Thank You/Amina Duale

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I call myself East African, but my history is a little bit complicated.
When I was growing up, my father's work as a truck driver took our family from Somaliland to Zambia, then Tanzania, then Kenya. Kenya is where I live today &mdash; after doing some traveling of my own.

I've always wanted to learn more about my family’s roots, but it's tough. If you look at the map or ask the United Nations, my country doesn't exist. Somaliland isn't recognized by many international bodies. If you go to BBC or CNN or other mainstream media, they hardly talk about Somaliland.

But when you read about Somaliland on Wikipedia, it's so amazing and detailed. I feel I'm represented. I can study history, politics, geography, even folktales and myths. I learned so much about my own community, just from reading Wikipedia.

Through Wikipedia, citizens of the word can learn more about African artists, activists and musicians. It would be devastating to have Wikipedia out of our lives; it’s done so much to put Africa on the world map.

For me, Wikipedia is one of the few places I can go to get accurate and independent information. I don’t mind sending $10 or $20 every month. Wikipedia belongs to all of us, and it’s our duty as a community to keep it going.

&mdash; Amina Duale

''Amina M. Duale is an independent consultant working with local communities in eastern Africa teaching business skills and training. She has worked with a number of non-profit and non-governmental organizations in South Sudan, Somaliland, Puntland, and other new and contested nations in the region. Amina supports Wikipedia as a donor. She lives in Nairobi.''

Image Attribution: by Raidarmax, under [//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported], from Wikimedia Commons.