Africa Environment/Microfunding/Urban wetlands protection and advocacy campaign in Rwanda


Submit of request
This request for micro-funding to Africa Environment Wikifocus has just been submitted by Germain92 on 19-02-2023 and has been selected for support.

Proposed project

Description

After reading and researching The Works of Madam Wangari Maathai and

understanding her work about Green Belt Movement I and my friends in Rwanda we have decided to use this support, in addressing the effects of ecological threat coursed by the encroachment of ecological system by human anthropogenic activities in our neighborhood , loss of biodiversity as well as pollution , loss of some important species and threatening them from their comfortable habitat in wetlands ,which is highly contributing on environmental Degradation and contributing as well to the increasing climate change consequences.

We want to campaign for a working community conservation approach which is the Best approach on our continent in to days environmental protection. we believe that endogenous knowledge can contribute and inform future decision making. we will engage our fellow youth especially women by doing campaign and creating awareness about community conservation. we have a Team of wikimedians (writing articles (Edit-athon) ,OSM(mapping for flood resilience) and CopsAfrica( planting trees) community members in Rwanda will be engaged in writing articles (Edit-athon) related to protecting the environment and visiting communities Surrounding habituated and urban wetlands. as well as those who were relocated from these high risk zones to new areas,

1.promoting relevant community conservation approach and campaigning with a working policy framework. from respective institution convince them the importance of the environment and to encourage them to preserve the environment.

2.Engaging different partners to educate on the effect of anthropogenic activities on ecosystem by showing them the reason to provide good health to the inhabitants. Such as planting trees and maintaining them etc.

3.we will do this with the help of experts in the field of Environment protection and conservation highlighting the importance of Community conservation.

and will take time to read the history of Wangari Maathai at least an hour before the edit-aton to the environment.

Context

in order to improve our commitments, we will do this training for 5 people and add 1 person who has knowledge on climate change and environment, who will Help us in training with the people we will visit. on average it would take us 3 days,

1 day we would have an online meeting to learn together what is going to be done in the remaining 2 days.

day 2 we will meet face to face with expert on environment and climate change and do an edit athon together and learn together the history of Wangari Maathai

the 3rd day, visit the community and planting trees together.

Note; What will happen when we visit the people is to explain to them the importance of protecting the environment based on what they are doing in their daily life in the village where they live . They will share indigenous knowledge about how conservation was carried out which we will document professionally.

Team

Name: Mutijima Germain

User Name: Germain92 --Germain92 (talk) 21:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC), currently I am professional in land survey[reply]

I am a Wikimedia volunteer in Rwanda I have worked on various Wikimedia project as a volunteer and participated

in different Conferences like WikiIndaba, Wikimania , movement strategy etc.. where learned different skills on Wikimedia PROJECTS

I am one of the volunteer who participated in the Developing the Rwandan wikipedia through translations, and we help others learn to write

articles in our language and wiki Commons, I have also participated in wiki for human Right Campaign editions of 2022 and 2023

I also Managed the wiki vibrance project in Rwanda in 2022

list all people involved, with their linked username
, Musindi 250, Rosine Igirimpuhwe, TheJackNation, Puerta25,
clarify whether the request is from an affiliate user group, a non-affiliated group, or an individual
individual
also clarify whether the funds would be transferred to an individual or to an organization bank account
individual account

Please specify who is submitting the request, and what their experience is to run activities

Fallout

Expected benefits related to funding.
we expect to increase the number of articles related to wetlands protection: 40 articles
we expect to reach out physically: 100 people and the youngest among them will be mobilized to be part of Wikimedia movement
the funding will enable us to acquire seedlings of trees

Budget

Any changes made to the budget after the application is submitted will void the application. You will then need to submit an updated application

Final Report

Object	Unit price ($)	Quantity	Total ($)
Internet	30	6	180
Transport	45	6	270
space rent	150		150
Break fast	120	6	120
Lunch	180	6	180
Buy trees	200		200
Expert Facilitation	200	1	200
Miscellaneous			50
Total			1350
Approved budget			1350


Final Report
This is the final report on micro-funded project for Africa Environment Wikifocus.

Guidelines

Format of the report : the report must be provided as a wiki page on meta
Where to submit your report : create it to your request for micro-funding. A format has been added to your request for micro-funding. Please provide your report on that wiki page
Deadline to submit the report : 15th May 2023
Language : English or French

Summary

Name of person/s compiling final report: MUTIJIMA Germain
Usernames of person/s compiling final report: Germain92
Usergroup (if applicable): N/A
Country: Rwanda
Project name/title: Urban wetlands protection and advocacy campaign in Rwanda
Link to project page (if applicable): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Urban_wetlands_protection_and_advocacy_campaign_in_Rwanda
Link to dashboard:

Outreach Dashboard: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Wikimedia_Rwanda/Urban_Wetland_Protection_and_Advocacy_Campaign_2023

Hashtag tool: https://hashtags.wmcloud.org/?query=%23wangarimaathaiRw&project=&startdate=&enddate=&search_type=or&user=

N.B: We provided two links of different metrics tools we used because outreach dashoard alone had some failure in tracking the new articles created so we decided to use hashtags tool as it was providing all information respectively.

Organising team (usernames): Germain92, @Musindi250, TheJackNation, Puerta250, and Rosine Igirimpuhwe:
Other stakeholders (if applicable): N/A

Activities Record

Consider including the following information:

What did you do?
Who organised it all? Who was on your team (who did what?)?
Did any organisations or associations or groups partner with you to make it happen? If so, who are they?
When did you hold events, where and how? How did you let people know about it?
Who attended your event/s? What did they do at the event? What did they think of the event you held?

The main focus of our campaign was to contribute the content related to Urban wetlands protection and advocacy to the Wikimedia projects especially on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia commons. In order to achieve this goal we had prepared several capacity building sessions, and also we had a community outreach program that had a purpose of implementation of some measures that resulted from a field research that was conducted by our partner organisation called Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing where they suggested us the real place in need of tree plantation, and also they provided us other recommendation and what we were not able to implement we made the advocacy to our other partner organisation that is Rwanda Red Cross and mainly to the department of National Disaster Response Team (NDRT).

The organizing team was made up of:

Germain MUTIJIMA (Germain92), he was the project coordinator.
Cedric BYIRINGIRO (Musindi250), he was in charge of Training coordination.
Jacques NIYIGENA (TheJackNation), he was in charge of Jury coordination and partnership.
Jean Claude KARURANGWA (Puerta250), he was in charge of communication coordination.
Rosine IGIRIMPUHWE (Rosine Igirimpuhwe), she was in charge of Logistics.

During the implementation period of this project we have partnered with two organizations that are:

Rwanda Red Cross: we have partnered with the department of National Disaster Response Team.
Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing: It is an association of youth in Rwanda that is credited for their volunteerism work that mostly focus on human insecurity issues.

We had 3 physical events and 1 online event, and we used social media in reaching different participants, mainly WhatsApp group of Wikimedians in Rwanda, and within a group of participants of this campaign. below there is the description of all events:

On 20th March 2023, we held an online session that was for introducing a project to the participant and also we held training on introduction to Wikipedia, and we conduced an Edit-a-thon and translate-a-thon.
On 27th March 2023, we had a physical session for learning the History of Wangari Maathai, and we continued an Edit-a-thon and translate-a-thon. This session was held in Great hotel Kiyovu that is located at Nyarugenge district.
On 08th April 2023, we had a physical session for where we continued an Edit-a-thon, Data-a-thon and translate-a-thon. This session was held in Great hotel Kiyovu that is located at Nyarugenge district.
On 22nd April 2023, we had an Interactive session under the theme: Role of youth in Climate action as in SDG 13 that was led by Mr Janvier BYUKUSENGE who is a specialist in Environment conservation, and as we visited the community we also planted trees and in this activity we were together with citizens in Nyarurama Cell.

Different events we organized were attended by different attendees who include:

Derrick Ndahiro, he is the founder and president of Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda, he introduced to the attendees Wikimedia, its several projects and he also encouraged them to contribute on those projects.
Mr Janvier BYUKUSENGE, he is a specialist in Environment conservation and he led the interactive session as cited above.
Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing
Mrs. Anitha HOGOZA, Secretary of National Youth Council in Gatenga Sector
Rwanda Red Cross, department of National Disasters Response Team
Youth and other citizens who live in Nyarurama cell, they attended all activities we conducted on 22nd April.

Documentation of activities

Consider including the following information:

Photo gallery of the events
Quotes reflecting participant experiences
Social media posts and/or reports
Links to any media coverage

The gallery that shows photos captured within all these events can be accessed through gallery section on the project's [[:Event:Urban wetlands protection and advocacy campaign in Rwanda#:~:text=and planting trees.-,Gallery,-[edit]|landing page]].

Goals and Outcomes

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes, we absolutely achieved the goal as we had set that we will create 40 articles and during the day of concluding the campaign, we had an overall of 89 Articles created, and 103 articles improved. We have also reached to 140 citizens who resides in Nyarurama cell where we made advocacy for some area in this cell where the government settled them when they were relocated from different wetland area, the advocacy we made earned us partnership with Rwanda Red Cross and Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing and these partners guaranteed us that we will continue to wok together with them. During the outreach in community we introduced Wikimedia and trained the youth how to contribute to Wikipedia and successful we gained 2 new volunteers who are contributing to Wikimedia projects actively, and also with partnership between us, Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing and Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda we are planning a session to train them with all necessary gadgets so that the training will be hands-on training and will lead to high number of new contributors.

Please use the table below to report on the outcomes achieved, starting with the original targets you shared in your proposal for the microgrant.

Final project metrics
Proposed metrics	Anticipated outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanations
Proposed contributors	N/A	19	We had 17 contributors who already were contributing to different Wikimedia projects and 2 new contributors who are still active, we got them from a community outreach we made at Nyarurama Cell.
Article creation	40	89	During the campaign we successfully achieved the creation of 89 new articles and we have improved 103 articles.
Plantation of Trees	190	190	We planted 190 trees where 100 trees were fruit trees and 90 trees were trees that mixed with crops and they facilitate in land preservation.
Community outreach	100	140	We reached to 140 citizens who resides in Nyarurama cell, and we introduced to them Wikimedia and how to contribute to Wikipedia.
New participants	N/A	2	We gained 2 new contributors who are actively contributing to different Wikimedia projects. We should have gained more number of contributors but due to limitation of gadgets we didn't gain more, as indicated above we are planning to reach them.
Partnership	N/A	2	We gained partnership with 2 organisation and the partnership is still ongoing.

Learnings

What did you learn? What are you proud of? What was challenging? From this experience, what would you do differently if you had to do it again?

During the implementation of this campaign we had enriched our capacity in organizing and contributing to environment oriented campaigns. We have also secured partnership where they promised continuing partnership. One of the challenge was that we planned to partner with Corps Africa but due to some of the financial challenge we faced it led to delay of activities we were planning to work with them so we did not meet their agenda of activities. The other challenge was that we had the audience that was made up of many citizens who attended the session of Introduction to Wikimedia and how to contribute to Wikimedia projects but we gained a little number of new active contributors this was due to lack of appropriate gadgets and what we can do differently the other time is that whenever we are going to reach the community we will plan a backstage pass or a micro contribution event that will help to organize a hands-on workshop that will help attendees to get to know more and facilitate them in their future contribution.

Finances

How did the initial proposed budget compare to the final costs of the project? Were there any unexpected costs or changes to your initial budget.

Add here...

Use the table below to display your initial request, include the approved line items on your proposal and the proposed cost of these. Insert the real cost of each expected line. Add extra lines for additional expenses that were not anticipated in the proposed budget. If your budget is in local currency, please use the exchange rate on the date (or an average of the dates) that your money was transferred to your account. Historic mid-rates can be found here.

Please reuse your initial request, provide initial budget for each line, indicate actual expense for each line, and finally justify significant differences.

Final Cost of Project
Proposed line item	Initially budgeted	Actual spend
expenses on trees	200	215
Venue for 2 physical sessions	150	95
Internet and communication (Organizing team and participants)	180	200
Transport for organizing team and participants	270	300
Breakfast	120	140
Lunch	180	200
Facilitation of an expert	200	200

Total grant money agreed (in USD):

Total grant money received (in USD or local currency):

Exchange rate on day/s of receipt of funds: 1092.99

Total project spent (in USD or local currency):1350

Unspent funds

If there are remaining funds, please list the amount here. Remaining funds should be discussed with the Wiki In Africa team. Think about what you would like to do with the remaining funds to further this project. Let us know your ideas below.

Unspent amount (in USD):0

Anything else

Here you can include any information you think would be useful for the organising teams to know.