WikiLinguila/reports/Annual/2025

The WikiLinguila presents its annual report on this page, outlining its achievements and activities organized for the year 2025.

Activities and Achievements

Happy 20th birthday, Wikipedia lingála !

The year 2025 begins with a landmark celebration: the first in-person anniversary of Lingála Wikipedia. As announced in Diff in July and August 2024, January 9 remains a symbolic date for this linguistic version of Wikipedia. This date marks the 20th anniversary of its creation, with a ceremony organized in person for the very first time, after several years of online celebrations. The event aims to honor the essential contributions of its first two administrators, Moyogo and Bombo (also known as Eruedin), who played a decisive role in the development of this encyclopedia from its inception. Their hard work enabled Lingála Wikipedia to thrive, with a historic first contribution dating back to January 9, 2005. These pioneers also initiated the community's first celebrations, which took place between 2006 and 2013.

This anniversary marks a turning point with the first communication published in Lingála on the Wikimedia Foundation's Diff blog.

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WikiLinguila Collaboration Between the Ministry of Culture in the DRC, Mikanda Network and Wallonie-Bruxelles

On February 11, 2025, at the request of Minister Yollande Elebe Ma Ndembo, the WikiLinguila representatives were invited to meet with Paul Le Perc Ngoie, cultural advisor at the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage, to seek institutional support for the WikiForMotherTongue campaign.

As a result of this meeting, a favorable agreement was reached, paving the way for the event to be projected over several consecutive years. WikiLinguila aims to establish this campaign as an annual conference, dedicated to the promotion of mother tongues, with a particular focus on Congolese national languages.

Additionally, Cultural Advisor Ngoie provided an important clarification, stating that an upcoming presidential decree will officially recognize the four national languages, making them mandatory for use at all levels within public and private institutions.

On February 17, 2025, he meeting was held at the Karibuni Library a Work Planning within the Mikanda Network, moderated by Jerôme Mutombo, coordinator of the MIKANDA network and head of the media library at the French Institute of Kinshasa (IFK). The necessity of planning each institution's activities and maintaining monthly meetings on the last Monday of each month was emphasized.

Meetings will preferably be held during working hours at a selected partner institution. Oral recordings were presented as an innovative contribution to promoting local languages. WikiLinguila shared the presentation of activities related to the digitization of local (minority) languages on Wikipedia.The meeting concluded with a meal, a group photo, and a visit to the book exhibition on local languages.

On February 27, 2025, a discussion took place between the WikiLinguila representatives and Cécile Djunga, director of the Wallonie-Bruxelles Cultural Center, to assess the feasibility of WikiForMotherTongue 2026. The goal was to replicate the 2025 edition while introducing a key adjustment: holding the panels in local languages.

At the end of the meeting, a mutually favorable agreement was reached, confirming the organization of the mother tongue campaign in February 2026.

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WikiForMotherTongue 2025 in DRC

WikiForMotherTongue, the evolved version of Wiki na monɔkɔ mua bíso, has established itself as an exciting and impactful campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo, drawing the attention of numerous linguistic communities, language enthusiasts, as well as media and press figures (a total of 8). Launched online on February 1st at midnight, it was officially inaugurated on February 22, 2025, marking the beginning of a series of in-person activities before concluding in style on February 28, 2025.

The event received extensive media coverage, with the information broadcasted by 8 to 10 media outlets, including radio stations, television channels, and print media. Read more on its Event page...

The decision to dedicate the month of February to this event was also motivated by International Mother Language Day, celebrated on February 21. For instance, on February 28, English Wikipedia (Enwiki) had 124,599 active contributors, 1,407 administrators, and 6,960,641 articles. In comparison, the Congolese national language Wikipedias display significantly lower volumes:

• Swwiki (Wikipedia in Swahili): 97,307 articles (i.e. 2.1% of the English volume, a gap of 98.6%)
• Lnwiki (Wikipedia in Lingála): 4,728 articles (i.e. 0.10%, a gap of 99.93%)
• Kgwiki (Wikipedia in Kikɔ̂ngo): 1,524 articles (i.e. 0.03%, a gap of 99.97%)

These disparities testify to the enormous untapped potential of local languages on Wikimedia projects. The goal is to reduce reliance on dominant languages for accessing knowledge, not to supplant them.

The challenges are numerous, notably the lack of educational resources in local languages and limited access to knowledge, which is primarily reserved for dominant languages, thus excluding a large portion of native speakers. In terms of active contributors and administrators:

• Swwiki: 747 active contributors and 15 administrators (0.6% and 1.1%, a 98% difference compared to Enwiki)
• Lnwiki: 18 active contributors and 3 administrators (0.014% and 0.21%, a gap of 99%)
• Kgwiki: 19 active contributors and 0 administrators (0.015% and 0, a gap of 100%)

This edition marks a turning point, as it is the first time the campaign is held in person, following a pilot phase that was entirely online the previous year.

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The results of this editing contest have been particularly impressive and highlight the significant progress made by the Congolese language Wikipedias in just one year since the launch of Mother Tongue Contribution Month:

Wikipedia Edition	Articles End 2023	Articles Beginning 2025	Increase
Lnwiki (Lingála)	3,000	4,728	+1,728
Kgwiki (Kikɔ̂ngo)	1,100	1,524	+424
Luawiki (Incubator - Tshiluba)	1	1,566	+1,565

These figures demonstrate that the initiative has significantly boosted the content in local languages on Wikipedia.

And this year, we note the participation of Basque and Moroccan Darija

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"WikiNkento" Campaign

We have just concluded Women’s Month in style thanks to our participation on Saturday, March 29, as part of our WikiNkento campaign. We attended the conference organized by our partner, the NGO Lisangá Bolingo mpɔ̂ na Congo, which aimed to raise awareness among final-year students about female leadership in the digital realm and to promote #WikiNkento, an initiative that highlights the women of the region on Wikipedias in local languages.

See you soon on the airwaves of Radio de la Femme!

Wiki Loves Folklore in DRC

The international team of the Wiki Loves Folklore contest campaign contacted us to try to organize, for the first time in the DRC, this international photographic contest that celebrates cultural diversity through Wikimedia projects, notably Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

The objective of the Wiki Loves Folklore 2025 campaign in the DRC, led by the WikiLinguila community, is to document and promote the rich cultural and intangible heritage, traditions, and folklore of the Congolese people by collecting content (photos, videos, testimonials) on Wikimedia Commons related to folklore, festivals, traditional practices, proverbs, and oral histories.

However, due to a lack of funding allocated for organizing editing and contribution workshops to train and motivate participants, participation was very low. This contest in the DRC officially began only ten days before its international closing. It is a first experience, and we plan to do better next year by rigorously preparing the event two to three months in advance.