Do you want to help fight climate change mis/disinformation on Wikipedia? 

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Community Coordinator to join our Knowledge team. 

The position is based at one of our hubs in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Uganda, but exceptional candidates from other countries will be considered. The ideal candidate should be proficient in English and candidates who are fluent in French will have an advantage.

The successful candidate will be the champion CfA’s Wikipedian-in-residence (WiR) community. Your responsibilities will include a range of activities such as building a network of African WiRs and facilitating and strengthening the relationship between Wikipedia, WiRs and other CfA communities through the implementation of Wikiprojects, training, mentorship and events such as editathons. The ideal candidate will be a registered Wikipedian in good standing, with substantial experience in writing and editing Wikipedia articles, and possess knowledge of Wikipedia standards, culture, and rules. 

CfA’s Knowledge initiative spearheads training management and partnerships, data analysis, digital journalism and storytelling initiatives for partner newsrooms, universities and local community events in Africa. It also includes CfA communities such as the WanaData women data science/storytelling network and the africanDRONE civic drone community, as well as the sensors.AFRICA sensor journalism initiative, with a network of more than 50+ newsroom and university partners across Africa. The Knowledge team is also the custodian of other major CfA public infrastructure, such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and Africa’s largest census data portal, HURUMap.

The successful candidate will work with an agile transnational Knowledge team of data analysts, community coordinators, digital designers, and editorial experts, with additional support from CfA’s software engineering and forensic research teams, in 22 countries across the continent.

Required minimum requirements include:

  • Substantial, practical experience working as a WiR or as part of a Wikipedia project. 
  • Registered Wikipedian with a good reputation on Wikipedia.
  • Advanced hands-on experience in Wikipedia editing and understanding of rules that govern Wikipedia editing. 
  • Ability to write online learning material and implement online workshops on Wikipedia’s toolkits and culture.
  • Experience in organising Wikipedia edit-a-thons or other related Wiki events.
  • Comfortable with training, skills coaching and mentoring.    
  • Experience in digital research, online community organising and outreach. 
  • Ability to work across a diverse network of editors and researchers.
  • Organised and able to create, manage and oversee multiple timelines and schedules.
  • Ability to work creatively and accurately under pressure with excellent attention to detail.
  • Ability to multitask, prioritise, and manage time efficiently.
  • Excellent partnership engagement and stakeholder management skills.
  • Excellent leadership, team-building, and self-management skills.
  • Experience working with online-first tools such as Google Product Suite 
  • Proficient in English language (spoken and written).

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

  • Familiarity with climate denialism and climate justice programmes.
  • Familiarity with data analysis and data visualisation tools such as spreadsheets, R, Flourish will be an added advantage.
  • Relationships with Wikipedia communities in Africa and media houses.
  • Bilingual in English and French (spoken and written)
  • Bachelor’s degree in any relevant field

Language and Location Requirements:

  • Location: Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Uganda. Exceptional candidates from elsewhere in Africa will be considered.
  • Languages: English 
  • Preferred but not required: Arabic, French, KiSwahili or any other major language spoken in Africa.

About this role

The successful candidate will help CfA build a community of Wikipedians-in-Residence (WiR) in Anglophone and Francophone African countries, specialising in editing, fact-checking and verification of information in Wikipedia as well as help build sustainable relationships with CfA’s partners, Wikipedia communities in Africa, and local Wikipedia volunteer groups. 

You will help develop and grow a community of volunteer Wikipedia editors and contributors, by organising events, facilitating technical training, marshalling resources and forging partnerships with research, media, statistical organisations and Wikipedia communities. You will also help pioneer new ways for the wider Wikipedia community in Africa to mobilise and tackle topical issues such as climate denialism or delayism and related mis/disinformation.

The ideal candidates will have strong strategic analysis and critical thinking skills, as our projects are varied and fast-paced, so you need to quickly understand and learn new things. You will need to possess keen attention to detail. You should be comfortable handling multiple tasks with multiple ongoing deadlines and should have previous experience working on the digital collaboration tools that CfA uses, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

  • Build and manage a community of Wikipedia editors and contributors across four or more countries in Africa.
  • Organise WiR community events including monthly meetups and edit-a-thons which will focus on researching specific topics to fast-track the creation of new entries on Wikipedia, or make corrections/updates to existing entries.
  • Forge partnerships with research, media, statistical organisations and Wikipedia communities.
  • Facilitate technical training on how to edit Wikipedia articles, create content on topical issues on Wikipedia and determine the quality and credibility of Wikipedia articles.
  • Work with local user groups to replicate Wikipedia’s successful approaches, Wikipedia’s new machine learning tools and playbooks. This will include training Wikipedia editors to teach user groups to use and contribute to Wikipedia by demystifying the editorial processes and providing guidance on establishing quality standards of the resource. 
  • Develop publicity content covering CfA’s work on Wikipedia.
  • Conceptualise and develop Wikipedia online courses for CfA’s MOOC
  • Track and compile data collected about participants and the impact of the Wikipedia training sessions and events.
  • Conceptualise and develop Wikipedia and other Communities’ training materials.
  • Create weekly and monthly WiR community engagement plans and project reports. 

What We Offer:

  • A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
  • A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
  • Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
  • A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.

How to Apply:

Please complete this form by 31 January 2023


About Us:

Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 90 staff in 22 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.

This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and largest open source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.

CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ own internal capacity, by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, as well as skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.


At CfA, we don’t just accept differences – we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. CfA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. 

To all recruitment agencies: CfA does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employment application line, CfA employees or any other CfA contact. CfA is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
https://opportunities.codeforafrica.org/2022/12/06/community-coordinator-help-improve-wikipedia-in-africa/
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