Grants:Simple/Applications/Open Foundation West Africa/2019

Application or grant stage: grant in progress

Applicant or grantee: grantee

Amount requested: US$42,589

Amount granted: US$42,589

Funding period: 1 January 2019 - 30 September 2019

Midpoint report due: 1 June 2019

Final report due: 30 October 2019

Proposal

Background

Annual Plan

OFWA Annual Plan 2019

Budget Plan

OFWA Budget Plan 01-09 19

Staffing Plan

OFWA Staffing Plan 2019

As mentioned in our midpoint report in our 2018 SAPG, our approach to gaining new partnerships have been geared towards achieving our goals as an organization and to solidify our activities in our core functional areas. Some of these target areas include:

• Capacity Building and Community Development
• GLAM & Content Creation
• Education Programs
• Tech and Community Support

In the coming year we are mapping out a clear path and creating consistency in our programs to allow a better anticipation or expectation for the grant team on what we do. In order to also align our grant request periods with our fiscal year, in this grant request we will specifically make a request for 9 months only after which we expect to synchronise our grant request durations with our organization's fiscal year. Our activities for the year January - September 2019 are outlined below:

Programs

Capacity Building and Community Development

This encompasses all our events and activities aimed at building a solid community to ensure events, projects and interventions are carried out successfully. This will also involve in the training and development of volunteers with the requisite technical and project management skills to surge interest and increase retention.

Projects:

• Monthly Community meetups in Accra
• Quarterly Community meetups in Ho and Kumasi
• Quarterly language meetups.

Monthly Community Meetup in Accra

Our monthly meet-ups are intended to enable us host regular meetups in Accra, which is our main hub. What we have realized is that recruited volunteers often contributed more when they attend activities or events, in this regard we have decided to organise monthly meet ups to contribute towards towards thematic causes and to use the opportunity to constantly serve as a reminder to our members of their core commitment and to maintain activeness of our membership. These regular meetups will ensure that at least once in a month new members and old members alike will get the opportunity to meet and contribute. These monthly meet-ups will be thematic such that at every month volunteers get the chance to meet, learn new things and also contribute to diverse topics. These meet ups will help forge a good community and also ensured capacity of old and new volunteers are enhanced within the movement.

Objectives

• Sustain the interest of members as well as new recruits.
• Train new and old volunteers on basic editing tools.
• Give members and new members the opportunity to contribute and network on a regular basis.

Metrics

• Recruit at least 60 new volunteers.
• Train and retain at least 20 new active editors.
• Improve and create over 100 articles on 9 different topics/themes in Ghana.

Quarterly Community Meetup in Ho & Kumasi

As a follow up to some partnerships we have secured, we intend having quarterly meet-ups to activate these communities, especially because they are in our target regions (outside Accra) and we deem this as an essential partnership to extend the reach of Wikimedia in the country. This will provide a unique outreach opportunity in other parts of the country where we don’t primarily operate. We already have volunteers on the ground whom we trained during Summer Open School 2018, and will be in charge of these communities under our close supervision as an extension of OFWA. The first meet up will be a training session and the subsequent two (2) will be edit-a-thons to provide an opportunity for the community to get a chance to contribute to Wikimedia projects. We will do this in the 2 new regions we are have gained partnerships in are looking forward to expand to; Ho and Kumasi. The primarily aim of this will be to help us extend our activities to other parts, starting a community there and also developing the capacity of the volunteers of the new communities.

Objectives

• Begin and maintain outreach of the movement in other parts of the country thereby giving volunteers in these areas the chance to contribute.
• Increase content about the new regions on Wikipedia.
• Create awareness about Wikipedia and its sister projects online.
• Recruit new volunteers from other parts of Ghana and give them the opportunity and platform to contribute to Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Metrics

• Recruit 20 new volunteers.
• Add about 100 new images about the new regions.
• Create and improve over 20 articles about the regions.

Quarterly Language Meetups

As stated in our midpoint report we have secured two partnerships for the Ga and Twi Wikipedias. In pursuant to this, we have created the Ga Wikipedia and also created two online communities for these and had at least two trainings. In our bid to sustain these communities and improve content, we intend having periodic meet-ups once every quarter. These will bring the communities together and give them a chance to learn new things and to also contribute the various language Wikis in question. It should be however noted that contributions on-wiki will be continuous, however, these meet ups will just be a climax and a time to meet in person to discuss issues and brainstorm ways to scale the language projects. This will enable us to create a new community for our local languages and also equip this community with the requisite tools and skills to ensure they contribute.

Objectives

• Create an active community for local language Wikipedias.
• Create awareness about local language Wikipedias in Ghana.
• Promote the readership and usage of Ghanaian languages online.

Metrics

• Create or translate at least 100 articles.
• Recruit at least 10-15 new active members.
• Engage over 30 new members.

GLAM & Content Creation

The GLAM & Content Creation Program of OFWA focuses on opportunities that translate directly into content that improve Wikimedia projects. These contents are targeted at projecting the culture, history, natural heritage, scenic landscape, architecture, monumental structures and artifacts of the country. They are often presented in audiovisual formats and are used to complement already existing articles or aid in the creation of new articles. This program will be targeted at directly improving content on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

Projects:

• Wiki Loves Earth
• Wiki Loves Festivals
• Ghana QR Project
• Wiki Loves Africa

Wiki Loves Earth

Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) is an annual international photographic competition targeted at taking pictures of local natural heritage and scenic landscape in their countries, and upload them to Wikimedia Commons.

As part of our activities in 2019 we are enthused to participate in the campaign to provide photos that can help to better illustrate articles on and about Ghana. We have received a drone from Wikimedia Norway to assist us with this campaign and to help us attain quality photos for the campaign. For us photo contests are a unique opportunity to rope in new contributors out of our movement and a unique opportunity to create the awareness of Wikimedia.

0bjectives

• Add more images about the local natural heritage and scenic landscape.
• Improve articles by integrating these images in their related articles or creating articles for non-existing articles.
• Recruit and train new editors through the various photo expeditions, upload sessions and edit-a-thons.
• Engage existing editors to contribute to Commons and other sister projects.
• Create awareness about the Wikimedia movement and its activities in Ghana and beyond.

Metrics

• Engage a minimum of 20 participants in photowalks sessions.
• Engage at least 20 more uploaders who are remote and not part of our movement.
• Upload a minimum of 200 photos for the contest.
• Use at least 10% of the total images on Wikimedia projects

Wiki Loves Festivals

Festivals are an expressive way to celebrate glorious and sorrowful heritage, culture and traditions. They are meant to celebrate or commemorate special moments and emotions in the lives of people. They play an important role to adding a structure to our social lives, and connect us with our families and backgrounds. For this reason Aristotle describes human beings as a “social animal”, because by our nature we build capacity to learn language, familiarise with cultures, enquire and think, play and work through social interaction with our fellow beings. This makes festivals a crucial part of the human race, irrespective of the location of its inhabitants, because festivals are the way of that group of people, folklore and tales from their ancestors are passed on and cultural heritage and history is preserved.

From Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Yam and Fire festivals of Nigeria and Ghana to the various carnivals in Brazil and St Patrick’s Day originally from Ireland, and many other festivals abound across the globe.

Albeit the importance of festivals, its coverage on Wikipedia is limited to stubs, many uncovered and many others lacking photos or videos to further tell the story or enrich the experience of the reader or seekers of such knowledge. Through this campaign we hope to improve the audiovisual contents of such subjects which will in turn inspire improvement of such articles from stubs, creation of entirely new articles or related photo documentary or essays about such festivals and help to properly illustrate articles that lack visuals.

This is important because not all GLAM content exist within GLAM institutions, some are found on our streets, homes, villages and places we often don't look to when talking about GLAM. However still important to share telling the complete story of a particular culture or people. In our bid to promote culture and heritage, we want to pilot this project in Ghana, covering the different types of festivals in Ghana. This will be done in partnership with Wikimedia SE that has expressed interest in organising a similar thing in their country.

Objectives

• Add more images on Ghanaian culture and heritage through festivals.
• Improve articles on Ghanaian festivals on English Wikipedia and create new articles or translation in the local language Wikipedias ( Twi and Ga).
• Create awareness about Wikipedia and its sister projects as tools for promoting culture and heritage.
• Engage the community of existing contributors in Ghana to use this as an opportunity to contribute.

Metrics

• Engage a minimum of 20 participants for photowalks.
• Engage at least 15 uploaders
• Upload at least 300 photos
• Use 10% of these on related articles.
• Recruit at least 10 new contributors.

Ghana QR Project (Code labelling of all castles)

In 2015 we secured a partnership with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board under the Wiki Loves Monuments Campaign to capture pictures of all Castles and Monuments in Ghana. This partnership helped us cover almost all of such monuments and today has afforded us the opportunity to capture more than 90% of the list of monuments in Ghana as well as leading to the creation and illustration of articles (most of which are stubs).

The Ghana QR project is a mini GLAM project that will run for just 3 months, the project will include improving the articles of all the articles of Colonial Castles in Ghana to an appreciable level (at least normal article) on Wikipedia. QR codes of these articles will then be made and printed on a plaque posted at the entrance of all these national monuments. This we believe will first improve content about Ghanaian monuments as well as serve the millions of tourists per year that visit these sites.

We will also print leaflets or brochures and make pdf versions that can be obtained through a QR code on our website. This will be put at museum or monument locations to inform users about the project, show visitors to look out for the plaques, how to use the QR codes and a call to action for them to volunteer their own photos.

Objectives

• Improve the standard of current Ghanaian monument related articles on Wikipedia.
• Properly illustrate articles that are lacking such photos that already exist on Commons.
• Easily serve the millions of visitors or tourists that visit these site locations with comprehensive information about the monument.
• Digitalise and preserve content about the Ghanaian National Monuments.

Metrics

• Number of articles improved 30
• Number of articles created 20
• Number of articles illustrated 40

WLAf

We annually participate in the photo contest that projects the rich culture and heritage of the African people. We have participated in this campaign since its inception and contribute to the yearly theme through photowalks and expeditions. It has gradually become an opportunity to run awareness campaigns and to recruit towards our future projects. Our campaigns in the past have sourced more than a 100 unique uploaders who are not members of our community and through this campaign able to reach out to their expertise. Through this campaign, we also maintain our partnerships with photowalk groups and professional photography networks.

Objectives

• Add more images about the theme of the campaign.
• Improve articles by integrating these images in their related articles or creating articles for non-existing articles.
• Recruit and train new editors through the various photo expeditions, upload sessions and edit-a-thons.
• Engage existing editors to contribute to Commons and other sister projects.
• Create awareness about the Wikimedia movement and its activities.

Metrics

• Engage a minimum of 20 participants in photowalks sessions.
• Engage at least 20 more uploaders who are remote and not part of our movement.
• Upload a minimum of 700 photos for the contest.
• Use at least 10% of the total images on Wikimedia projects

Education Programs

These projects are primarily focussed on the application of Wikipedia and its sister projects in education. This involves activities centered around in-class assignments, clubs and societies and on campus events which inadvertently lead to contributions on Wikipedia and its sister projects through students, instructors, patrons, etc. within an academic setting.

Projects:

• Summer Open School
• WikiClub Ashesi

Summer Open School

This was an event started in 2017 to train participants about the open movement and to encourage the contribution of participants (students) in at least one of the projects of their choice. It was also an open door for other Open Enthusiast/Contributors to learn about other Open Projects, they wish to contribute to. Going forward OFWA has decided to make it an annual event to promote cross-collaborations among the Open Movements, a subject that evolved from Wiki Indaba and projected to be the future of the Open Movement in Africa. The event last year saw recruitments of more than 10 ambassadors who have gone back to their schools to host at least one event on their campuses. This project also opened doors to partnerships with several organisations such as tech-based organisation Soronko Academy, Balme Library, Lancaster University, OSM Community Ghana, etc.

Objectives

• Extending the course of Wikimedia to all.
• Increasing cross collaboration amongst the Open Movement in Ghana.
• Recruit ambassador of Wikipedia and other sister projects to represent the affiliate in various regions where we are not yet present.
• Improve contents on Wikimedia projects.

Metrics

• Train about 40 new editors on the continent.
• Maintain at least 20 active people.
• Get participants to at least extend one content on another Open project to a Wikimedia project

Ashesi WikiClub

This is a campus-based club that was spearheaded by Open Foundation West Africa and has been fully registered under the schools' bylaws and operational on campus. This is intended to promote the Education project as well as other interventions within the movement with a close supervision by Open Foundation West Africa. The club serves as a continuous platform or medium to engage students all year round. The club is critical because the Education Program runs every other semester on campus and so it serves the interests of students even during this non-engagement period. Students have the opportunity to meet with the club to learn more about other Wikimedia projects and to be encouraged through contests and competitions run by the club on campus. Their normal activities also serve as a recruitment opportunity for even students who don't take part in the social theory course (our partners for the education program) yet have the interest to join the club. Due to the diversity of students at Ashesi (usually covering students from a lot of other African countries) we believe that lessons learnt could be taken back to their respective countries.

Objectives

• Extending the course of Wikimedia to students.
• Recruit and train new prospective editors.
• Complement the activities of the Education Program by providing additional support to students.
• Support new recruits all semesters of the year, since the Education Program only runs every other semester.

Metrics

• Train about 100 new volunteers.
• Maintain at least 40 active people.
• Create at least 50 articles.
• Upload at least 200 pictures to commons.

Tech and Community Support

This entails activities that train and recruit developers with the vision of creating a community and providing technical support services to the volunteer editing community. This program also targets unique solutions that targets technical local projects as well as movement wide projects that serve the *African communities.

Africa Wikimedia Developers Project (AWMD)

A project that was started under the wings and fiscally sponsored by OFWA, to train and recruit volunteer developers to develop for the Wikimedia Foundation and the larger movement. The inaugural training took place in Accra, Ghana which saw the support (partial funding) of the developer relations team to make up for what a rapid grant couldn't cover, since then the team has led the training and creation of a developer community in Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria. There are plans far advanced to replicate similar training in other African countries that have expressed keen interest in starting a developer community in their country. Some of these countries on our radar are currently Tunisia, Gambia, Tanzania and Congo. The project since its inception has maintained an active developer base of not less than 20 with other contributors volunteering from time to time. Our membership is over a 100 spanning more than 7 countries (including Ghana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, & Gambia) even though we have organised an event in only 3 countries. The community has together supported programs like Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Fundi and working on a request for the Wikimania team. Our members have participated and mentored in outreachy 2017 and mentored in Google Codein as well as submitted more than 74 patches and have had more than 43 patches merged to the MediaWiki core.

NB:We generally planned 6 activities for 2018 (3 for each half of the year) of which we have only been able to organise 2 in the first half of the year due to a possible clash with Ramadan in Tunisia should we decided to organise it in May. Unfortunately we can't request for a rapid grant after may since our SAPG will be opened and may have to concurrently run with the rapid grant (this we learned is unacceptable) and hence our request for 4 events under the AWMD Project in the second half of the year. It also worth mentioning that the AWMD project has its own team and all their activities apart from the disbursement and management of funds are not reliant on the staff of OFWA.

Objectives

• Create a community of active developers across the continent.
• Ensure participation of members in international campaigns that are essential to Wikimedia (Summer of Code, (GSoC), Outreachy, etc.)
• Create a solution to at least one of the major technical concerns from wider Africa community.
• Participate in solving requests from the community wish list.
• Organize developer communities for the benefit of local affiliate groups.

Metrics

• Train about 80 new developers on the continent.
• Recruit about 40 volunteer developers for the movement.
• Submit at least 100 patches and have about 50 merged.

You can read more about the project here

Global Metrics Reporting

Please find our grants metrics worksheet here.

Midterm report

Program story

Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

Program Progress

• See in this detailled report

Spending update

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the first half of your 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:

• 30,641 USD/Local currency
• Budget report
• There was a remaining funds of $11,947.40, $7473.06 was reallocated for the 2019/2020 grant
• The remaining $4,474.34 has been requested to be reallocated to our 2022 grant

Grant Metrics Reporting

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.