Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2026 in the Wiki For Senior Citizens Network

Wiki Loves Africa 2026

Wiki Loves Africa 2026 - March 1st to April 30th, 2026

Take Images under the theme Rites and Rituals for Wikipedia and win!

Wiki Loves Africa is an annual contest where anyone across Africa can contribute media content related to the year's theme to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Wiki Loves Africa encourages participants to contribute media (photographs, video and audio) that illustrate the specific theme for that year. Each year the theme changes and is chosen by the community to be a universal, visually-rich and culturally-specific topics (for example, markets, rites of passage, festivals, public art, cuisine, natural history, urbanity, daily life, notable persons, etc). Everybody can participate!

This year, Nigeria participates again, and you are encouraged to submit photos about Rites and Rituals in Nigeria between 1st March and 30 April 2026. By submitting your photos to the competition, you share the Rites and Rituals of Nigeria with the rest of the world to enjoy through the internet. We will explain below how to participate, and what kind of pictures is eligible.

Participate

Find an image about Rites and Rituals, take a photo and upload it to Wikimedia Commons::

Upload your photos! »

Find inspiration

There are different Rites and Rituals in Nigeria. Find it around you!

Take photos

Make as many and as good photos as you can, try different angles. Even if your photo doesn't win a prize, it will still be useful for illustrating articles on Wikipedia and other sister projects.

Describe them

Write down what you photographed. Record the site's name, the picture ID, description, and date of photo.

Upload to Commons

Upload your images to Wikimedia Commons between 1st March and 30th of April. Create an account, if you don't have one already.

Why participate?

Participating is fun! By photographing and sharing images of heritage nearby you, you can explore more about Nigeria's heritage and learn about it. It's a nice challenge to improve your photography skills, and you can, of course, win prizes. You also stand a chance to win national prizes too. The national jury will then select 10 best images to represent Nigeria in the international finale and compete for the international awards. More information about the international competition is available on www.wikilovesafrica.org

You can also upload images that you may have taken already during one of your travels to the national competition of that country. Check if your travel destination participates in Wiki Loves Africa this year.

Instructions On How To Participate

The theme Rites and Rituals invites participants to explore the diverse ways African communities mark important life stages, honour traditions, and express their collective identity through symbolic practices. It recognises that rituals are central to cultural expression, shaping how individuals and groups connect with their past, present, and future.

The scope of the theme spans a wide variety of ritual expressions. Rites of passage, for instance, are among the most profound cultural practices. These rituals signify a person’s transition from one stage of life to another and include ceremonies such as birth and naming celebrations that welcome new life, initiation rites that mark entry into adulthood, community membership, or new responsibilities, marriage ceremonies that symbolize union and family building, and funeral rites that honor the dead, mourn loss, and reinforce cultural beliefs about life and the afterlife. Submissions in this area might capture the intimacy, symbolism, and emotion present in these milestones.

Religious rituals are also central to African life, rooted in diverse faith traditions and often deeply symbolic, repeated across generations. They include practices such as prayers, pilgrimages, fasting, ritual sacrifices, offerings, the celebration of life stages, and observances of significant religious holidays and commemorations, from Ramadan to Easter, Christmas and traditional harvest festivals such as the New Yam Festival celebrated by the Igbo people. These expressions reflect not only spiritual devotion but also shared moral and social values that build strong bonds within communities.

Cultural rituals offer another window into the heritage and identity of African societies. These traditions may include vibrant performances of dance and masquerades, oral storytelling, coming-of-age festivals, and ceremonies tied to agriculture, hunting, fishing, or crafts. They often combine costume, music, performance, and symbolism, producing striking visual and audio experiences that carry meaning far beyond their aesthetic value.

Everyday rituals document our daily routines, such as brushing teeth, combing hair, bathing, jogging, fetching water, cooking, sweeping the compound at dawn, greeting elders, or trading in markets, may seem ordinary, yet they are filled with cultural meaning. Across Africa, these practices take many forms; from North African mint tea gatherings and East African coffee ceremonies, to West African hair-braiding and Southern African communal cooking. Everyday life shows how culture lives in the smallest acts, weaving identity, connection, and tradition into the rhythm of each day.

At the civic and national level, rituals take the form of collective acts that symbolise unity, memory, and pride. Independence Day parades, military commemorations, and civic traditions such as flag-raising ceremonies or the singing of national anthems are moments when people gather to express belonging under a shared identity. These rituals reveal the ways in which diverse communities come together as one nation through symbolic acts of remembrance and solidarity.

Finally, arts and culture festivals serve as modern celebrations of creativity while retaining deep ritual elements. Through music, dance, theatre, masquerades, storytelling, visual arts, and craft exhibitions, these gatherings showcase cultural continuity and innovation. While festive in nature, they often preserve symbolic costumes, spiritual undertones, and seasonal or communal significance that link them back to ritual traditions.

In short, Rites and Rituals opens the competition to a wide range of submissions that reflect human identity and community through life transitions, spiritual practices, cultural traditions, civic expressions, and artistic celebrations. They can be rooted in tradition, contemporary interpretations or a practice that is modern or entirely new. It invites participants to document and share the ceremonies, both intimate and grand, that continue to shape the cultural heartbeat of Africa.

Below are just some ideas to explore around the theme concept....

Competition rules

We try to keep the competition clean and simple to participate. There are only a few rules for photos to participate in the contest in Nigeria. Let's quickly go through them. Every submission should be:

Self taken and self uploaded;
Uploaded during March and April 2026;
During the upload process, you give permission with a CC BY-SA licenseto re-use the image;

Next to that, there are a few practical rules:

You should have an activated e-mail address on Wikimedia Commons;
If the photo gets deleted for any reason, it is automatically disqualified from the competition;
You are responsible for following the law while taking and uploading the photo.

You may upload as many pictures (old or new) as you want of the Rites and Ritual that you have documented. At the end of the 2 months, the national jury will evaluate the photographs and select the best 10 pictures in Nigeria to submit to represent in the international finale. The international jury will then announce the international winners in December.

Prizes

There are several prizes up for grabs, both nationally and internationally.

Local prize category
Photography category

1st Prize: NGN70,000

2nd Prize: NGN50,000

3rd Prize: NGN30,000

Video Prize NGN70,000

National level prizes

1st Prize: Photography Gadget voucher worth NGN150,000

2nd Prize: Photography Gadget voucher worth NGN100,000

3rd Prize: Photography Gadget voucher worth NGN50,000

International Prize Categories

Photography 1st Prize : USD 1000

2nd Prize : USD 900

3rd Prize : USD 700 Wilson Oluoha Prizeː USD 1,000

Media (Video, Audio, Graphics, Photo Essays):

Audio prize : USD 700

Narrative video prize : USD 1,000

Reportage video prize : USD 1000

Clip video prize : USD 200

Judging criteria

The jury will determine the winners of the international contest taking into the consideration the following criteria (in no particular order):

Technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective etc.)
Originality
Usefulness of the image for Wikipedia

Images that reach a top ranking of the international finale, will typically at least fulfill the technical criteria of the ‘Featured Image’ process at Wikimedia Commons. But feel free to submit many images, and let the jury be concerned if they are good enough.