Hey there, SUMO Nation!
You may remember Abbackar’s previous post about meetings in Ivory Coast. I am very happy to inform you that the community there is going strong and keeps support Mozilla’s mission. Read Abbackar’s report from the recent meeting in Abidjan below.
On the weekend of 3rd and 4th of June, the community members of Côte d’Ivoire met in Abidjan for a SUMO Community Meetup. The event was attended by 21 people, six of who were new contributors, interested in participating in Mozilla’s mission through SUMO.
The Saturday meeting started at 9 and went on for six hours, with a small lunch break. During that time we talked about the state of SUMO and the Mozilla updates that had an influence for our community over the past months.
We also introduced new contributors to the website and the philosophy of SUMO – as well as the Respond social support tool. New contributors had a chance to see both sites in action, learn how they worked and discuss their future contributions.
After that, we had a practical session in Respond, allowing existing and new contributors to exchange knowledge and experiences.
An important fact to mention is that the computer we used for the event is a “Jerry” – a computer in a can – made from recycled materials and recycled by our community members.
After the training and a session 
of answering questions, we ended the first day of the meetup.
Sunday started with the analysis of the 2016 balance sheet and a discussion of our community’s roadmap for 2017. We talked about ways of increasing our community engagement in SUMO in 2017. Several solutions were discussed at length, allowing us to share and assign tasks to people present at the event.
We decided to train together on a single theme each month to increase focus. We also acknowledged the cancellation of our Nouchi localization project, due to the difficulties with creating a new technical vocabulary within that language. Our localization efforts will be focused on French from now on.
The Sunday lunch had in a great atmosphere as we shared a local dish called garba. The meeting ended with a Q&A session focused on addressing the concerns and doubts of the new contributors.
The meeting in Abidjan was a great opportunity to catch up, discuss the most recent updates, motivate existing contributors and recruit new ones for Mozilla’s mission. We ended the whole event with a family photo of all the people present.
We are all looking forward to the second session in the Bouake, in the center of Côte d’Ivoire.
We are humbled and grateful for the effort and passion of the community in Ivory Coast. Thank you for your inspiring report and local leadership, Abbackar :-) Onwards and forwards, to Bouake!