Wiki Loves Africa – the largest photo contest in Africa

On this page you will find Social Media Guidelines to help you to create some noise on social media about Wiki Loves Africa 2024.

This is one part of the Wiki Loves Africa 2024 Communications Hub for Organisers.

Use these other pages to ...

Use the 2024 Africa Creates theme materials and messaging.

Use the Media Toolkit to enage with the press and partners about your Wiki Loves Africa 2024 activities and events.

Talk about the Wiki Loves Africa contest and use the brand materials.

Check out the Social Media Guidelines.

Find some interesting design tools and tricks.

Messaging: Talking about Wiki Loves Africa

About messaging:

When messaging around the Wiki Loves Africa contest, include facts about milestones, moments in time – the more surprising/interesting/human interest they are, the better.
Below are the generic facts, but you can show local impact too via the country statistics on this page.
Where possible, contextualise the last 10 years of the context. Bring the real, tangible and resonant things around the images and photographers that have been involved.

What is Wiki Loves Africa?

Wiki Loves Africa (WLA) is an annual photographic and media competition that encourages Africa’s visual storytellers. Wiki Loves Africa encourages people across Africa to contribute media (photographs, video and sound files) about their environment on Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wiki Loves Africa particularly encourages participants to contribute media that illustrate a specific theme for that year.

Each year the theme changes and focuses on any universal, visually rich and culturally specific topic, such as Cuisine (2014), Cultural Fashion and Adornment (2015), Music and Dance (2016), People at Work (2017), Play! (2019), Africa on the Move! (2020) and Health + Wellness (2021), Home and Habitat (2022), Climate and Weather (2023). In 2024, the theme focuses on Africa Creates.
Read more about the Contest:

The problem Wiki Loves Africa solves

“Photography continues to play a key role in how we are seen, not just as Africans, but as black people from every corner of the world. Stereotypes and prejudice are incited by images, and if it’s used, yet again, to undermine those of us who are truly doing the difficult work, then we need to have some uncomfortable conversations.“ -- Aida Muluneh, Ethiopian photographer, The problem with photojournalism and Africa, Al Jazeera, 2017

We are visual beings: our perspectives, our world is shaped by the images we consume, often subconsciously. Photography captures a story in a moment. It is used to present a debilitating, repetitive, negative single-story of our continent. Conversely, it can positively alter our viewpoints by sharing powerful moments steeped in our specific cultures, shared humanity and universal reality, all the while presenting multiple African contexts.

Wiki Loves Africa reclaims Africa’s visual narrative with photos that illustrate alternative African perspectives and cultural living interpretations of universal and human realities on Wikipedia articles. Wiki Loves Africa is one of the largest annual photographic contests in Africa. Since 2014, it has spearheaded alternative ways for 11,160+ photographers to share their Africa with the world. Its success is remarkable given that World Press Photos reports only 3% of their 2021 annual submission came from Africa.

How the competition is organised

The project is a two-months competition which will start on the 1st March 2024 and end on the 30th April 2024.
The project runs across the entire continent, however there are local and national groups of Wikipedians that have volunteered to host specific actions (training, upload events, communications, etc.) in their countries. In addition, there are several groups of individuals within Africa, and Wikimedia groups outside Africa that are (and encouraged to be) involved.
The project is a contest where, after the contest closes, the best media at the continental level are selected and prizes are awarded. An international jury will determine the best entries for the continental competition. Where there are local organising groups, they will decide to organise (or not) judging and local prizes for their country.
Wiki Loves Africa was created and developed, and is managed by the principals at Wiki in Africa, it is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation. Actions and activities in each country are supported by the Wikimedia community in the form of Usergroups and volunteers across Africa.

10 years of Wiki Loves Africa

Since 2014, Wiki Loves Africa has become one of Africa's largest annual competitions. Its success is through inviting professional and enthusiastic photographers, filmmakers and audiophiles across Africa to visually celebrate different aspects of their Africa. Every year is a different theme. Together the submissions have created one of the largest openly licenced archive of visual materials that tells the story of Africa through the eyes of its people and is accessible on Wikipedia and its projects.

The 10th edition of Wiki Loves Africa starts on the 1st March 2024.

The project is run across the whole continent, however, some specific actions (training, communication etc.) are held in some countries with national organisers.

The Impact of Wiki Loves Africa

As one of the largest annual photographic contests in Africa, over the last 9 years Wiki Loves Africa’s team has built an alternative means for over 11,160 photographers from 55 countries to showcase their visions of ‘their’ Africa with the world, via the Wikimedia projects.
The images have a life beyond the competition, with these images being placed in articles on Wikipedia, and thus being viewed by over 1.3 billion times (Jan 2023) altogether since Jan 2017; with 28 million eyes via Wikipedia articles in January 2022 alone.

Wiki Loves Africa has achieved much over 9 years:
Over 102,026 images have been entered by 11,165 competitors from up to 55 countries under a free licence (CC-BY-SA).

32 Wikimedia communities from 26 African countries have hosted participation events, information sessions and training workshops.

At least 357 participation and training events have been held by participating communities between 2014 and 2023.

The competition attracts high levels of new contributors to the Wikimedia projects – an average of 80% of participants are newbies.

The images entered to Wiki Loves Africa are viewed over 28 million times each month (Jan 2023).

Wiki Loves Africa’s images from the first 8 years have been viewed over 1,23 billion times altogether (Jan 2023).

A Wiki Loves Africa prize-winning image was included in the Journeys Through Our Fragile Heritage exhibition at the UNESCO headquarters, Paris.

Wiki Loves Africa’s ISA Tool won the WikiData Award 2019 for Best Multimedia Tool.

Mohamed Hozyen, a prize winner for Wiki Loves Africa 2019, was selected for the The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Prins Claus Fonds and Magnum Foundation Arab Documentary Photography Programme.

A Wiki Loves Africa image Firefighter, Ashton Bay, March 2017 submitted by South African photographer Steven Terblanche for the Wiki Loves Africa 2017 contest under the theme of People at Work. The stunning image was selected for 3rd position for the Picture of the Year 2021 award and depicts a courageous firefighter battling against a veld-fire at Ashton Bay, Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa.

View Wiki Loves Africa's 1st Prize Winners!

2023 Climate & Weather: 1st prize: Auyo village flood by Sani Maikatanga (Nigeria)
2022 Home+Habitat: 1st prize: A Nubia by User:Summering2018 (Egypt)
2021 Health+Wellness: 1st prize: Crazy Love by Ewien van Bergeijk-Kwant
2020 Africa on the Move! 1st prize winner: My Homeland by Mohamed Ahmed Yousry (Egypt) User:Myousry6666
2019 Play! 1st prize: Yida refugee camp in South Sudanese territory by Marco Gualazzini from Italy
2017 People at Work: Gift of the Ocean, Tanzania by User:Yann Macherez
2016 Music and Dance: 1st Prize: The Kuru Dance Festival at Dqae Qare Lodge, Botswana by SanDanceVR
2015 Cultural Fashion and Adornment: 1st Prize: Another busy afternoon in Kenya by Isaac Kaigi
2014 Cuisine: 1st Prize: Nutmeg by Terrence Coombes from Tanzania