Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Catalyzing Africa's knowledge creation ecosystem through AfroCuration:Building the connective tissue between the WikiMovement and cultural and creative organizations/Midpoint Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2023-03-17T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Alliances Fund
Report type: Midterm
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General information edit
This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Alliances Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.
- Name of Organization: Moleskine Foundation Inc
- Title of Proposal: Catalyzing Africa's knowledge creation ecosystem through AfroCuration: Building the connective tissue between the WikiMovement and cultural and creative organizations
- Amount awarded: 60000 USD, 60000 USD
- Amount spent: 16500 USD
Part 1 Understanding your work edit
1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?
- The Moleskine Foundation Wikimedian in Residence will deliver trainings to (5x) communities formed by the Wikimedian community and a cultural partner. The training will deploy the WAE program format to organize AfroCuration events that will enable collaborations among community members. We will also share our new approach for aligning this work with our organisational mission. Ideate effective approaches to embed the AfroCuration format in the programming of engaged institutions. We will engage a design thinking expert to organize and lead a workshop that will engage the representatives of 5 Wikipedia chapters and their respective cultural partners, the MSKF team and Wikipedian in Residence to explore and co-create strategies for integrating WAE into the programming of engaged institutions. Emergent ideas will inform planning at the implementation stage. The AfroCuration toolkit shall be the North star to guide Wikimedia communities implementing AfroCuraiton with their chosen creative and cultural organisation. The guide explains the methodology and provides other resources to enable the independent organization and production of events and encouraging collective buy-in and autonomy. This project will build on 2021 partners and networks.
The strategies remains the same except that we're now working with 3 communities as opposed to the previously proposed 5 due to the funding available. We have identified 3 Wikimedia communities and the respective cultural partners to work with in Mozambique, South Africa and Ghana. So far the first Mozambique event has been implemented in partnership with Ethale Publishing and Mozambican and Brasilian Wikimedians, and AfroCuration in South Africa is planned for next week in partnership with the local Wikimedia chapter and Constitution Hill as a cultural partner. The Ghana event is planned for May and the final co-designing workshop with all the involved Wikimedia communities and cultural partners is envisioned for July 2023.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- We have implemented various strategies to optimise the various goals.
First of all, we have introduced a unified application process to all the events through a platform Optimy, this allows us to keep track of all the applicants and have their contacts in order to maintain our relationship with them also after the event took place, in the attempt to make them returning editors.
Secondly, letting the Wikimedia affiliates choose their cultural partners make the collaboration and partnership relationships better. We found that when there is an organic connection between the Wikimedia community and a local cultural institution, the produced content has much more meaning for the local community and the potential for the program to be more sustainable increases. The good example of this has been the collaboration between the Rovuma University, Ethale publishing and local Wkimedians in Mozambique, who came together to find ways to promote the Makhua language on Wikipedia and beyond and are jointly looking for ways to include WikiAfrica Education program in the University's curriculum. Working with volunteer editors from Mozambique has helped in making the achievement of the content goals easier thereby reducing the language barrier.
Another strategy is to tap into the existing audiences of both the Wikimedia affiliates and cultural partners in order to drive the recruitment for the event participation. When the participants are motivated and share the partners' vision, the created content is tangibly more relevant and of a higher quality.
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- Except for connectivity issues and distance of the physical venue from Wikimedians, we've not encountered other challenges.
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- Our Wikimedian in residency Tochi Precious is constantly connected with the Wiki communities in order to inform them about the upcoming events and recruit the volunteers to participate in AfroCurations. For instance, for the Mozambican event that was held in Portughese, we had both the Wikimedians from Mozambique and Brasil participating and sharing their expertise. These intercontinental collaborations testify to the spirit of activism and dedication that unites the various communities around the world to contribute to the higher program goals.
We informed the global Wikimedia Community of our first event through a Diff article here: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/07/latest-emakhuwa-wikipedia-mass-edit-a-thon- will-celebr ate-peace-in-mozambique-and-key-figures-in-mozambiques-history/
We shall continue to share the results of the events with the community as the activities progress.
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- The AfroCuration format has empowered young Africans in underrepresented communities. In our application forms we place a special accent on selecting the participants from context and communities that usually don't have access to such kinds of educational initiatives. We are also working on the African languages that previously were not even on the Wikipedia map. For example, the Makhuwa Wikipedia has now been listed on the cover page of the Wikimedia incubator as one of the projects looking to get its own wiki chapter soon. The Makhuwa content on Wikipedia has gone from non-existent to 623+ articles.
The last AfroCuration in Mozambique saw a turn out of 63 participants with 72 articles created. The participants have constantly shared their feeling of empowerment and pride in creating content in their language on their community and culture. It has also created a relevant intergenerational dialogue between the older figures of cultural reference in Mozambique and the young contributors, where both share the importance of creating knowledge in Makhuwa language as part of maintaining their national identity and history.
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- We wanted to learn the most effective approaches to connect Wiki communities and cultural organizations and encourage cultural organizations to embed the AfroCuration format in their programming in such a way that it becomes sustainable by continuous support from Wikimedia communities and ongoing effort from cultural organizations.
So far, we've learnt that we can not connect them together without first getting them involved. On top of the Mozambique example that we have described above, the Twi Community also gave us a list of cultural partners they wished to work with that were relevant to their context and that shared the same desire on creating knowledge in local languages. We have connected them with another cultural partner from our network based in Ghana, which enriched the content topics and selection, creating new connections in Ghana's cultural landscape. This cross-contamination has galvanised all the parties involved around the upcoming event in May and the content that will be created will cover a variety of disciplines, from local writers to musicians and poets. We are confident that this enthusiasm will be carried on after the event to ensure that content creation continues after the event in a sustainable and continous manner.
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- - We'll continue to facilitate collaborative partnerships between the South African and Twi Wikimedia chapters and C&C organizations to advance more culturally relevant African content production that increases the engagement of young African language speakers.
- Design thinking workshop to engage the representatives of 3 Wikimedia chapters and their cultural partners, MSKF team and the WiR to explore and co-create strategies for integrating WAE into the programming of engaged institutions.
Part 2: Metrics edit
8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
8b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Through this program we will target cultural organisations that utilize our resources and training and that adapt the WAE approach towards engaging youth as part of their educational offer.
Target participants are youths from underserved communities as well as the organizations that seek to engage this group. Targeted youth are aged 16-27 demonstrating intellectual curiosity and change making attitude. Additionally, returning editors from Wikipedia communities previously engaged in WAE and AfroCuration events will also be targeted. Target: In number write the total number of participants: New participants: 200 Returning participants: 100 |
300 | 63 | Our target number of participants was revised to 180 (60 per event) due to the reduced amount of funding we received, which can cover 3 events as opposed to the 5 originally proposed. So far, we've only held one event, so we are on target against the set goals. | Zoom platform and dashboard. |
| Number of editors | Young people from underserved communities from the constituents of cultural partners aged 16-27 demonstrating intellectual curiosity and change making attitude. Additionally returning editors from Wikipedia communities previously engaged.
New editors: 200 Returning editors: 100 |
300 | 63 | Our target number of editors was revised to 180 (60 per event) due to the reduced amount of funding we received, which can cover 3 events as opposed to the 5 originally proposed. So we are expecting 150 new editors and 20 returning editors. So far, we've only held one event, with 13 returning and 50 new editors. With the third event being held in the new community we expect all the participants to be the new editors. | Dashboard |
| Number of organizers | Beginning with a paid WiR role to deliver main trainings of partners. One main organiser for each Wiki community we intend to engage with (5) should be present at this training to learn about the strategy of collaboration with the cultural organizations. They will organise their communities and also must develop direct relationship with the cultural organization. Thereafter, we will attract and maintain a team of local volunteers (within community of the main organisers) to support implementation of each event within the series of activity. When online, we imagine this would benefit greatly from the presence of previous volunteers from our AfroCuration events. | 15 | 5 | We are now working with 3 communities as opposed to 5. The initial collaboration began and all 3 Wiki communities are actively engaging with the local cultural partners. However, the main event for this goal will be the co-designing workshop between the Wiki communities and the cultural partners planned as the culmination of this year's program. So far from the first event, we have a team of 5 organisers in Mozambique who will be actively working on supporting the program's sustainability and future implementation. |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | We will encourage all participants to create at least one new Wikipedia article as part of the project (1x300 = 300), Additionally, we will encourage and guide the participants on how to edit and improve other wikipedia pages (100). | 400 | 72 | Our target number of participants was revised to 180 (60 per event) due to the reduced amount of funding we received, which can cover 3 events as opposed to the 5 originally proposed. So we are planning to have at least one article per person (1x180) and encourage the participants to edit and improve other wikipedia pages (50). So far, we've only held one event, so we are on target against the set goals. | Dashboard |
| Wikidata | Editors with previous experience will be asked to make at least one Wiki Data item related to their article (100). | N/A | 0 | We haven't started working on this yet. | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?
- Not so far
10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
- Yes
10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?
- For now we have only had one event and we shared our learnings with the partners but we intend to share our learnings with the global community at the end of our events.
11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.
- Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
- Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.
- - Story on AfroCuration Mozambique - https://nataal.com/afrocuration-mozambique
- Mozambique AfroCuration Dasboard - https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moleskine_Foundation,_Fondazione_Aurora_and_Ethale_Publishing/AfroCuration_Event,_Mozambique_4.0_(2023-02-24)
- Press releases for the Mozambique event:
Portuguese - https://mailchi.mp/4e0328b65206/novo-evento-editorial-pretende-tornar- convencional-a-pgin a-da-lngua-emakhuwa-no-wikipedia-20238725
English - https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/07/latest-emakhuwa-wikipedia-mass-edit-a-thon- will-celebrate-peace-in-mozambique-and-key-figures-in-mozambiques-history/
Instagram post about the Mozambique event: https://www.instagram.com/p/Coc1-Z8oR6F/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance edit
12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 16500
13. Local currency type
- USD
14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?
- No
15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.
- N/A
16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.
- It has been an amazing experience especially with a program manager attached who we have regular meetings with to help guide us in the right paths.