As Wikipedia marked 25 years, members of the Wikimedia Kenya community used the anniversary to spotlight gender gaps that continue to shape whose knowledge appears online and whose stories remain undocumented.
The celebration in Nairobi focused on participation and representation on open knowledge platforms, with speakers warning that women remain underrepresented both as contributors and as subjects on Wikipedia.
Winnie Kabintie, the Executive Director of Wikimedia Kenya, said the platform’s future depends on who takes part in writing and preserving knowledge.
“Wikipedia is not built by algorithms. It is built by people, What we choose to write, preserve, and share determines whose knowledge is visible.” Said Winnie.
Kabintie said closing content gaps, including gender gaps, requires intentional participation, especially from communities that have historically been excluded from knowledge production.
Teri Boke, a Wikimedian and member of the Wikimedia Kenya user group, said the imbalance is clear in both content and participation.
“Only about 10 percent of articles on Wikipedia are about women, and only around 30 percent of editors are women, that gap means many stories are not being written.” Boke said.
Boke said Wikimedia Kenya has focused on addressing these gaps by encouraging women and young people to move from consuming information to contributing knowledge, particularly on issues of culture, gender, and local history.
“We tell people you can write about your community, your culture, your people,” she said. “You can upload images that reflect Kenya beyond what is usually shown.”
One of the initiatives highlighted during the celebrations was the Art and Feminism campaign, which uses creative practice as a way to address gender gaps on Wikipedia and related platforms.
According to Boke, the campaign responds to barriers that limit women’s participation in digital spaces, including access, confidence, and visibility.
“Art and Feminism focuses on the gender digital divide in Kenya and Africa,” she said. “We use art as a way to tell gender stories and bring more women and girls into Wikipedia spaces.”
The campaign has been implemented in the coastal region for the past three years, with a focus on engaging local communities, women, and young people to contribute content and build editing skills. Men are also encouraged to participate.
Through partnerships with institutions such as Pwani University, Wikimedia Kenya has supported translation of articles from English to Kiswahili, as well as exploration of content in other local languages.
The event also reflected on the growth of Wikimedia Kenya over the past six years, including hosting an international Wikimedia conference in Kenya, which brought hundreds of participants into the country and expanded global visibility of Kenyan content online.