under representation in the cultural movement. The theme was divided into 2 sub themes; activists and artists. This was a thematic continuation from the October event’s content.

Photo: Participants talking over the content they are editing and ensuring to have funwhilst writing

Due to the participant demographic, adjustment was made to the language selection to accommodate: isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho and English. Each article was written in 4 languages, meaning participants were assigned an article, and then could choose a language to write in.

The 12 Black Women the participants wrote about were 6 activists:

Ruth Mompati, Phumzile Ngcuka, Veronica Sobukwe, Madie-Hall Xuma, Barbara Masekela, Cecilie Palmer;

and 6 artists:

Letta Mbulu, Busi Mhlongo, Lebo Mathosa, Thandiswa Mazwai, Sho Madjozi, Pélagie Gbaguidi.

Bobby Shabangu leaning over a student’s computer to assist them. Bobby, and the other supporting Wikimedians Rossouw and Howard, used their knowledge to ensure people were not just performing a task, but understanding and engaging with the technology in a meaningful way.

Discover more on Wiki Africa Education program on Moleskine Foundation website.

This article was originally published in March 2020 in Folios n.2 “We, The People”, the Moleskine Foundation cultural publication.