The Carpentries in Africa
Looking back at 2021
The Carpentries in Africa grew from strenght to strengh during 2021. During the year the African Carpentries Community participated in 19 workshops across 5 countries (South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Mauritius). Also, more than 25 new instructors were badged from 10 countries (South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda). Furthermore, the first virtual CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 took place from 6 to 17 September 2021. The event included 2 Carpentries workshops, 1 Carpentries instructor training event, 2 networking events, 1 learning session and 1 opening address.
What We Do
Monthly African Community Meetup: Our monthly African Carpentries Community meetups have been running since 2017. Here we discuss topics that are of interest to our instructors in the African context, including previous and upcoming workshops, available resources, opportunities, events, and more. We would love to hear more voices at our monthly online meetup, on the 4th Thursday each month, 12:00 - 13:00 SAST (10:00 - 11:00 UTC). If you are keen to join please sign up at our Etherpad.
2022 meetings:
~~27 January
~~24 February
~~24 March
~~28 April
~~26 May
~~23 June
~~28 July
11 August (CarpentryCon@Home 2022 at 9:00 SAST, 7:00 UTC)
22 September
27 October
24 November
Mentoring for Instructors and Helpers before a workshop: Some members of the African instructor community are willing to host online mentoring sessions for instructors and helpers before a workshop to ensure everyone knows what to expect and what is expected of them. If you are available to meet with an instructor/helper team before they run a workshop to answer any questions they may have or to help them prepare for the lessons they will be teaching, please get in touch via our email and we can pair you up with a team at a time and date that will suit you.
Angelique Trusler, the African Capacity Development Manager, is ready to help you with any questions you have about running Carpentries workshops or any other ways you can get involved with The Carpentries in Africa! Contact her at admin-afr@carpentries.org
Join Us
To join the conversation about The Carpentries in Africa, sign up at Topicbox and join the Slack channel #local-africa. If you’ve trained as an instructor in Africa (even if you’re not qualified yet), sign up at Topicbox
We would love to get more people involved in specific activities to support our growing African community - meet the South African instructors here!
Subscribe to the calendar below to watch all that is going on throughout our community.
Historical support
The first Carpentries workshops in Africa were run in 2013 but it only really kicked off in 2015. An African Task Force was established in 2016, consisting of international mentors from the USA, UK, and Australia, and guided the first batch of trained African instructors through the checkout process as most of them were very isolated and new to the world of The Carpentries.
Since then more than 100 African instructors have participated in online or in-person instructor training events. The African Task Force was revived in December 2017, then completely consisting of African instructors. The task force played a role in mentoring instructors who had been trained but hadn’t qualified as well as qualified instructors who needed support before teaching a workshop. Small online sessions were hosted by task force members to demonstrate how various lessons are taught and to help solidify skills in the tools we teach. The second African Task Force finished its activities in December 2018. Some of the South African-based activities were funded through the Rural Campuses Connection Project II (RCCP II), which ended in March 2019. You can read more about the experiences of the African Task Force in this blog post and about RCCPII here.
Blog posts on Carpentries activities in Africa
Glosario: African contributions by Angelique Trusler
Announcing The Carpentries African Capacity Development Manager, Angelique Trusler by Kari L. Jordan
CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 - A global event by Angelique Trusler
Highlighting our strategic plan efforts to support local community building by Kari L. Jordan and Angelique Trusler
Registration for CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 now open! by Angelique Trusler
University of the Western Cape’s first Data Carpentry Workshop of 2021 by Sarah Schäfer.
Our First Workshop - Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya by Pauline Karega, Michael Kofia ane Festus Nyasimi.
Reflections on my First Data Carpentry Workshop by Selorm Tamakloe.
Lessons Learned - Data Carpentries Workshop for SADiLaR (August 31, 2020 by Jannetta Steyn, Benson Muite, Marissa Griesel, Maggi Mars, Lactatia Motsuku, Varshita Sher, SamuelLe Lelièvre and Angelique van Rensburg.
Learners’ Experiences from South Africa’s Online Workshop by Samar Elsheikh, Caroline Fadeke Ajilogba, Martin Dreyer and Angelique van Rensburg
Increasing Researchers’ Digital Literacy in Ethiopia by Yared Abera Ergu
Feedback: Remote Teaching of Genomics Data Carpentry Curriculum by Daniel Ouso and Bianca Peterson
With Thanks from Carpentries Instructors in Africa by Yared Abera, Ayansina Ayangbenro, Mamsi Khantsi, Samar Elsheikh, Margareth Gfrerer, Martin Dreyer, Mesfin Diro, Abisola Regina Sholeye, Bianca Peterson, Nobublele Shozi and Angelique van Rensburg
Teaching Software Carpentry at the University of Botswana by Raniere Silva
Wrapping Up the Rural Campuses Connection Project Capacity Development Initiative by Anelda van der Walt and Katrin Tirok
Highlights from the recent Instructor Training in South Africa by Katrin Tirok, Malvika Sharan, Samar Elsheikh and Saymore Chifamba
CarpentryConnect Johannesburg 2018: Building Bridges for Digital and Computational Literacy by Anelda van der Walt and Juan Steyn
A Wrap-up from the African Task Force by Anelda van der Walt, Katrin Tirok, Caroline F. Ajilogba, Juan Steyn and Kayleigh Lino
CarpentryCon Experienced by the African Carpentry Task Force by Caroline F. Ajilogba, Mesfin Diro, Kayleigh Lino, Erika Mias, Lactatia Motsuku, Juan Steyn, Katrin Tirok and Anelda van der Walt