Wikimedia Ghana User Group Annual Report 2017

NB: Our user group operations do not follow the traditional January to December calendar because our user group reports are usually due in September. This report covers activities from January 2017 to September 2017.

Introduction

2017 for the Wikimedia Ghana User Group (WMGH) has been an interesting year which saw a lot of growth from individual members and the group as a whole. This was facilitated by the group's undertaking of new projects which were erstwhile unknown to us. We managed to enter into partnerships with other organizations which we leveraged when it came to organizing workshops, edit-ta-thons, and a host of other events. The Wikipedia Education Program (WEP) was kick-started, with a pilot undertaken at the GIMPA Law School. Thereafter, we spread our wings and are currently in talks with other institutions to replicate the project to suit said institutions and the overall goals of the WEP. WMGH also ensured to engage with influential members of the group who are not resident in the capital region where most of our programs are held to {become} Wikimedia Ambassadors, with the aim of creating decentralized communities who are a part of the WMGH and organise workshops and edit-a-thons.

Some key user group activities

Month	Event	Members/Participants	Notes
July	Wikipedia workshop
	Wikidata workshop
	Wikidata workshop	23 on July 15 30 on July 17	A Wikidata workshop organised by Wikimedia Ghana User Group at the Africa Open Data Conference, Accra. This also happened to be the first Wikidata event to be organised in Africa.
	Post WMCON meeting	17	This was a meeting where members of Wikimedia Ghana User Group who attended the Wikimedia Conference 2017 in Berlin shared new knowledge and general information which they had received from the conference with other members. It was also a meeting where influential members of our user group outside the Greater Accra region (which is the capital of Ghana and our main hub for activities) attended as part of efforts to help them begin and sustain their own regional meetings and workshops on the back of what was shared.
May	Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions cycle 2	9	Involve user group members especially those that missed WMCON 17 to join the 2030 vision movement discussions.
	Gender Diversity Mapping	7 referrals	Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (Rosiestep) reached out to some members of the group as part of a new initiative to support Gender Diversity among Wikimedia communities. The strategic initiative was believed to help evince what various communities were doing to further the goal, while highlighting challenges to the cause as well as those faced on the regular.
	Wikipedia Education Program – GIMPA	60	The WEP at GIMPA Law School was organized to assist a lecturer incorporate English Wikipedia into his curriculum. Here, students were put into groups and made to write articles on Intellectual Property law in Ghana. Students earned grades for their edits and articles, while adding to the scanty information to be found on Intellectual Property law online as a whole.
	Wikipedia Education program - University of Education, Winneba		Ongoing discussions are underway to onboard the University of Education in an unprecedented move that would see a shift in focus of the Wikipedia Education program from English to indigenous Ghanaian languages.
March	Cycle 1 Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions	6	This endeavored to involve usergroup members especially those that missed the WMCON 17 to join the 2030 vision movement discussions.
March	Art+Feminism Workshop	16	An edit-a-thon was held where we joined the rest of the world to edit Wikipedia articles about women's issues. Existing editors used the opportunity to polish old articles and create new ones and also, new editors were recruited to learn about as well as contribute information to Wikipedia.
February	Wikipedia Education Program – GIMPA	60	This was an introductory session with students of Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) law school as part of the Wikipedia Education Program. Edits made and articles created counted towards grades to be added to their final grades at the end of the semester.
	Wikipedia Session at GIJ and launch of Wikipedia Club GIJ
	16 African Women online Translate-a-thon		This was a attempt to revive local language Wikipedias by using 16 days to make available biographies on 16 notable African women, in at least 16 languages.
	Bringing Vodafone Ghana onboard Wikipedia Zero		The user group also planned on getting Vodafone Ghana onboard Wikipedia Zero. So far we are awaiting intermediate meeting and engagement with Vodafone Ghana.
	Bringing Busy 4G onboard Wikipedia Zero		The User group also planned on getting Busy 4G as a Wikipedia Zero partner. We sent them a message and we are still awaiting a response from them on the way forward and if the have accepted our offer.
	Wikipedia 16 party	32	Celebration
January	Wikipedia workshop	14	This was a Wikipedia workshop which was organised by an Experience member of our user group Mohammed Sadat Abdulai who took the participants through Wikipedia and how its edited.
January	Wikidata workshop	11	The group's first wiki data training

Partnerships

The group is pushing to expand Wikipedia Zero accessibility and is in the process of establishing partnerships with Busy 4G and Vodafone Ghana telecommunication companies. Concerning Wikipedia Education program, the group successfully onboarded GIMPA onto the program as of February 2017. Furthermore, efforts are ongoing to get the University of Education to join the Education program. What is unique about the proposed partnership with the UEW is that, contributions would not be made in English but in local Ghanaian languages. The Wikimedia Ghana User Group signed an MOU with Impact Hub Accra a co-working space and hub for entrepreneurs in Ghana where the user group would have its official office space located in Impact hub Accra. We are also in talks with the Ghana Law School to have a Wikipedia Education Program with them.

Final words

The user group is looking to wrap up the year making sure that members have the opportunity to stay engaged with monthly events, while those events are also used to recruit new ones. We are also excited by the partnerships we have and also having a physical office location. We are also optimistic about the things we could collectively as a user group in the coming year.

About Report

This report consists of events, partnerships and workshops organized by the user group and sometimes by individual members of the user group. We encouraged all members of the user group to share with us all the projects they where undertaking under the year in review so we can capture it accordingly into out report. We hereby state that if some efforts are not captured it might be that the project was not than in the name or the group or the member just didn't heed to the call to report it.

Report was contributed to by: