Recent good news from Dzaleka Online Services
I have been publishing a lot of updates on Dzaleka Online Services. Some are technical. Some are community updates. A few are small, but they fix real problems that kept coming up while working on the site.
Here are the ones I want to keep on my own site as well.
The 2025 report gave us numbers to work with
The 2025 Annual Digital Performance Report recorded 17,952 active users and 22,434 sessions across the year.
I care about those numbers because they help make better decisions. Direct traffic and organic search were the strongest channels. Malawi produced the highest number of sessions. Mobile accounted for 7,399 active users.
That is enough evidence to keep improving mobile pages, search, and the parts of the site people use when they need practical information quickly.
The Wellbeing Hub was rebuilt
The Dzaleka Wellbeing Hub was rewritten after I looked again at what the page was doing.
The old version leaned too much on research summaries. Those still have a place, but a person in distress should not have to read a long background page before finding help. The new version puts crisis routing at the top, separates research from support pages, and adds a way to report outdated information.
That last part is practical in Dzaleka. Opening hours, contact people, and service details can change. A page that cannot be corrected becomes less useful each month.
Public API and agent access
I also published an update about public API and agent access. The short version is that supported tools can now find cleaner routes, request markdown versions of pages, and avoid scraping when they need Dzaleka Online Services data.
That work is mostly invisible to normal visitors, but it matters for maintenance. If the site is going to support search, assistants, archives, and reusable data, the access layer needs to be deliberate.
You can find this update in the Dzaleka Online Services news archive.
Dzaleka Metadata Standard v1.1.0
The Dzaleka Metadata Standard v1.1.0 is for archive work.
DMS v1.1.0 includes schema files, command-line workflows, a local web UI, and linked-data export. It supports records for stories, photos, documents, audio, video, events, maps, artworks, sites, and poems.
Dzaleka history deserves better than inconsistent spreadsheets. If we want stories, photos, documents, and oral history to remain searchable later, records need shared fields and validation.
AI literacy work with MIT RAISE and ADAI Circle
The news archive also includes a success story about MIT RAISE partnering with ADAI Circle on AI literacy in Dzaleka.
I was glad to see that one published. AI education in refugee communities works best when local young people can learn the concepts, ask hard questions, and test what is useful for their own context.
Other updates
Other recent updates include Dzaleka Marketplace, a weather page with live conditions and alert handling, a Help Desk as the main support entry point, and a projects page for flagship initiatives.
None of this is glamorous work. Most of it is naming things clearly, fixing routes, keeping pages current, and making sure useful information is not buried.
Read the full news archive here: Dzaleka Online Services News & Updates.