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Grants:Simple/Applications/AfroCROWD/2018-2019

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Grant stage: grant in progress
Grantee: AfroCROWD
Amount granted: US$59,274+ 10% contingency = US$65,200 (-)
Funding period: 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019
Midpoint report due: 15 January 2019
Final report due: 30 July 2019

Application

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Background

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These two requests are required of first-time applicants. In future years, you can use reports to substitute for these requirements.

  1. Link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements in the past year.
    Please see our program story from our Mid-point report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_New_York_City/2017-2018
  2. Link to one learning story you have created or contributed to, that demonstrates how your organization documents and applies learning.
    Please see our learning stories ('AfroCROWD and Librarians' and 'AfroCROWD and Columbia') from our Mid-point report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_New_York_City/2017-2018

Link to these documents only if you have them.

  1. Link to your organization's staffing plan.

Staffing Plan

Contractor 1: AfroCROWD Program Manager (July 2018 - June 2019)

The duties of the program manager, who reports to the Executive Directors and  has been in the role since 2015 will be as follows in this grant cycle:

  • Manage AfroCROWD programs;
  • Coordinate editathons and editathon reporting including maintenance of on-wiki page;
  • Support the Executive Director in managing and maintaining institutional/GLAM/Grassroots partnerships to further these programs;
  • Pursue and maintain new institutional/GLAM/Grassroots partnerships;
  • Manage social media accounts to support outreach for the programs and the AfroCROWD brand;
  • Research and draft  monthly newsletter;
  • Where needed, represent the organization in public appearances and conferences;
  • Draft grant applications and reports.

Staff time

The weekly work time will be 18 hours/week.

Contractor 2: Accountant  (July 2018 - June 2019)

In exchange for being fiscally sponsored by the WMNYC chapter, AfroCROWD will contribute $1,000 of the $5,000 annual  fee requested by the accountant to tend to the chapter’s accounting, including periodic reports of expenditures and disbursements and issuance of Contractor 1’s checks.

Intern 1:  Oral History Project Intern (July 2018 - June 2019)

The intern will receive an $800 stipend for the year, to be issued at the completion of the full internship.

Please describe any changes to your staffing plan for the upcoming funding period. These should include increases in staff or contractor hours, new staff positions, or staff positions you are removing. Include your rationale for any staffing changes here.

Our staffing plan has expanded to handle expansion of partnerships and programming as well as international and inter-regional programming.

For each new staff or contractor position, please use the template provided to add information about each new staff or contractor you are planning for the upcoming funding period (or to describe significant increases in hours or changes in job descriptions for existing staff). You are not required to provide this information for existing staff where no changes are required.

(Please see above answers)

  1. Link to your annual plan. AfroCROWD has continued to explore and prepare infrastructure for expansion to London in the United Kingdom and to Los Angeles, California in the United States. The project also filed to become a user group and we are applying for this grant this year not as a program of WMNYC but as fiscally sponsored by them.
  • Oral History continued and expanded, including our first intern from Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts program for our oral history project on marginalized linguistic and ethnic communities. We worked with the program to design the project, which the graduate student will be working with us to continue to grow. We also engaged detroit activists interested in documenting Detroit oral history at Allied Media Conference.
  • Engaging both the languages of the African Diaspora and oral knowledge, we will also be holding
    • Our first recordathon in collaboration with Wikitongues, generating oral testimonials in several African Diaspora languages to be uploaded to Commons.
    • A Haitian Creole Translatathon
    • A French editathon engaging French and francophone communities in partnership with WMNYC, Wikifranca and Wikimedia Canada
  • Conducted research and consulted expert on the region and there are currently no Wikimedians listed living in the area.
  • We would like to have more translation events focused on languages in the African Diaspora (for example Haitian Kreyòl and Garifuna)
  • We were not able to pursue transatlantic project with African Wikimedia chapters because of funding complexities involving cross chapter projects. (We consulted with Delphine at the foundation on this.)
  • We drafted affiliates agreements to be signed by AfroCROWD reps in the UK and LA.
  • We’re going to be including wikidata in our editathon trainings
  • We plan to explore the establishment of a Women in Red style virtual editathon campaign around beefing up and reviving  Wiki Project African Diaspora during October and February which are respectively Black History Month in the UK and the US. This campaign can engage current affiliates in the UK and LA, our wikimedia partners in Africa and partners among Latin-American Wikimedians who engage afro-descendant communities there.
  • We will be collaborating with Wikimedians from West and Southern Africa, the United States and the UK (and wherever there is interest) to hold a month of African(a) Cinema in celebration of the same. The event will take place online and at editathons at participating countries with the chapters and groups we are partnering with.
  • We are looking at a cosplay / comics editathon in partnership with other Wikipedia groups. This is in the works. We are looking at October.
  • We anticipate using our training video to encourage editathons that do not require our physical presence in locations where we cannot necessarily travel. We will be creating the AfroCROWD outreach kits to include the new AfroCROWD video, swag and other informations to send out to AfroCROWD affiliates in the UK, Los Angeles and other interested cities.

Please use the templates provided to add information about each program you are planning for the upcoming funding period.

Programs

AfroCROWD will continue to  seek to increase awareness of the Wikimedia and free knowledge, culture and software movements among potential editors of African descent. AfroCROWD events and activities will engage existing contributors and new contributors in building community and in content creation with the aim of bridging the multicultural gap in editorship and content coming from and regarding  Africa and the African Diaspora through meetups, editathons, public speaking, social media outreach, community engagement, and partnerships with cultural grassroots groups in our target groups and GLAM and educational institutions.

  1. Link to your strategic plan.

AfroCROWD is on target for its goals in 2017-1018 and after 3 years of organizing at least one editathon or Wikimedia/Wikipedie event a month or more has now organically expanded to the London in the United Kingdom and to Los Angeles, California with the expectation that the project will expand by at least one more city and organizer by the end of 2019.  AfroCROWD’s social media outreach has also grown steadily with thousands following online and the project expects that reach to continue to grow. We have a brand new suite of tutorial videos which are in line to be done by the end of the grant period.

AfroCROWD has made partnerships in the African community in the United States and will continue to find ways to grow this connection and continue to work with partners, established and new, in the Global African community.  

By June 2019:

Goal: Continue to maintain existing community in the United States and support factors of growth

  • Continue to work on integration and cross-fertilization of existing AfroCROWD community to the broader movement
    • 4-6 AfroCROWDers attend Wikimania 2018 and 2019
    • 4-5 Articles in blogs, local or national press
    • Hold an editathon or translatathon or recordathon per trimester
  • Generate a monthly newsletter of US, UK and known African diaspora editathons and Wikipedia events of interest to our target group
  • Continued maintenance of mailing list and continued maintenance and growth of a cross-continental Afrocrowd google group and/or Slack channel
  • Support and encourage Wikipedia-related efforts by members of the community, using our new training video
    • at least one trainee editor organizes editathon independently
    • Start using toolkit and Training video for those in target group who want to hold editathons independently
  • Continue fostering awareness of AfroCROWD and of our availability as a resource nationally and globally through near daily engagement on social media
    • Measure: Over 60 new people in target group follow us on Social Media
    • Pursue
  • Overall on-wiki measures:
    • About 100 articles edited or created  or photos uploaded for the year (including some in other languages spoken in the African diaspora)
    • Over 100 people attend editathons
    • Over 100 people hear presentations at conferences or when we are invited to present
    • Over 100 people edit Wikipedia with us
    • Other measures:
      • 20 new contributors make 2+ edits within 4 months after participating in an event, and 5+ existing contributors report increased engagement as a result of their attendance at meetups and editathons or their participation in other AfroCROWD activities.
      • AfroCROWD will continue to hold 9-12 events for the year with at least 4 editathons being held in the United States and one overseas, each of which will have at least 8-15 participants with at least 5 participants for overseas or LA events.
      • All meetups will be facilitated by an experienced AfroCROWDer with the aim to increase participation among diverse, underrepresented populations in the African Diaspora. In addition to supporting initiatives to address the diversity gap among people of African Descent, AfroCROWD is looking to partner with more groups working on the gender and diversity gaps.

Goal: Continue Capacity Building of AfroCROWD Affiliates in the UK and LA

  • Monthly meeting and ongoing email contact with Kelly Foster, experienced London-based Wikipedian and AfroCROWD organizer in the UK
  • Attendance, in-person meeting and joint presentation with Kelly at Wikimania 2017 in Montreal
  • Implement usage of training videos
  • Serve as an ongoing resource to Kelly and offer support for navigation of the broader Wikimedia bureaucracy
  • Explore and research expansion to other European metropolises with large afrodescendant community such as Paris

Goal:  Launch AfroCROWD User Group

  • User Group application is pending and decision should be forthcoming in the month following this grant application
  • Educate event participants, newsletter readers and social media followers about the meaning and function of the user group
  • Research user group governance and network and find mentors among similarly situated user groups
  • The Administrative meeting in January is meant to pick the brains of Affiliate heads in the UK and LA on pre-strategic priorities for the user group.

Goal: Continue to create a bridge between African and African Diaspora Wikipedians

  • Attendance of one or two AfroCROWD people at the next Wiki Indaba in Nigeria
  • Joint Campaign: The Month of African(a) Cinema to happen in June with Wikipedians in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon the United States the United Kingdom and South Africa
  • Involvement and showcasing  of African Wikimedians remotely at US & UK events
  • AfroCROWD presence at Wikimania 2018 in South Africa
  • Hold events deepening awareness of wikipedias in languages of Africa and the African Diaspora in collaboration with African Wikimedian groups and Latin-American Wikimedian groups (including AfroRecordathon, Translatathon, Project African Diaspora virtual campaign)

Goal: Pursue movement’s knowledge equity by 2030 strategy goal through continued Oral Knowledge Integration

  • Continue Oral History Project started this year with Columbia University graduate students
  • Hold very first AfroRecordathon with WikiTongues, recording oral testimonials in various African and african diaspora languages for upload to Wikicommons.

Known Calendar Items

2018
  • June: Haitian Creole Translatathon in New York in partnership with Long Island University
  • July: Wikimania Panel in Cape Town South Africa with Whose Knowledge about community archives
  • Month of African(a) Cinema in partnership with allied Wikimedia groups in West and Southern Africa, in the United States and the United Kingdom. This is to take place online and throughout the month of July
  • August: Afro Recordathon - recording oral history in partnership with Wiki Tongues. This will involve uploading African Language samples to Wikimedia Commons
  • September: Oral history project culmination with Columbia University Student.
  • October: AfroCROWD Transatlantic Training the Trainers via online video conference with the United Kingdom; Project African Diaspora virtual editathon in UK for UK Black History Month
  • December: Year end Wikipedia editathon and celebration
2019
  • January: Wikipedia Day and AfroCROWD Affiliate Summit in New York City
  • February: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Annual Editathon + Potential online campaign centered around WikiProject African Diaspora
  • March: Collaboration with Art + Feminism
  • (Month TBD: French Language Editathon targeting French speakers in New York)

Please add your global metrics to this sheet. Contact APG staff if you need access. AfroCROWD Metrics Worksheet


AfroCROWD will continue to seek to increase awareness of the Wikimedia and free knowledge, culture and software movements among potential editors of African descent. AfroCROWD events and activities will engage existing contributors and new contributors in building community and in content creation with the aim of bridging the multicultural gap in editorship and content coming from and regarding  Africa and the African Diaspora through meetups, editathons, public speaking, social media outreach, community engagement, and partnerships with cultural grassroots groups in our target groups and GLAM and educational institutions.

Programs

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Events and editathons

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will hold 10 events and editathons including a recordathon. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge as a Service and Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD will continue to hold events and editathons throughout the coming grant cycle aimed at awareness and editor recruitment in our target audiences, centered on diversity gaps, engaging the many languages of Africa and the African Diaspora, including a recordathon engaging Oral History.

Wiki Languages and Recorded Histories of Africa and the African Diaspora

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will:
  • hold a Haitian Creole Translatathon
  • hold a French and francophone Editathon
  • engage Spanish-speaking Afrolatinx communities in Latin-America with Wikimedia Uruguay and Afrolatino Project via an online program/ event
  • begin translating and voice over of the video in at least 1 of 3 languages of the African Diaspora, likely French and Spanish.
  • bring attention and awareness to the various African and African diaspora languages through outreach and 2 programs
Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge as a Service and Knowledge Equity

Engaging both the languages of the African Diaspora and oral knowledge, we will be holding our first recordathon in collaboration with Wikitongues, generating oral testimonials in several African Diaspora languages to be uploaded to Commons. We also plan to hold a Haitian Creole Translatathon and  a French Editathon. We plan to engage Spanish-speaking Afrolatinx communities in Latin-America with IIbero Coop and other Wikimedia chapters in those regions engaging those communities. As our training video is projected to be finalized by the end of the 2017-2018 cycle, we plan to begin translating and voice over of the video in at least 3 languages of the African Diaspora, likely French and Spanish.

Ideally, AfroCROWD’s efforts in our various events will bring attention and awareness to the various African and African diaspora languages on Wikipedia, including:

Oral History Project/ Internship

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will implement an internship to continue the Marginalized Ethnic and Linguistic Communities Oral History project begun at Columbia University and begin a pilot program to document and archive oral histories with at least one intern.
Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge as a Service and Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD partnered with the Columbia University Oral History Master of Arts Program beginning in the Fall of 2017 by proposing and developing the Marginalized Ethnic and Linguistic Communities Oral History Project, where a graduate student interviewed linguistic and cultural advocates associated with the AfroCROWD and Wikipedia community from the Haitian, Garifuna and via our Equality Labs partnership, Dalit Indian community. They program accepted the project and a Columbia graduate student worked on it. The project is aimed at Wiki Commons. Our graduate student presented the project during a lightning talk at Wikipedia Day in New York in January of 2018.

She would like to continue working with us for an internship in the Summer of 2018 to continue the project. The internship would be unpaid, but may include travel and accommodations to Boston for a potential partnership through MIT via Whose Knowledge and to Los Angeles for a potential partnership with University of California Pomona.

Wikimedia Movement Awareness, Involvement and Visibility Campaign

Visibility is a key part of the AfroCROWD initiative, and a powerful tool in spreading the word about the Wikimedia movement. Visibility is also a key pre-requisite to meeting the movement's strategic goal of Knowledge Equity by 2030.

Media

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will be featured in 2 press articles. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity

Media-wise, we have previously been featured in the New York Times, among other news outlets, and this grant cycle, our mentions include leading British news source, "The Guardian" which describes AfroCROWD as a group "working to make the internet more diverse and plural."

Also, by the way, did you happen to see Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales himself wearing the AfroCROWD t-shirt we gifted him at his recent televised Knight Foundation appearance during his talk about the Wiki Tribune? We will mention that one as much as possible, we thought it was pretty awesome.

Monthly Newsletter

Objective: By June 30, 2019 AfroCROWD will expand it’s newsletter outreach by 250 recipients made up of
  • partners within the movement,
  • potential participants, partners and influencers outside the Wikimedia movement who we think would make good Wikipedians, and
  • past editathon and event attendees who we want to remain aware of AfroCROWD and movement activities
Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD will continue summarizing all known happenings concerning Wikimedia and people of African descent in Africa and the African Diaspora in its monthly newsletter which currently reaches out to an average of over 2,400 recipients, depending on the campaign, all over the world. The newsletter typically contains monthly events by AfroCROWD UK and LA, the Black Lunch Table and broader Wikimedia events such as Wikimania, which have traditionally lacked in participation of our target group.

Conferences

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will participate in at least 2 conferences to sensitize those in our target group who might make good wikipedia editors to the need for their contribution to the movement. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity
  • Participation in conferences regarding our areas of interest

During the 2017-2018 fiscal year AfroCROWD gave talks or trainings at several conferences that have helped produce awareness and useful partnerships for coming projects.

These included:

  • The Allied Media Conference, Detroit, Michigan
  • New York African(a) studies Association conference, Seton Hall University, New Jersey
  • Out of Bounds, the 46th Annual Conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), New York City
  • BLERD (Black Nerd) City Tech, Comics, SciFi/Horror/ Fantasy film screenings and readings conference, Brooklyn, New York
  • International Girls in ICT Day 2018, Organized my Microsoft, UNICEF and the NYC Mayor's Office to encourage young women in tech, Microsoft, New York City

We anticipate getting and accepting similar invitations in the new grant cycle.

Visibility at Wikimedia Movement conferences

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will continue to grow meaningful presence and participation in Wikipedia Day, Wiki Indaba, Wiki Conference North America and Wikimania to nurture better Wikimedians in our target group, especially the most engaged and motivate Wikimedians in other parts of the world where there are people of African descent to do the same. In the process we hope to obtain or nurture 3 partnerships or intermovement collaborations. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD sees it as a vital part of its mission to increase attendance and visibility of our target group at Wikimedia movement conferences. We believe that our physical presence also builds awareness of the content and editorship diversity gap while it also empowers our target group to become impactful Wikimedians. Unfortunately, none of the key leaders in AfroCROWD and Black Lunch Table who applied received Wikimania  scholarships this year, which we find problematic when Wikimania is happening on the African continent. We have therefore included funding to have a robust AfroCROWD presence in this grant.   We intend to continue participation in Wikipedia Day, Wiki Indaba, Wiki Conference North America and Wikimania.

Afrocrowd Administrative Meeting at Wikipedia Day

Wikipedia Day is a local (greater New York City) one day unconference and birthday celebration for Wikipedia, in line with the global Wikipedia Day (on meta) and Wikipedia Day (on EN-WP). It is a chance to introduce Wikipedia to those interested enough to participate in the event. Wikipedia Day 17 (January 2019) will be a modified unconference, with dedicated plenary sessions (organized on our meetup page), lightning talks to the whole assembly, and open space sessions. AfroCROWD intends to participate in the Wikimedia NYC Wikipedia day as a whole. As such we would like to bring organizers of the AfroCROWD UK and AfroCROWD LA groups to the event with us for a presentation in New York.

Partnerships Development and Outreach Campaign

GLAM / Institutional Partnerships

Objective: By June 30, 2019 AfroCROWD will continue to collaborate organizations in the New York City area and beyond. We are especially looking forward to working with partners within the Wikimedia community locally and internationally, as well as new and continuing partners among at least 3 organizations. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity and Knowledge as a Service

Specifically, AfroCROWD plans to collaborate with the following organizations:

  • MOMA
  • Brooklyn Public Library
  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
  • Queens Library
  • United Nations
  • Internet Society of Namibia
  • Ace Hotel New York

Cultural Grassroots Partnerships

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will Continue outreach to our target group who are not yet in the movement with at least 2 cultural grassroots partnerships. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD will continue seeking out and collaborating with grassroots cultural and advocacy groups in our target audience:

  • Afrolatino Project
  • Haitian Creole Language Institute
  • Yoruba Cultural Institute
  • Garifuna Nation
  • Wikitongues Namibia
  • BLERD
  • Creatively Speaking
  • Add more here
  • Contemporary African Art Biennial (Dakar, Senegal)

University and College partnerships

Objective: By June 30, 1029, AfroCROWD will continue our partnerships with professors at educational institutions with at least 2 programs. Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity

AfroCROWD has established partnerships with professors and educators at Columbia University, New York University, the Fashion Institute of technology, The New School, and CUNY among others, as well as educators in the public school system and New Jersey’s Seton Hall University. In the coming year, we would like to continue our partnerships with professors at educational institutions.

  • Seton Hall University
  • Long Island University (Prof. Barriere)
  • Fashion Institute of Technology
  • Barnard College
  • New York University
  • Columbia University
  • CUNY  (LaGuardia Community College, Baruch College, The Graduate Center, New York City College of Technology, Hunter College, Queens College)
  • University of California, Pomona
  • York College

Wikimedia Partnerships

Objective: By June 30, 2019, AfroCROWD will
  • support international programs related to the scope of closing the diversity and gender gaps as either a main node or via satellite events for at least 3 programs.
  • Improve our ability to connect internationally and investigate better ways that may be available to do so.
  • help test WMF test tools that will be rolled out in the coming year
Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction alignment: Knowledge Equity


We will support international programs related to the scope of closing the diversity and gender gaps as either a main node or via satellite events. Support entails creating event pages that can serve as the main event page for global nodes, outreach, networking or resource sharing or social media support. We will also participate by sending a representative to certain events or conferences where possible.

International events may include:

Part of partnership development is communications. We would also like to look into improving our ability to connect internationally and investigate better ways that may be available to do so. For example, we would like to look into improved conferencing options for international meetings among partners and Wikimedia groups.

For our programs, we would like to help test WMF test tools that will be rolled out in the coming year that people like James and Leon have been working on. This is up to the foundation if it is interested, but we want to try out what they are working on and see if our community groups are interested and if it works for capturing information about our editathons and other events that may be useful to the larger community and our participants who are interested while they are in beta.

Staff

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See staffing plan, information is included there.

Budget and resource plan

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Link to a detailed budget (that also includes a plan for raising the resources you need). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1639SOBG3MRp0UBdBm9vft6QdDuZbMDJU_MOCsPcg7a4/edit#gid=0

We have calculated our total budget for this grant cycle to be __ADD FINAL NUMBER________ but in light of anticipated in-kind donations totaling $8,440, we are requesting the remaining __ADD FINAL NUMBER___ from the WMF in this grant.

In light of the Wikimedia Conference visibility part of our conference attendance program, we thought we would provide detailed explanations of line items regarding travel in our budget:

Wikimania Conference 2018 and AfroCROWD Presentation at Wikimania 2018

$1,300 (x4 NYC-Cape Town flights)= $5,200 $1,800 (LA to Cape Town flight for AfroCROWD LA organizer) $800 (x3 double rooms) = $2,400 $450 conference registration costs Total: $9,850 for Flights and rooms and conference registration costs

Wiki Indaba estimates for 2018 Conference -- Line item 1.4.5:
  • Round trip flight New York to Lagos, Nigeria: $950
  • Round trip flight London to Lagos, Nigeria: $950
  • Lodging (March 15-19, 2019): $450

Total: $2,350

Wikiconference North America estimates without scholarships -- Line item 1.4.6
  • Round trip flight New York to Columbus Ohio: $215 (x2)
  • Lodging (October 17-22): $500

Total: $715

Oral history internship -- Line items 3.1.2 and 3.1.5::

$1,800 $800 for stipend and $1000 for the possibility of travel to Boston and Los Angeles.

AfroCROWD Administrative meeting at Wikipedia Day -- Line item 1.4.2

The cost is estimated to be about $700 for the UK to New York’s JFK round trip ticket for the AfroCROWD UK organizer and $600 for the LA to New York’s Laguardia round trip flight for the AfroCROWD LA organizer and about $400 for their 2 nights of lodging with a $150 stipend for food and ground transportation during the visit.  The New York City Wikipedia Day un-conference is the largest annual event targeted to the Wikimedia community in New York City, where AfroCROWD is headquartered.

Midpoint report

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This is a brief report on the grantee's progress during the midpoint reporting period: .

Program story

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Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

AfroCROWD Oral History/ Knowledge Project program story:


Sample: Samuel speaking Gaa (Wikitongues and AfroCrowd)
Recordathon 2018a jeh


AfroCROWD has many great stories from this grant period, but one of the shining stars has been our work in oral history. This on-going project started in 2017 with the idea to work with Columbia University Oral Masters Program (OHMA) students to collect stories from marginalized ethnic and linguistic groups associated with AfroCROWD and the Wikimedia movement. Last year we worked with Dian Zi our first student. This year, as we moved to implement our first (and to our knowledge, the first) Oral Knowledge recordathons, with the aim of adding collected oral captures to Wiki Commons.

For this we recruited another in-coming Columbia OHMA student, Darold Cuba, to be our intern as we worked to put this together. Our program director, Sherry Antoine, organized a working group across the Wikimedia movement and with different institutions with input from Whoseknowledge?, Columbia University and our major partner Wikitongues as well as archivists from MIT, the public records division of New York, LaGuardia Community College and even a Bob Dylan archivist among others. It was truly an effort of research aimed at gathering as much information as possible on the best way to develop this new initiative.

At the end of the Summer, what was born out of team work and many hours, was the launch of what we hope will not just add to content of Wiki Commons audio and visual data, but will be an expansion of what can be done with the added dimension of audio and visual knowledge to deliver a deeper understanding of the world around us and the dynamic and nuanced nature of the people, places and objects that populate the historical record within the pixels of Wikipedia pages.

We are also very thankful to the participants who answered the call for the recordathon and the project as a whole to lend their voices to the endeavor. Out of this we see the great value of teamwork and resourceful connection among different projects creates worthwhile results, especially among partners working towards a common purpose.

Progress

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Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program progress. This should including reporting against each of the SMART objectives form your proposal.

Metrics

Progress spreadsheet




List of editathons and events from July 1, 2018 - December 31, 2018

July:

  • Wikimania presentation
  • Wikimania Panel in Cape Town South Africa with Whose Knowledge about community archives
  • Presentation on the work of AfroCROWD at Wikimania
  • AfroCROWD participated in the DeColonizing the Internet Pre-Conference
  • Oral History Intern on-boarded

August:

  • Afro-Oral Knowledge Recordathon @ LaGuardia Community College, Queens Sunday, August 26th, 1-5pm
  • Afro Recordathon - recording oral history in partnership with Wiki Tongues and oral history Columbia University intern. Sherry directed efforts in this area along with partnership throughout the Summer including activity with MIT at the archives conference in DC.
  • AfroCROWD participates in Archives Convention and meeting with MIT Faculty

September:

  • Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in North Carolina at UNC North Carolina Asheville oragnized by AfroCROWD intern Darold Cuba

October:

  • With Sam Oye of Nigeria, AfroCROWD helped organize the first International AfroCine Project with Wikimedians based in African countries which begins this month and will go into  the end of November.
  • AfroCROWD and AfroCROWDers represented at WikiConference NA. Sherry presented on our work with LaGuardia and translate-a-thons, and our work on oral history recordathons. Darold presented on his Wiki HBCU and mapping freedom projects (focused on mapping freedom towns in the US).

November:

December:


Partnerships

Cultural partnerships:

  • African Council of NYC

Wikimedia Movement Partnerships:

  • Wikitongues
  • Wikimedia Uruguay
  • Wikimania
  • Wikimedia NYC
  • Wikimedia Nigeria
  • WikiProject AfroCine
  • WikiConference NA

University and College Educators partnerships:

  • Columbia University
  • Long Island University
  • LaGuardia Community College
  • Loyola Marymount University
  • MIT
  • University of North Carolina
  • University of Virginia
  • Fordham University
  • Georgetown Library

Contributions to a global movement (conferences etc):

Videos:

AfroCROWD Tutorials Projects:

Press:

Photos

Take a look at these AfroCROWD Photos from some of our events.

Spending

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Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

$17,972


Final report

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This is the final report for our grant, describing our outcomes from the period July 1 2018- June 30, 2019.

AfroCROWD User Group Logo
The AfroCROWD Usergroup International Team at AfroCROWD's first organizational retreat, Brooklyn, NY in January.

AfroCROWD has had a good year of expansion and development. We expanded the kind of knowledge we produce, for example, helping to pioneer Wikipedia translation events like translatathons, and oral knowledge Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons events like the first oral history recordathons.

We also:

  • Expanded our geographical footprint by helping to launch the Wikimedians of the Caribbean User Group which began in October at Wikiconference North America, and was just recognized as an official usergroup
  • Are now working with AfroCROWD organizers in Los Angeles then Boston, England, Spain and France
  • Are actively partnering with Wikimedia groups on the African continent
  • Expanded our Linguistic reach through our new Spanish Training video
  • Presented at the United Nations on knowledge access for women and the digital divide and separately
  • Connected once again with the Swedish Mission to the United Nations for our part of the Wikimedia Wikigap Campaign, and
  • Ran a road race to promote language at Wiki+Education conference in the mountains of Spain and France, meeting Wikimedians from everywhere.

What a year!

Program story

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Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

A link to a program story

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Showcase of our organization's achievements during the reporting period:

  • Columbia Students and the AfroCROWD Oral History Project
Recordathon 2018a jeh

When we began the oral history program in the Fall of 2017 in partnership with the Columbia University Oral History Masters Program, one of the oldest of its kind, we did not know what to expect. We knew we wanted to help ensure oral knowledge was included in the sum of all human knowledge, especially since so many societies, including many in the African Diaspora, used oral history as the main or only source of historical record. We also wanted to ensure the stories of marginalized communities and languages were included.

Now, two years later, many bytes of information and a recordathon later, we have learned a lot and have seen the expansion of oral history recordathons like the one we helped start this reporting period at LaGuardia College. We have grown partnerships and were excited to partner with Wikitongues to capture the oral histories as well as Whoseknowledge?.

Dian Zi, our first student at Columbia not only spoke about her life impacting experience with us recording oral histories, but when she graduated at the top of her class from Columbia Graduate School and was chosen to represent her class at graduation, she invited our Program Director who worked closely with her as a special guest and described her experience with AfroCROWD as life changing.

Our second student, Darold Cuba, became our first intern, and was so taken with what he learned while with us that he became Columbia’s first Black Wikipedian in Residence and continued on to be selected as a Wikipedia Fellow with Wiki Edu.

We are grateful for the opportunity to experiment with ways of reaching the 2030 Strategic Goals in the Wikimedia Community.

Along with that, those who participated in the first ever Wikipedia Oral Knowledge Recordathon that we organized with Wikitongues and LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York, attracted engaged participants who not only donated oral knowledge and artifacts to Wiki Commons, but also became Wikipedia editors who we were able to train to edit. What we thought would be a recordathon was also a multilingual edit-a-thon.

This is just one example of how a program that started out as an experimental way to solve a problem and expand knowledge grew into life impacting projects and have affected the trajectories of those involved.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Learning story

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Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

A link to a learning story

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Showcase of how our organization learns and evaluates our work, or how you use what you have learned:

  • International Partnerships: Oregon and Nigeria, Nigeria and Ghana, Africa Day:

Always be on the lookout for opportunities to connect beyond expectations:

Partnership can blossom into opportunities you may not have expected. When working with partners, it is helpful to think outside of the box and to look for ways partners can work together, even if the opportunity has not presented itself.

When AfroCROWD connected to fellow Wikimedians from Ghana and Nigeria at Wiki Indaba in 2017 we knew we wanted to do more together, but there wasn’t yet a project that we envisioned at the time that would open that door, but we knew that if we kept our eyes open, we might find a way.

That door opened almost exactly two years later when we connected with a group of librarians in Oregon through a Wikipedian and Librarian and at Oregon State University and women from a women’s professional organization with offices in Nigeria and Ghana. Fast forward a bit, and what grew out of these years of partnership development was our first international Black History month collaboration connecting Librarians and students at Oregon State University and Agricultural educators, librarians and students at an agricultural university in Abeokuta, Nigeria through Wikimedia Nigeria in February this year.

This was followed by our first international Africa Day partnership with our new partners African Women on Board in both Nigeria, with Wikimedia Nigeria, and Ghana, with Open Foundation West Africa (co-founded by Wikimedia’s Felix Nartey) as well as our affiliate organizer in France, Noicir Wikipedia.

We will also participate in Felix’s Africa Challenge in the coming cycle.

Who knew all those years ago that this connection at Wiki Indaba would lead to such rewarding opportunities to expand and enrich the Wikipedia community and knowledge? All we knew is that we wanted to do something together. Through persistence and looking for the connections points, we accomplished this goal of international collaboration with the African community. Had we stayed within the lines of what was in front of us, we doubt we would have gone far beyond where we originally stood as visitors from New York in 2017.


Poster from our Instagram campaign celebrating our partnership with Oregon State University and FUNAAB Agricultural University in Abeokuta, Nigeria

Results

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Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program results. You should report on each of the objectives you included in your Simple APG application.

Our achievements:

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A screen shot from UN TV of AfroCROWD Program Director Sherry Antoine Speaking at the UN on information access, women and the digital divide.

New training video in Spanish

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Last cycle, we produced and released our first set of training videos in English. It has helped us expand as Afrocrowd can be represented without already overworked staff being present in the room physically or virtually.

This cycle, we produced the training video in Spanish, adapted to the rules of Spanish Wikipedia. Spanish is a language spoken by many in the African Diaspora in the Americas, Europe and Africa: our training This tool should help us further expand our reach geographically and linguistically.

Events

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Here is a list of our events this quarter:

Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates at LIU Brooklyn]]. June 18th, 11 AM -3 PM.

  1. AfroCROWD Africa Day International Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Notable African Women. May 25th, 2019.
  2. Whoseknowledge Visible Wiki Women Women of Colors Campaign. April 22 - May 2, 2019.
  3. LaGuardia Translatathon. LaGuardia Community College. Thursday, April 4 and Friday, April 5, 2019.
  4. Labor in Context Art + Feminism editathon Saturday, March 16, 2019.
  5. Wikigap Online Campaign, with support from the Swedish Mission to the United Nations in celebration of Women's History Month. Friday, March 8- Monday, April 8, 2019.
  6. Schomburg Center Black History Month Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Black New York History. Saturday, February 16, 2019.
  7. Oregon State University Black History Month Wikipedia Edit-a-thon with AfroCROWD at Oregon State University, Oregon and Nigerian Wikipedians February 7-8, 2019.
  8. AfroCROWD is proud to be a part of Black Wiki History Month, 2019! February 1 - 28, 2019.
  9. Fordham University Wikipedia Edit-a-thon with AfroCROWD at Fordham University Licoln Center Campus, December 6, 2018.
  10. AfroCROWDLA Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and Training the Trainers at Los Angeles Library. November 15, 2018.
  11. Georgetown AfroCROWD Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on African Cinema. Georgetown University Library, Washington, DC. November 11, 2018.
  12. AfroCROWD LA Local History Wikipedia Edit-a-thon(LAPL) Los Angeles Public Library, 630 West 5th Street; Los Angeles, California. Thursday, November 15, 2018.
  13. Months of African Cinema with the Wiki AfroCine Project, Online, October 1-November 30, 2018.
  14. Afro-Oral Knowledge Record-a-thon at LaGuardia Community College, Queens Sunday, August 26, 2018.

Photos

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Check out more memorable moments from this fiscal year on our Instagram feed: Instagram

Like this one below: https://www.instagram.com/Afrocrowd/

Photo used in this touching Instagram Post earlier this year. It shows Wynnie Lamour speaking at WikiConference North America San Diego in 2016 - 3

AfroCROWD has had a strong effect on the communities and even partners we have worked with. Check out this message shared on Instagram by AfroCROWDer, New York University Professor and Haitian Language advocate Wynnie Lamour:

"The first time I was introduced to the world of #Wikipedia was through the work of @afrocrowd.Founded by @kiskeacity, #AfroCROWD pressed me to see the importance of bringing more black and brown voices to ALL spaces, even those spaces we might not even ordinarily think need to be re-examined for their biases.

Since then, I've worked closely with the Wikipedia platform, engaging myself and my students in the work of bringing #KreyòlAyisyen and all things Haiti-related to Wikipedia in the form of editing and creating articles.

Since the Fall of 2015, students at NYU's Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies @clacs_nyu have contributed nearly 40,000 words, edited over 200 articles and created nearly 100 new articles.

I mean, how many of you even know that there is a Haitian Creole Wikipedia? If you know how to read and write Kreyòl, I would absolutely recommend that you make your way there and edit some articles! Frankly, language advocacy calls on us to re-envision what #RevolutionaryThinking looks like. THANK YOU...Onè, Respè! In the meantime, here is a picture of me, speaking at my first Wikipedia Conference in San Diego, in the Fall of 2016, pressing folks on #ReCenteringBlackness in their work.Photo available on Wikimedia Commons!"

Spending

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Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period

  • $52,785.80
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