African & Proud (AP)/Strategic Plans/2025

African & Proud (Afroyanga Cultural Enlightenment Initiative) is committed to empowering African youth by preserving cultural heritage, promoting knowledge sharing, and fostering meaningful participation through open-source platforms. Our 2025 strategic plan aims to expand our impact by enhancing existing projects and launching new initiatives that align with our youth-focused mission.

Theory of change

In 2025, African & Proud (AP) aims to evolve its Pan-African cultural movement by addressing lessons learned from previous years, particularly focusing on inclusivity and localized support. The overarching goal is to create a more inclusive, vibrant, and empowered network of young African cultural custodians who can accurately document and amplify their heritage. Through strategic local partnerships, capacity building, and youth empowerment, AP will ensure cultural narratives are shaped by the communities themselves, presented equitably across Africa, and made accessible globally.

The 'why'

In 2024, African & Proud's expansion revealed gaps in our ability to support participants equitably, particularly in terms of localized training, access to resources, and language diversity. This was most notable in CultureConnect, but the learning extends across all our programs—underscoring the importance of local partnerships to cater to diverse cultural and linguistic needs. Additionally, we recognize that empowering young Africans is key to sustaining the Wikimedia movement. By building digital literacy, leadership, and mentorship, we can ensure that youth have the capacity to take ownership of cultural narratives and lead the community into the future. The focus for 2025, therefore, is to address these gaps by creating a more inclusive, accessible, and resilient system for cultural documentation, capacity building, and sustainable leadership pathways enabling a thriving and well supported community across multiple African regions. Additionally, engaging and empowering African youth is crucial for sustaining the Wikimedia movement and ensuring that cultural narratives are authentically represented by those who live them.

The 'what'

In 2025, AP aims to:

Establish localized partnerships, starting with the Dagbani User Group in Ghana, to ensure the capacity for local-language training and context-specific cultural support during CultureConnect Africa 2025.
Expand CultureConnect to effectively involve more diverse communities from across African countries, creating an authentic, collaborative representation of African culture. In 2025, we will initiate our first official partnership with the Dagbani User Group in Ghana, which will allow us to hold a localized project. While this first partnership focuses on just one country, we see the value in starting small. This approach ensures that our solution is scalable—enabling us to learn from this initial experience and then expand further in subsequent years. It's an iterative process, akin to trial and error, where we learn, refine, and grow.
Empower youth in Nigeria and Ghana to build a robust, youth-driven cultural movement that documents and shares African heritage.
Develop community leadership pathways that ensure sustainability, with young contributors evolving into cultural mentors.

The 'how'

CultureConnect: Continue documenting African cultural elements and refine the approach to include more culturally diverse and language-accessible resources.

Afroyanga Bootcamp 3.0: Conduct training sessions in Nigeria, focusing on equipping local leaders who can provide support in their own languages, creating a self-sustaining model of mentorship.

WikiClassroom Project: Engage with high schools to build awareness around the value of Wikimedia platforms in academic research. Address misconceptions about Wikipedia’s reliability by presenting it as a strong starting point for research, and introduce students to other platforms like Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, and Wikidata. Create Wikimedia fan clubs within schools that provide capacity-building opportunities to students, guiding them in understanding and contributing to Wikimedia.

Localized Training and Resources: Work with local user groups to create contextually relevant and language-specific resources, addressing the gaps identified in 2024.

Community Retention and Mentorship: Focus on retaining community members by nurturing young contributors and mentoring them into leadership roles, ensuring sustained contributions.

Strategic priorities for 2025

Expand youth engagement and regional impact

Decentralize projects to engage youth across Nigeria and Ghana in partnership with groups like the Dagbani User Group.
Scale up initiatives to increase youth participation and deepen community engagement.

Capacity building and leadership development for youths and communities

Develop local capacity through youth mentorship programs, targeting skill-building and leadership development.
Enhance digital literacy and advocacy skills through structured bootcamps and workshops.

Promote youth-driven cultural representation on global platforms

Encourage youth to create content in various African languages and document diverse cultural expressions on Wikimedia platforms.
Incorporate visual documentation projects to capture underrepresented aspects of African culture, such as local festivals.

Ensure sustainability through community-building and retention

Build long-term relationships with youth organizations, educational institutions, and cultural bodies.
Retain youth contributors through post-project activities, sustained mentorship, and community engagement.

Key projects and objectives for 2025

Culture connect africa (Nigeria and Ghana)

Expand project to involve youth in Nigeria and Ghana, focusing on African Film & Cinema, AfroCuisine, and AfroFestival (with visual documentation).
Objectives: Engage 1,000 youth participants, create 500+ new media files, and add content in 5-7 African languages.

Afroyanga bootcamp 3.0

Host a residential bootcamp in Lagos with 50 youth participants, focusing on capacity building, mentorship, and professional development.
Objectives: Achieve a 50% mentorship conversion rate, foster youth leadership, and sustain community engagement.

WikiClassroom project

Relaunch in multiple Nigerian states (Anambra, Abuja, Ibadan) to promote Wikimedia as a research tool among high school youth.
Objectives: Engage 300+ high school students, train 50+ teachers, and recruit 100 new youth contributors.

Legal accessibility initiative (Nigeria)

Make Nigerian Supreme Court cases accessible through Wikidata, engaging young legal professionals and law students.
Objectives: Digitize and upload 200+ legal documents, engage with 100+ youth contributors, and raise public awareness.

Community engagement and training initiatives

Quarterly catch-Up meetings

We will organize quarterly meetings to engage with our community, provide updates, and maintain active participation. Out of the four sessions planned for the year, at least one will be a physical meet-up to foster deeper connections and collaboration.

Bi-monthly onboarding trainings

Our volunteers will host training sessions every two months to support new members in the community, providing them with guidance, resources, and a soft landing into our projects and initiatives. Objectives: Strengthen community bonds, ensure sustained engagement, and support new contributors, maintaining at least 70% active participation throughout the year.

Partnerships and collaboration

Internal partnerships

Collaborate with Wikimedia communities like the Dagbani User Group to enhance youth engagement and content diversity.

External partnerships

Partner with youth organizations, educational institutions, and cultural bodies to support project implementation and sustainability.

Monitoring and evaluation

Develop metrics focused on youth and community engagement, new content creation, mentorship conversion rates, and community retention. Conduct mid-year and end-of-year reviews to evaluate impact, gather feedback, and adjust strategies.

Financial strategy

Diversify funding through grants, youth-focused sponsorships, and community contributions to ensure financial sustainability.

Future directions

Plan for expansion to other African countries based on insights gained in 2025.
Focus on new opportunities like digital storytelling, advanced data management, and youth advocacy training.