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Grants:PEG/Africa Centre/Wiki Loves Africa 2014/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2014-15 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
  • You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.


Project status edit

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
YES
Is your project completed?
YES

Activities and lessons learned edit

Activities edit

Summary edit

Wiki Loves Africa 2014 was a photographic / media contest that encouraged people from across Africa, and beyond, to celebrate Africa’s diversity and cultural richness through images or videos illustrating the theme “cuisine”. The competition took place between the 1st October and 30th November. The contest was accompanied by focus events in eight countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uganda. In these countries, local teams organised events to drive contribution. These events ranged from training days, photo hunt parties, mass upload sessions, to press conferences, and cooking contests. A jury of 7 people (4 wikimedians, 3 non wikimedians) made a short list of the best pictures, then selected 3 winners. The top 20 from the jury short list was then submitted to the community for the selection of a 4th prize[1]. All winners[2] were contacted successfully. Prizes were not sent yet due to a delay with one supplier.

Driving participation and online public outreach edit

The contest was communicated through:

* reach statistics and analytics are available

During the contest, other venues for communication were also used, including:

  • the blog of Wikimedia France : [3] and [4]
  • the blog of Wikimedia Foundation: [5] and [6]
  • 3 press releases [7] were sent in English and French. PR were drafted as templates and could be reused, modified, translated by local teams.
  • local blogs generally held by involved participants [8] such as the people involved in Kumusha Takes Wiki or in Wiki Entrepreneur.
  • a newsletter was sent to 7000 people on the Africa Centre database
  • a newsletter was sent to 663 people on the WikiAfrica database
  • information was sent out via the African Wikimedians mailing list [9]
  • and of course information was provided on Wikimedia projects (village pumps).

Some media coverage can be found here: [10]

Local events edit

Whilst the most visible goal of the contest was to increase the amount of content coming from Africa by breaking down the barrier to contribution for people from Africa, two very important goals were to bring awareness and understanding of the Wikimedia projects in Africa and to provide a project that would draw together interested wikimedians at the local level. The organization of local events was a key to those two goals.

27 related events were organised in 8 countries

  • 6 events in Ivory Coast
  • 5 events in Malawi and Uganda
  • 4 events in Ghana
  • 2 events in South Africa
  • 2 events in Ethiopia
  • 2 events in Tunisia
  • 1 event in Egypt

These events were of different nature. 14 of them were photo-hunt/upload events, 3 were press conferences, 2 were cooking competition, 1 was a edit workshop and the others were wiki meet-ups.

  •  
    Wiki Loves Africa workshop in Sousse, Tunisia
  •  
    Mois de la contribution in Tunis, Tunisia
  •  
    Cape Town, South Africa Cook off
  •  
    Photo des participants de l'atelier Wiki Loves Africa dans les locaux du PASC à Sousse, assuré par Wikimedia TN User Group et CLibre
  •  
    Meeting in Ghana
  •  
    Cooking contest with a few Interacts of the Rotary Club at DEKS Educational Institute (Ghana)
  •  
    Cooking contest with a few Interacts of the Rotary Club at DEKS Educational Institute (Ghana)
  •  
    Cooking contest in Ghana
  •  
    Equipe de wikipédiens au Festival national des mets ivoiriens (Fesnami) 2014
  •  
    Equipe de wikipédiens au Festival national des mets ivoiriens (Fesnami) 2014
  •  
    Kumusha Takes Wiki/Wiki Loves Africa press conference in Ivory Coast
  •  
    Datamine students in Uganda
  •  
    WikiAtelier du 25 octobre 2014. Coaching photo et téléversement dans le cadre de Wikiloves Africa Cuisine 2014.

Images collected, winning pictures and winners edit

Uploads

The contest resulted in over 6,116 images uploaded (although 5868 were eligible for the competition). All pictures are available here: c:category:Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2014.

Jury

A jury of 7 people was selected.
  • Pierre Beaudoin
Pierre Yves Beaudouin has been a wikipedian for over 5 years and is the former president of Wikimedia France. Based in Paris, his work is mainly about sports photography and the funerary art of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. He is also the main organiser of the WikiCheese project.
  • Habib M'henni
Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, amateur photographer, and contributor to Wikimedia Commons. Habib is very actively involved in Wikimedia Tunisia User Group.
  • Mike Peel
Mike is a postdoctoral Researcher at Jodrell Bank as well as an astronomer and a wikipedian. He co-funded Wikimedia UK.
  • Pierre-Selim Huard
Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, an engineer in green aviation development but also a dedicated amateur photographer. Pierre-Selim contributes high quality pictures to Wikimedia Commons in topics such as sports, museum items and cultural heritage monuments. He was also a jury member on the Wiki Loves Monument contest.
  • Paul Sika
Paul Sika is an autodidact artist and a trained software engineer born in Ivory Coast. Exposed to animation and video games while a child, Paul Sika discovers in high school a passion for computer programming through scientific calculators. The most beautiful projects will be the adaptations on calculator of flagship games of the time such as Pokémon and Zelda. After a Bachelor degree in Software Engineering at the University of Westminster, London, UK as well as the study of techniques of Cinema, he develops a photographic technique called Photomaking, a fusion of photography and filmmaking, described in 2007 as “a new form of art” by Olympus User Magazine UK.
  • Carianne Wilkinson
Carianne Wilkinson is the Vice-President of Silwood School of Cookery in Cape Town, South Africa. Founded by Lesley Faull in 1964, Silwood is South Africa’s oldest cookery school. It has, over the past 50 years, earned itself a world-class reputation and graduates can be found in top kitchens around the world. Carianne is an accredited South African Chefs Association judge, and has also been a San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants judge.
  • Africa Melane
Africa Melane’s wide-ranging interests and relentless curiosity comes to the fore on his Weekend Breakast on 702 and CapeTalk (independent South African Radio Broadcasters), a show that ranges from international headlines to must-visit events around the corner. An accountant by training, Africa has spent a decade in broadcasting, both on and off-air. Africa is a self-confessed thespian, foodie enthusiast and a Fleur Du Cap judge.
The above cited made a short list of the best pictures, then selected 3 winners. A sub set of the best pictures are here: c:Commons:Wiki Loves Africa/First selection.

Community jury

The top 20 from the jury short list was then submitted to the community for the selection of a 4th price. Here is the link to the community voting page: c:Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2014/Community Prize Selection

Winning pictures

All winners were successfully contacted and were delighted.

Prizes

The following prizes were awarded to the four winners. The cookery books were donated by Cape Town-based Quiver Tree Publications (the books totalled a R3,600 /US$300) donation to the project).
  • 1st Prize: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 + Star Fish: Top 10 Sustainable Fish by Daisy Jones and Lazy Days by Phillipa Cheifitz (both books donated and published by Quivertree) + a Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + A3 print of the winning picture
  • 2nd Prize: Sony Xperia Z3 Compact + The Karoo Kitchen: Heritage recipes and true stories from the heart of South Africa, by Sydda Essop and The Bo-Kaap Kitchen (both books donated and published by Quivertree) + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + A3 print of the 2nd prize picture
  • 3rd Prize: US$200 Amazon gift voucher + The Bo-Kaap Kitchen and Lazy Days by Phillipa Cheifitz (both books donated and published by Quivertree) + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + A3 print of the 3rd prize picture
  • Community Prize: US$200 Amazon gift voucher + Wiki Loves Africa t-shirt + print of the Jury Prize

Extension of the project in a WikiBook Collection edit

Wiki Loves Africa 2014 encouraged the donation of photos and media that illustrated all aspects of Cuisine from Africa including, but not limited to, production, procurement, processing, preparation, sales, and eating. During the competition volunteer groups held events such as cook-offs, cooking demonstrations, photo hunts, edit-a-thons and Wikipedia introduction sessions.

As the images started to flow in during competition period, it was felt that there was an ideal extension in the form of creating a wikibook collection based on local cookbooks. The Mujje Tulye (Come and Eat) series was started.

The other focus countries have been invited to participate in this series and recipes were gathered at some of the Wiki Loves Africa events, such as the Cape Cook-off event held in Cape Town. But the Mujje Tulye Wikibooks were most successful in regions where there was an additional community project in the form of the Kumusha Takes Wiki.

Links to the Mujje Tulye books:

The photographs that illustrate these WikiBooks have been drawn from entries to the competition, and from the work of the Wikipedians in Community in Uganda and Cote d'Ivoire who have gathered images from agrarian-based communities in their countries during the course of 2014.

Lessons learned edit

The full project post mortem is available via this link : c:Commons:Wiki Loves Africa/Results and best practices.

Below are the findings that have been summarised from this document.

What worked well?
  • Generally…. The contest happened ! Pictures were collected. Events were organised. The Jury made its choice. We got in contact with the 4 winners and all were delighted!
  • There was lots of energy and involvement from the local wikimedians. Several reported they appreciated the common theme around which they could easily foster local interest. They also appreciated getting central support (WLAf website, Facebook and twitter, marketing material, PR template etc.) so that they could focus on the events themselves;
  • We generally got the support we needed on Commons (to create the pages, update them, translate, site notice, landing pages, templates etc.);
  • Creating an extension project (the Wikibook series Mujje Tulje) to use the photographs that were submitted, sustained the momentum created by the competition and assisted with cohesion within the community;
  • There were a few key people in the global community that were incredibly helpful, such as user:Romaine who worked extra hours to sort out the technical aspects of the project, and Erik Zachte who worked at supplying the initial statistics; and
  • The grant application process, the support and financial management from WMF.
What didn't work?
  • We wanted to do crowdfunding to fund the gifts to winners but started the campaign too late and missed the moment (as it also clashed with the run up to Christmas).
What did not work so well?
  • The translations on Commons were difficult to achieve. We tried using the translation system, but it was buggy and required frequent help from translation administrators. As a result, translations were often very delayed or translations did not appear in the text.
  • It was hoped that local teams would add localised blog posts about local cuisine and the local events. This only happened in one or two cases, mostly due to lack of familiarity with wordpress or a lack of confidence in writing or possibly, a complete lack of time.
  • Due to time constraints, some marketing material was not delivered in time for the very first local events and the specific prizes for winners were announced a bit too late.
  • We had expected some communication channels to help us spread the information about the contest; some worked, some did not work (such as press releases not sent by chapters or no interest from the SignPost). This was a bit disappointing.
  • Communication about the “focus countries” (those for which we had some funding to help the organization of local events) was a bad move. It blurred the message to the public (contest in those countries only or contest in whole Africa) and it made some existing Wikimedia communities unhappy at being "left out".
  • Internet access conditions were difficult and a challenge during mass upload events.
  • The prizes were delayed once ordered by the supplier.
  • In the Event Survey conducted by the local organisers, it was asked "What could have been done better?" Here are some of the answers from the local organisers based on their experiences:
    • Proper planning next year and adequate amount of time between announcement date and campaign start date. Also funds should be wired ahead of time to allow proper planning and booking for the campaign.
    • To advertise the event in time and to find ways that involves more media. To be also clear on the prizes.
    • More planning on our part.
    • More planning time, more volunteers involved.
    • More people involved.
    • More people, more preparations, more money. Partying with traditional cuisine served is a brilliant idea!
    • Stamp and official letters were missing.
    • Convincing Partners.
    • Creating awareness prior to meet up.
    • Finding reliable internet connection spot.
What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?
We hope very much to run that contest again next fall. Some of the weak points outlined above should not be such an issue next time due to the work already done in 2014. Still, what we could do differently (or improve in a second edition) could be:
  • Rethink translation.
    1. Identify which pages are likely to be stable (and can use the translation system) versus which ones must be regularly updated (and should NOT use the translation system)
    2. Improve call for help from volunteers.
  • Start the design process and release the marketing and communication material earlier. Aim at having them ready at least one month before start of contest. Provide more comprehensive documents regarding the scope of the contest to better support local teams (e.g. talking points for press conferences)
  • Build up an African wide press contact database : enrich the English based one, establish Arabic and French ones.
  • Improve overall image quality. Directions to explore might be: looking for partners for good photographic material to be gifted to user groups, more partnerships with photographic-related professionals, organising photographic workshops, making available some additional material for guidelines and recommandations (how tos)
  • Improve the mass upload setup. Directions to explore might be: looking for more partnerships to get access to proper uploading spots, more devices proposed to participants,organizing training sessions to Commons mass uploading tools, additional material pointing out to the importance of authorship attribution, file description, categories and licences, and helping to get that done well (such as a little booklet about public domain in Africa etc.). Further, to develop a standby offline protocol in the event that uploading at the time of the event is not possible.
  • Build in an extension project earlier on in the planning process and expectations for the local community groups.

Next steps edit

After the event, a survey form was sent to the 8 Focus Countries Team Leaders to collect information related to the events that they hosted. Amongst other questions, we asked was whether the group would be "willing to participate into a WLA in 2015". Answers ranged from yes, Yes it would be great, Yes we loved the noise it created, Yeah sure !, Yeah, yes, Yes, It would be interesting to meet institutions and any organization willing to help somehow, and With early information on the competition we would organize similar events in the future.

Accordingly, the Wiki Loves Africa team is already working towards the next contest that will be held over the same period in 2015. See c:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015

  1. The first step is to create a poll on commons to get a consensus over which theme will be run this year. Ideas have ranged from folk costume, fashion and adornment, to rites and rituals, architecture, flora and fauna, and markets. You can find the poll here: c:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa/2015_theme_ideas
  2. While the theme is being chosen, to put a call out for interested chapters, usergroups and communities to be part of the project. Once the chapters/usergroups have signed up to the project, we will:
    1. liaise with local teams to build up an Africa-wide media and subject specific database;
    2. workshop event and extension ideas with the groups;
    3. develop offline or other processes to assist challenging technical issues during upload marathons
  3. Apply for funding from WMF and other funding/grant making bodies.

Outcomes and impact edit

Outcomes edit

Provide the original project goal here.

The project had three primary goals which were to:

  • Create a contest that would drive understanding and usage of Wikipedia on a continent where awareness is minimal to non-existent,
  • Provide an easy mechanism (a contest) that breaks down the barrier for contribution for people from Africa, and
  • Provide a continent-wide project that will draw a group of Wikip/media interested people in each country and provide a platform around which to create a community.

Additional goals of the project were to:

  • Gather images and media about subject matter and topics related to the theme from across Africa;
  • Enable more information about Africa and, specifically topics related to the theme, to be represented on Wikipedia;
  • Create an easily accessible platform that encourages more Africans to contribute multimedia representations of Africa onto Wikimedia Commons for use in articles in the other sister project websites;
  • Provide local organisers with the tools and support that they need to organise the national Wiki Loves Africa competitions in their countries, including the technical infrastructure (templates, upload campaigns, guidelines, how-tos, etc.) for uploading images;
  • Provide a continental layer for Wiki Loves Africa 2014, including organising the international media competition and an international finale;
  • Provide and/or help provide a central infrastructure that can support and enable communication between chapters or user groups or volunteers; and
  • Create and maintain helpful documentation for multiple target groups, including national organisers and participants.
Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 short paragraphs.

By the close of the competition, 6,116 images were entered by 873 unique contributors from 49 countries. Countries with the largest number of contributions were Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Tunisia, Uganda, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa. There were local teams on the ground in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa, Tunisia, Algeria and Uganda. These country teams, made of volunteer groups, hosted 27 on-the-ground events that related to the contest. Wiki Loves Africa also saw an enthusiastic response and high participation levels from countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania that did not have supported local events in those countries. The project was mentioned in national press in many countries across Africa. There were 596 newbies contributed to the competition, and a few of those have continued to contribute - two of them at least with surprisingly large amounts of edits and page creations.

Progress towards targets and goals edit

Note 1 : The grant application mentioned that the actual figures may be overestimated if no specific mobile application is made available in 2014. It turned out mobile application was not retained in the final project so the targets mentioned below are actually higher than what was hoped for.
Note 2: Statistics were collected with the help of Erik Zachte

The countries with the largest number of contributions were Ivory Coast, Ghana, Tunisia, Uganda, Egypt, Marocco and South Africa.

Project Metrics edit

Measures of success for the Wiki Loves Africa Competition edit

 
Statistics for Wiki Loves Africa 2014 project
 
Statistics for Wiki Loves Africa 2014 project
Target: Minimum of 8,000 media uploaded from across the continent
Achieved outcome: 6116 photos were entered, but 5868 fulfilled the competition criteria and copyright violation regulations
Explanation: Whilst a bit below our initial expectation, we are happy with the results. The original goal was expected with the set up of a mobile application which would facilitate participation. The mobile application was not developed. Participation occurred from desktop. Also, we had projected figures based on participation patterns to other contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments. But WLAf participation pattern was actually very different from a WLM pattern. A participant to WLM typically visit a building and takes many pictures of it, from all angles of view. A European-based entry may easily come back from a visit with dozen of images. In the case of WLAf, we noticed that the number of images proposed by each participant is actually quite low, from 1 to 10 pictures at most. When photo hunts parties were organised, the number of images taken by participants stayed very low (perhaps due to lack of photographic equipment) and the number of images uploaded during mass-upload session was very low (due to very challenging upload situations). This may result in a participant uploading only 2 images when a European-based participant to WLM might have uploaded 20.
Target: Minimum of 400 uploaders from across the continent
Achieved outcome: 873 unique contributors participants
Explanation: Further suggest that the problem is not so much to get people to participate but rather to get them to participate more. See the note above about the number of images per entrant and the challenges to uploading content from the continent.
Target: 7 countries to join the contest as CNOs
Achieved outcome: 8 countries joined
Explanation: Wikimedians in some countries (such as Algeria, Cameroon and Nigeria) were actually disappointed not to be selected.
Target: Minimum of 1,000 media files uploaded to the contest by each CNO (this level of contribution is expected to be an average of all the contributing countries)
Achieved outcome:
  • Côte d'Ivoire : 994 files.
  • Egypt : 428 files
  • Ethiopia : 126 files
  • Ghana : 830 files
  • Malawi : 79 files
  • South Africa : 353 files
  • Tunisia : 761 files
  • Uganda : 704 files
  • Explanation: (Please see Note 1 above regarding over estimation of numbers.) The countries where the highest number of files were uploaded were clearly those where local groups existed and were active organising outreach events. A couple of countries nevertheless showed a good level of participation even though we have no identified chapter, nor user group there or no individual contact.
Target: 9 months after the contest has ended, at least 25 new users become active contributors (5 edits per month in any of the Wikimedia projects)
Achieved outcome: It is too early to be able to report on this target
Explanation: Early metrics have shown that up until March 2015 (and excluding the competition months), Newbie editors that were activated as a direct result of the Wiki Loves Africa 2014 competition (68% of all entrants) contribute again to Commons (869 uploads and 6569 edits), and created 78 new pages and added 1129 edits across all WM projects; but specifically to Arabic Wikipedia and Arabic Wiki News, English Wikipedia, and Italian Wikipedia.

Measures of success for the Continental team edit

Target: A grant request is accepted successfully, and a report is produced according to the request
Achieved outcome : yes
Explanation:
Target: A survey is executed among members of the local organisers, showing high levels of satisfaction with the continental team (average of ~4 on a five-point Lickert scale)
Achieved outcome: ratings - 7 rated their satisfaction as "strongly agree"; with 5 rating their levels of satisfaction as "agree"; none choose another rating
Explanation: The local organisers were emailed the question: What did you think of the organizing team? Please rate us by putting a cross next to the correct answer for the following question:
  1. I am very satisfied with the continental organizing team
  2. Strongly disagree
  3. Disagree
  4. Neither agree nor disagree
  5. Agree.
  6. Strongly agree
Target: A list of improvements is proposed for the following year
Achieved outcome : yes, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa/Results_and_best_practices
Explanation: This project has been thoroughly evaluated, challenges accepted and analysed, and improvements have been listed.
Target: The African finale is successfully completed.
Achieved outcome : yes, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2014/Winners
Explanation:
Target: The prizes are handed out before March 2015, with a possible exception for travel-related prizes.
Achieved outcome: this was delayed
Explanation: We faced delays from the technology suppliers for the 1st and 2nd prizes. The prizes are being sent in early May.
Target: Documentation is available for all those organising a local Wiki Loves Africa contest
Achieved outcome : yes
Explanation: documentation shared on wikilovesafrica.org, Commons, on Facebook or and on various google docs.

Additional success : Results of file usage (as of April 2015) edit

Total image usages : 415
Distinct images used: 303 (5.16% of all images of category)

In more detail (Site:Images used) statistics from GLAMorous

  • en.wikipedia: 75
  • en.wikibooks: 69
  • fr.wikipedia: 64
  • ar.wikipedia: 63
  • meta.wikipedia: 52
  • fr.wikibooks: 24
  • outreach.wikipedia: 8
  • ru.wikipedia: 7
  • pl.wiktionary: 6
  • id.wiktionary: 5
  • he.wikipedia:5
  • de.wikipedia: 4
  • lb.wikipedia: 4
  • uk.wikipedia: 3
  • simple.wikipedia: 2
  • wa.wikipedia: 2
  • da.wikipedia: 2
  • pt.wikipedia: 2
  • pl.wikipedia: 2
  • ja.wikipedia: 1
  • es.wikipedia: 1
  • cs.wikipedia: 1
  • ar.wikibooks: 1
  • te.wikipedia: 1
  • ne.wikipedia: 1
  • hu.wikipedia: 1
  • wa.wiktionary: 1
  • sc.wikipedia: 1
  • da.wikibooks: 1
  • incubator.wikipedia: 1
  • ru.wikivoyage: 1
  • lt.wikipedia: 1
  • am.wikipedia: 1
  • sv.wikipedia: 1
  • ro.wikipedia: 1

Global Metrics

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees. In addition to the measures of success for your specific program (in above section), please use the table below to let us know how your project contributed to the Global Metrics. We know that not all projects will have results for each type of metric, so feel free to put "0" where necessary.

  1. Next to each required metric, list the actual outcome achieved through this project.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome. For example, if you were funded for an edit-a-thon which resulted in 0 new images, your explanation might be "This project focused solely on participation and articles written/improved, the goal was not to collect images."

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 277 or 32% of all entrants The low number of existing editors in Africa allow for very low numbers of editors that can be called on in these projects. Stats supplied by Wikimetrics.
2. # of new editors 596 editors on Commons - 68% of entrants With regards to retention, in the month preceding 1st March 2015, across all WM projects, there were 78 new pages created and 1129 edits from the new editors. Stats supplied by Wikimetrics.
3. # of individuals involved 873 This is the number of entrants to the competition as supplied by Erik Zachte.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 6,116 images this figure has been reduced to 5868 after the entries were “cleaned” according to criteria and copyright violations. Stats supplied by Erik Zachte and Commons.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 415 this figure represents total image usage. There were 303 distinct images used or 5.16% of all images of the category "Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Africa_2014"
Learning question
Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?
The local organisers were asked: Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?
  • Cote d'Ivoire: #Wlaf helped us a lot. It gave a wider audience to Wiki movement in Côte d'Ivoire. Members of the chapter had another occasion to work collaboratively. A huge photo database was made through #wlaf.
  • Egypt: yes, it helped the user group so much by making events which attached new members to the usergroup , and also one of the winning photos is from Egypt.
  • Ethiopia: The contest allowed me to easily market the idea of Wikimedia to media,ordinary people who don't know what Wikimedia is all about but who can easily relate the photo of they taken to be used openly in a platform called Wikimedia. The participation of photographers who are at early stage of their career [were] really impressed with the potential of WikiLovesAfrica in promoting their work.
  • Ghana: I will say yes the contest helped my chapter a lot. It was an exciting activity that brought community members together. It also afforded us the opportunity to even learn more about Ghanaian culinary and again created some visibility for the User group in terms of our cooking competitions and the places we had wanted to have it.
  • Ghana: It helped gain some edits and preached our existence as a community.
  • Malawi: Helped the efforts of planting some Wiki work in Malawi especially by reaching out to more people via tha media. It also gained us new contributors.
  • South Africa: I invited students and friends. I then hired a taxi and we went to different restaurants in Soweto, We also met other people in Soweto. In all were were 17 and twelve of these people were new into Wikipedia. We explained what Wikipedia and the South African Chapter was about. We also opened new Wikpedia accounts for these new participants.
  • Tunisia: The contest helped so much our user group, it made a great opportunity to speak about our group to the media, make some workshops and earn some new wikimedians.
  • Uganda: The competition helped to improve the awareness of wikipedia and the related activities of the foundation. It even got media attention. It gave a number of people a chance to contribute content and a sense of pride in discovering that content from their communities can be uploaded. The competition also brought a sense of togetherness since we had to work as a team to upload as many photos as we could.
  • Uganda: Helped us bond and solidify as a group, [and] create friendships with other communities.


Impact edit

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic priorities?

How did you increase participation in one or more Wikimedia projects?

The project saw 598 new editors come to the projects with 6736 edits and 875 edits (both stats until March 2015) being done by these newbies after the project was completed.

Almost all focus groups claimed that the competition simplified their message and allowed them to discuss Wikimedia projects with greater ease than previously. By focussing on one subject, the competition galvanised the groups to collaborate together, get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and be able to broaden their potential network and local visibility through media releases, media discussions, and events.

How did you improve quality on one or more Wikimedia projects?

The competition added 6,116 images about a relatively uncovered cultural subject (cuisine) from a geographical area that is not often covered in much depth (Africa). Although not all entries were quality entries, 13 have been deemed as Valued Images (We hope that more of the top entries to be tagged with this quality endorsement over the next few months). Further, the competition added two new books and a new book series to WikiBooks project.

How did you increase the reach (readership) of one or more Wikimedia projects?The project enabled new and old editors on the continent (and many from outside the continent) to focus on one theme. By doing so, 68% of the entrants were new contributors to Wikimedia Commons, but further, it enabled an introduction to possibility of editing. Although the numbers are not vast, newbie editors did go on after the competition to contribute again to Commons (869 uploads and 6569 edits), as well as edit on several additional projects including Arabic Wikipedia and Arabic Wiki News, English Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, etc..

Reporting and documentation of expenditures edit

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation edit

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "YES".
YES
This will be sent in the next week, once the last invoice has arrived.

Expenses edit

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Actual cost per unit Actual total Budgeted total Currency Notes
1 Project staffing Co-project manager per month 5 1,500 7,762.79 7500 $
1 Project staffing Technical and administrative support per month 3 500 1,493.50 1500 $
Subtotal 1 $9,256.28
2 Communication Design, Identity and Communication per item 1 1,500 1,194.99 1500 $
2 Communication In-country communication and materials per country 8 300 1,480.30 2400 $ Some of the line items for this have been included in the 3. Events section, which accounts for them being over budget.
Subtotal 2 $2,675.29
3 Events Wiki Takes and photo hunt events per country 100 967.24 800 $ Some of the invoices included marketing and communications materials and expenses in their events budgets. See note in 2. Communication section above.
3 Events Meetup, edit-a-thon, activations, workshops or upload sessions per country 100 2,092.09 2400 $ Some of the invoices included marketing and communications materials and expenses in their events budgets. See note in 2. Communication section above.
Subtotal 3 $3,059.34
4 Judges, thank yous and prizes Thank yous and goodies per item 8 100 132.08 800 $ This includes the cost of thank you posters to the judges.
4 Judges, thank yous and prizes Continental prizes (photo-related vouchers, photo safari) per award 1,994.57 0 $ The failure of the indiegogo campaign required the prizes to be paid for from the contingency section. This line item includes the cost of posting the prizes to the winners in different parts of Africa. There was an unexpected saving as one of the top prizes was from Cape Town, the same city from where the prizes were dispatched.
4 Judges, thank yous and prizes Prize winners printed (co-funded) per print 10 10 132.08 100 $
Subtotal 4 $2,264.85
5 Additional elements Contingency 79.89 2,000 $ The contingency includes bank fees that were not factored into previously.
Subtotal 5 $79.89
TOTAL expenses $17,335.66 $19,000
Total project budget (from your approved grant submission)
$ 43,000.00
Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if PEG is your only funding source)
$ 19,000.00
Total amount received
$18,985
Total amount spent on this project
$ 34,996.82
Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project
$ 17,335.66
Are there additional sources that funded any part of this project? List them here.
Co-project manger salary, financial management and technical assistance from Africa Centre
Cooking books as prizes from Quivertree Books
Free venue for Cape Cook Off in Cape Town
And an estimated total of US$365 worth of donated resources from events held by the volunteer groups in different countries.
Partners and supporters of the competition's various events included:
  • JCI ENIT, Tunisia
  • Maliaka Media, Uganda
  • Edge Graphics, Uganda
  • Mount Batten, Uganda
  • Gayaza High School, Uganda
  • Rotaract Club Tema and Interact Club of DESK Institute, Ghana
  • Linux Accra Usergroup and Mozillans, Ghana
  • Society of Malawi, Historic and Scientific, Malawi
  • Planning Chapter Wikimédia Côte d’Ivoire
  • MIAGE (university), Côte d’Ivoire
  • Association of Writers of Côte d’Ivoire (AECI)
  • ICE Addis-Innovation Hub, Ethiopia
  • Xhub-Innovation Hub, Ethiopia
  • Ethiopian Photographers Association, Ethiopia

Remaining funds edit

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of US$1,649.26 were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:PEG/Africa Centre/Wiki Loves Africa 2015.
Are there any grant funds remaining?
Answer YES or NO.
YES
Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)
amount remaining is US$1,649.26
If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.
Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.
RETURN UNUSED FUNDS TO WMF.
REQUEST FOR REALLOCATION: We suggest that the remaining US$1,919.30 is spilt among those chapters / usergroups that are keen to host one or two edit-a-thon to complete a WikiBook from their country and add to the Mujje Tulye Series. We see four benefits here:
  1. It builds on momentum of the project and gives the group a focus to bring in those who were part of the WLAf events
  2. It creates local opportunities to "claim" Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects from a local perspective
  3. It adds local knowledge and content to Wikibooks and Wikimedia projects
  4. It provides a guaranteed way to use the WLAf entries in a publication that can be used locally and internationally.
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