WikiHeritage Fellowship

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WikiHeritage Fellowship'" is a project organized by Wikimedia User Group Nigeria registered as (Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation) in collaboration with heritage and cultural institutions to digitize and transform Nigerian archival and cultural materials into accessible, well-sourced digital content, enhancing the global visibility of Nigeria's rich heritage. The inaugural edition is organised in collaboration with Young Innovation Leaders Fellowship (YIL) Fellowship and Lagos State Records and Archive Bureau (LASRAB).

Context

GLAM context

Cultural heritage tells us how our societies are formed and our common history. Sharing Nigeria cultural heritage on the web has an incredible potential for increasing knowledge, awareness and understanding of our common heritage. The digitisation of the world's cultural expressions is in an early phase with experience and expertise unevenly distributed. There is currently no worldwide database of the world's museums, archives and libraries and their collections.

Background

Nigeria possesses a wealth of cultural and historical resources that remain inadequately documented, digitised, and accessible to the public. Much of this valuable heritage is stored in physical archives or remains within communities as oral history. Bridging the gap between archival records and public access is crucial for preserving Nigeria's heritage and ensuring inclusive participation in the global knowledge movement. To address this, Wikimedia UG Nigeria (WUGN), registered as ( Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation), in collaboration with the Young Innovation Leaders (YIL) Institute and Lagos State Records and Archives Bureau (LASRAB), is launching the WikiHeritage Fellowship aimed at empowering Nigerian youth and professionals to digitise, curate, and share historical and cultural materials via a digital public good such as Wikipedia.

Problem Statement

Nigeria’s vast cultural and historical resources remain largely undocumented and inaccessible on global open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia. This digital gap restricts global understanding and local engagement with Nigeria’s heritage. Challenges include poor access to archival materials, limited metadata and contextualization, reliance on non-authoritative sources, and a shortage of skilled, youth-led contributors. Without strategic digitization and capacity-building efforts, vital narratives risk being lost or excluded from global knowledge ecosystems.

Objectives

To identify, digitise, and upload archival materials of historical relevance from LASRAB and other sources aimed at improving readership of Nigerian content on the internet.
To train young Nigerians on the use of Wikimedia platforms for heritage documentation.
To enhance the visibility of Nigerian history and culture on Wikimedia projects.
To foster a network of young leaders committed to open knowledge and cultural preservation.

Approach

The WikiHeritage Fellowship will run over 12 weeks (with an additional 3-week pre-fellowship training phase). It will involve:

Capacity-building workshops and edit-a-thons

Archival fieldwork and metadata development Community storytelling and local language content creation

Public engagement via blogs, podcasts, and digital exhibitions
We design the project to align with Wikimedia's advocacy for digital inclusion, open access, and youth empowerment.

Target Participants

Young Nigerians with an interest in history,story-telling, archives, Wikimedia, journalism, and cultural documentation

Expected Outcomes

Hundreds of historical documents digitise and freely accessible
New or improved Wikipedia articles enriched with verified sources
Increased public awareness of Lagos and Nigeria's cultural history
A cadre of trained youth contributing to Wikimedia and advocacy work

Timeline

Application Launch: 18 June 2025 Application Close: 30 June 2025 Program Start: July 2025

Activities

1. Curated Wikipedia and Wikimedia project Contributions

We bring together data on cultural heritage institutions on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sister projects, providing a free to use worldwide database of cultural heritage institutions in Nigeria and their collections which can be used in education, the digitization of cultural heritage, crisis situations, tourism and more. We will bring together existing datasets and work with partners to survey cultural organisations and other knowledge holders to fill gaps.

Work with partners to collate existing databases of Nigeria cultural organisations into a central list of databases, prioritising countries where cultural organisations are threatened.

2. Build a fellowship program

Run a fellowship to train specific indivuals on wikimedia topics and other archivist sessions. Thereafter they make cobtributions on the Wikimedia projects.

We will encourage the fellows to integrate the content made available through our partnered organizations during this project into Wikipedia articles and other Wikimedia sites to bring it to a global audience. Additionally will encourage the creation of tools to explore the data to help people to explore it in new ways.
We will run hackathons and other events to experiment with new ways to explore the information including a worldwide map of cultural heritage institutions.
Encourage the integration of the data into Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia through the use of Wikidata generated infoboxes, graphs, maps and other visualisations.
We will organize events including workshops and edit-a-thons, for volunteers interested in working with the content made available during the project.
We will conduct online activities on the Wikimedia projects to increase visibility and use of the material made available.
Certification and Recognition: Official recognition from Wikimedia Nigeria and YIL Fellowship
Sustained Engagement: Access to Alumni Network and opportunities for continued contribution.

3. Expand our network and develop new relationships

Upload the data on institutions and their collections to Wikidata, developing best practices for structuring diverse areas of cultural heritage information on one platform.
Work with Wikimedia organisations and other partners to expand our network to include the cultural heritage organizations, universities, researchers and others needed to make the project successful.
Work with partners to understanding how Wikimedia projects can support digitization and sharing knowledge and what ways organisations and individuals want to use the data.
Maintain communication and share knowledge and opportunities through Facebook groups, email, wiki pages, and physical and online meetings.

4. Support cultural heritage institutions to share their media content on Wikimedia

We will work with cultural heritage institutions to share their content on Wikimedia to help bring it to a worldwide audience. We will provide practical help to bring media files to Wikimedia, providing visibility to cultural heritage institutions and their collections, regardless of their location, size or resources. These efforts provide the practical basis for case studies, which in turn make it easier for new GLAM institutions to use the Wikimedia projects in the future.

How to be involved

If you are interested in any of these activities we would love to hear from you (please email infowikimedia.org.ng)

Share your knowledge about datasets
Share content from your cultural organisation
Reuse the data
Help us share information about the project