Position in: Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Uganda
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 Communities 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 a champion of CfA’s African Wikipedian Alliance (AWA) community. Your responsibilities will include a range of activities such as growing the existing network of AWA in 30 Francophone and Anglophone countries, facilitating and strengthening the relationship between AWA and other CfA communities through the implementation of Wikiprojects, training, mentorship, wikimedia projects course creation, and events such as editathons, monthly meetups, and international conferences. The ideal candidate will be a Wikimedian in good standing, with substantial experience in writing and editing Wikipedia and its sister’s project and possess knowledge of Wikipedia core content policies, general notability guidelines, and its community engagement policies .
The AWA network is supported by Code for Africa (CfA). CfA is a nonprofit public interest organisation founded in Kenya in 2012, and registered in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, with staff in 26 African countries. It is the continent’s largest digital democracy initiative. It seeks to leverage civic technologies and open data to give citizens access to actionable information, and to amplify citizen voices, to make society more responsive and accountable. CfA achieves this by building ‘knowledge ecosystems’, through support for communities such as AWA. CfA also supports a range of other communities-of-practise, such as the African Digital Democracy Observatory (ADDO), the africanDRONE network, the African Fact Checking Alliance (AFCA), the AfricaSensors maker movement, the PROTO digital activist community, and the WanaData women data science network.
The successful candidate will work with an agile transnational Communities team of community coordinators, with additional support from CfA’s data analysts, software engineering, digital designers, editorial experts and forensic research teams, in 21 countries across the continent.
Required minimum requirements include:
- Bachelor’s degree in any relevant field
- Active Wikimedian in good standing.
- Substantial, practical experience working as a Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) for Wikimedia projects.
- Advanced hands-on experience in creating/editing Wikimedia projects that align with the core content policies and General Notability Guidelines (GNG).
- Ability to coordinate Wikimedia programs, edit-a-thons, and campaigns, including planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluation, and timely reporting.
- Ability to create and implement online learning materials and workshops on Wikipedia and its sister projects’ toolkits and culture.
- Comfortable with training, skills coaching, and mentoring.
- Experience in online community engagement, organising, and outreach.
- Ability to work across a diverse network of Wikimedians, editors, and researchers.
- Excellent leadership, team-building, and self-management skills.
- Excellent partnership engagement and stakeholder management skills.
- 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.
- 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 the intersection of open knowledge with issues related to climate, gender, and politics.
- Advanced experience in using on-Wiki tools for identifying knowledge gaps, tracking contributions, carrying out research, and other work done by Wikimedians.
- Familiarity with data analysis and data visualisation tools such as spreadsheets, R, Flourish will be an added advantage.
- Relationships with existing Wikimedia communities in Africa and media houses.
- Bilingual in English and French (spoken and written).
- Digital-first workplace skill-sets, including proficiency in collaborative work solutions such as Google Workspace (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams, etc), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents such as AirTable, etc).
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 grow the African Wikipedian Alliance (AWA) community in Anglophone and Francophone African countries, specialising in editing, fact-checking and verification of information on Wikipedia and its sister’s project as well as help build sustainable relationships with AWA’s partners, Wikimedia communities, and other open knowledge groups in Africa.
You will contribute to the development and growth of a community of volunteer Wikimedia editors by organising events, facilitating technical training, securing resources, and forging partnerships with research institutions, media outlets, statistical organisations, and Wikimedia communities. Additionally, you will help pioneer new approaches for the broader Wikimedia communities in Africa to address and mobilise around key issues, such as climate denialism, gender gaps, political challenges, and combating related misinformation and 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:
- Grow and manage the AWA community of Wikimedians across 30 or more countries in Africa.
- Organise AWA community events including monthly meetups, edit-a-thons, online international conferences, which will focus on researching specific topics that are relevant and impactful to members.
- Forge partnerships with research, media, statistical organisations and Wikimedia communities.
- Facilitate technical training on how to edit Wikipedia and its sister’s project on topical issues such as climate, gender, and politics/election.
- Work with new and existing Wikimedia affiliates to replicate or develop new programs that combat mis/disinformation on Wikipedia.
- Create publicity content on diff and other mediums covering AWA’s work on Wikipedia and its sisters project as well as within the Wikimedia communities.
- Conceptualise and develop varieties of Wikimedia projects online courses on the CfA’s MOOC for different categories of editors.
- Track and compile data collected about participants and the impact of AWA programs, sessions, and events.
- Create weekly and monthly AWA 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.
- Medical insurance cover, underwritten by a remote-first provider to ensure cover wherever you are
- 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 15 September 2024
About Us:
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 100 staff in 21 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.
Please note: Due to high volumes of applications, we are unable to respond to each one individually. If you are selected for an interview, we will contact you.