New WikiPortraits initiative supports photographers across Africa
Our primary method of support for African photographers is getting them photography equipment (new and used).
A recently launched WikiPortraits project is aimed at empowering photographers in Africa to tell their own stories, both on- and off-wiki. There are already active members of the Wikipedia community working as photographers in Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya. This new WikiPortraits activity is aimed at helping talented and creative photographers develop and level up their skills and photography to be attractive to global publications.
On top of that, many locales across the African continent are visually stunning, and deserve to be portrayed with a local perspective. Better cameras can help local photographers tell better stories.
Our primary method of support for African photographers is getting them photography equipment (new and used), helping to cover the costs for photo editing software, covering data (through wifi or mobile), paying for costs to travel to events such as the African Games and cultural festivals, as well as providing training and mentorship.
Here are a few illustrated updates about WikiPortraits activities across Africa.
With some help from Wikimedia NYC, WikiPortraits sent new and used Sony photography equipment to Wikimedia Ghana in 2025 thanks to a grant a helpful donor targeted specifically for fostering photography in.
Wikimedia Ghana will put this new equipment to good use: they have been credentialed for the African Games (related to Olympics), and were renting equipment.
WikiPortraits visits Dandora, Kenya
As of August 2025, WikiPortraits has also been working closely with Kenyan journalists run a photography workshop for students in Dandora informal settlements near Nairobi to help residents develop new marketable skills.
We were invited to teach a class when WikiPortraits visited Nairobi for Wikimania in August 2025. We learned the class had no working cameras – the instructor’s Nikon had a cracked lens.
In order to help out, WikiPortraits shuffled our travel budgets to free up funds to buy a DSLR camera and additional lens for the class.
Up until now all the photos about the Dandora settlement on Wikipedia are about the garbage. If you visit, you learn there is much more energy and beauty to Dandora than that, and we wanted to empower the students to tell their own stories online. The photos also motivate Wikipedia editors to improve the coverage of Dandora.
Below, some of the students using the new cameras donated by the global WikiPortraits community…
…And here are some of their photos below.
We are working with the instructors and students to get their photos onto Wikipedia, to better illustrate Dandora, with all the appropriate permissions.
In addition, since coming back to the U.S., we have gathered some used DSLRs from other hobbyist photographers in the United States to send to Nairobi (four cameras so far). And through small donations, we also sent two of the most talented students and the instructors to cover the Wimbi La Sanaa Cultural Festival in Mombasa for WikiPortraits.
However, after securing camera gear, we discovered a new photography challenge...
