When Fu'ad asked me in September to join Archivi.ng to lead the Storytelling and Community effort, I asked for two things. The first: to be gifted 10 Bitcoin as a sign-on bonus. The second: let me be responsible for sending this dispatch. He only granted one of my wishes, so here we are.

One thing that’s never been secret about Archivi.ng is that it’s a community project—a product of love nurtured by your enthusiasm—whether you’re volunteering, plugging us to something, or, quite frankly, opening your pockets. I understand that communication is the key to keeping this energy alive, so it’s only fair that I constantly keep in touch with you about what we’re doing.

Our core mission is to preserve Nigeria’s history by digitising old archival materials, making them accessible, and helping the world make sense of them. We're currently focused on newspapers and magazines, but we want to digitise everything—old maps, old films, oral histories—if it holds inaccessible context, we want to collect it and make it accessible.

I want you to walk the journey more closely with us, so this will be a date every first day of the month. It’s a big deal for me because I’m naturally shy, but we must spend much quality time together to keep advancing this work. 

A good place to start is a quick recap of what we’ve been up to in the past few months.

In August, we launched The Archivist

The Archivist is our effort to help the world make sense of everything we’re stumbling on in the archives.

With this quarterly publication, we’ll dig into the past and explore how it fits into the present and future. We don't just want to archive newspapers; we want to make sense of the stories they preserve and draw insights that may otherwise be missing from ordinary presentation. 

Our lead story—about the top 100 students in Nigeria in 2009—offered useful insights into what happens to Nigeria's best and brightest. We dug into the archives to: trace the history of Nigeria's political third force, re-examine the dramatic 1984 abduction of a wanted former minister in London, and investigate how people found love on newspaper pages. 

We launched a second issue in October to revisit the significant moments of civil disobedience in Nigerian history. We’re exploring one idea: what are our old discontents and their origins? Read the stories and tell me what you think.

In September, we were outside!

For the first time since we commenced operations, we attended our first two public events where we physically met lovers of our work.

Our first date was at the Active Citizens’ Festival by Tracka in September. We built a Narrative Wall that took attendees on a journey through Nigeria's history, ending with a wall of heroes highlighting some of the nation’s brightest past minds. Not to brag, but we were clearly a crowd favourite at the event.

At the Lagos International Poetry Festival (LIPFest) in October, we hosted a panel about future histories, exploring how AI is used in historical preservation, its impact on access to information and existing power dynamics. 

Being outside further helps us provide people with engaging ways to learn about Nigerian history and why it matters that we exist. More importantly, it’s an opportunity to learn how people are using Archivi.ng.

So if you know about events where Archivi.ng can facilitate knowledge about Nigerian history, put me on.

Still in September, we found a new home

More than a few important things have started from someone’s garage. Archivi.ng’s story is no different. 

When our scanner first arrived in Nigeria in 2023, it was large enough to need its own room. At the time, Fu'ad had to share his home office—Archivi.ng's garage—with our most prized asset. That's where Boyega and Grace scanned our first 50,000 newspaper pages, which went live to the world in October 2023.

As our operations expanded, Archivi.ng outgrew Fu'ad's home office and needed more space. We finally found a new home at CcHUB, a co-working space in Yaba, Lagos, where many small, dreamy teams tend to begin taking root. It's probably not our forever home, but it represents progress from our days of little beginnings.

That’s not the last of September: We called for Fellows

In September, we invited everyone—from historians to researchers and content creators—to help us enhance the world's understanding of Nigerian history by applying for The Archivi.ng Fellowship. The six-month programme challenges curious people to dig into the archives and produce new work. 

We expected interest from a few hundred people, but we got 1,438 applications in one month. This was a good problem to have—we were swimming in a wide range of brilliant ideas about how to explore Nigerian history with fresh eyes and minds. 

After weeks of rigorous reviews, we’ve selected six Fellows who we’ll announce on December 4. Watch out on our social media pages, from Twitter to LinkedIn.

Speaking about money, this was our best year yet

Cool story. Fu’ad is an aggressive journal keeper. On the morning of June 24 this year, he got a throwback notification to a journal entry from exactly one year prior. 

That afternoon, June 24, this year, he got another notification—a message from Luminate making a two-year commitment to keep our work going with $160k, specifically focusing on The Archivist and The Archivi.ng Fellowship.

In October, Africa No Filter made a $10k commitment, too. You’ve also made critical interventions that have kept the work going, from your ₦1,000 monthly donations to the single $5,000 donations. This year, we raised over $14k in funding from you and other people.

Most of Archivi.ng’s lifeline came almost entirely after that June 24 reminder, and it feels truly comforting. Your donations go almost entirely into running the core digitisation operations. Thank you for your continued support.

See You Again Soon

2024 has been a transformative year for Archivi.ng. None of it would be possible without your support from the moment we shared our idea with the world.

As I said earlier, this is the first of many monthly updates. The next one will include a breakdown of our progress on the long road to our mission, details on all our digitisation and access progress, and how we’re looking and thinking about 2025. 

See you on January 1.