Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Audio-visual documentation of endangered Igbo dances in Nigeria./Midpoint Report
Midterm Learning Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2022-10-15T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Midterm
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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 Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.
- Name of Organization: N/A
- Title of Proposal: Audio-visual documentation of endangered Igbo dances in Nigeria.
- Amount awarded: 24250 USD, 23000 NGN
- Amount spent: 6049680 NGN
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?
- We had embarked on the field trip aspect of the project that involved producing audiovisuals of Igbo dances, images and their audio pronunciations. At the moment, the audiovisuals, and audio pronunciations are undergoing post-production to produce the final versions. In the proposal stage, we didn't put into consideration the need for food, drinks and local transportation for the different dancers, dance groups and community members who will be convened outside of their festive seasons to perform and tell stories of the different dances. We also didn't foresee the importance of initiating strong advocacy in the Implementing communities to garner their support for the need for preserving this endangered cultural heritage prior to the scheduled dates of the field trips. With this understanding, we had a 1-month entry point visit to the communities to get them to buy-in into the purpose of the project and prepare towards a selected date for the field trip in each of the communities which fed into our field trip schedule document. We had to adopt these strategies realizing that the project would fail without them. As with most original first-time projects, there are alot of considerations that are missed at the proposal stage that will be necessary for the success of the project. Hence, in order to cover the cost of the entry point visits, food, drinks and transportation for dancers/dance troupes which was not included in the budget at the proposal stage, we reduced the number of dances to 18 in order to use the cost of the remaining 12 dances to cover for the entry point visits, food, drinks and transportation for dance troupes, many of which had more than 10 people in each troupe.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- The 1-month entry point visits to the communities; the food, drinks and transportation for the different dance troupes and community members played a significant role in the success of the field trip component of the project, which is also tied to the success of the other phases of the project.
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- During our field trips, we had about two communities who didn't inform us about the unresolved internal conflict in their communities until the scheduled days of the audiovisual production. For example, in one of the communities, the contact points were part of the community leaders who penalized some group of young people for participating in culture related events in the past. So the aggrieved youths in a bid to get back to the community leaders disapproved of our audiovisual production which were highly supported by the community leaders. Hence, we had to pull out and recommend they put their house in order so we can maybe work with them in future. Another challenge was the issue of the timeline of the project which wasn't convenient for a community that had abandoned their indigenous dances for a long time. They would require a minimum of three (3) months to set themselves up to participate in our project. This was not feasible given that our project was time-bound. But had we succeeded, we would have both preserved and revived their culture dormant for about 15 years. We hope to work with them in the future.
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- We are excited to share that through the field trip phase of this project, we reached about 1000 community members in 12 rural communities across the five (5) states in southeast Nigeria. This includes those reached through the entry point visits, the community preparation/planning led by community contact points (some of which necessitated a series of community meetings over a given time) and the dance performances that attracted crowds of local people in each community. The people reached were women, men, children, young people, senior citizens, traditional leaders and rulers.
Beyond this, we engage in regular meetings with the different project advisors to share updates with the progress of the project and seek their thoughts on relevant additions to be made at any point in time.
We had planned for a session presentation during the 2022 Wikimania conference but didn't pull through as we didn't meet up with having the Audiovisuals ready. We hope it will be ready for another session we have planned for the 2022 WikiIndaba conference.
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- Through our field trips, we realized that the communities of participation have little or no understanding about open knowledge and digital preservation of this cultural heritage. We saw senior citizens whom some communities recognize as a body of knowledge in relation to their culture but who were sick and unable to tell the stories of the dances. This touches on the very essence of this project. We also met great dancers from communities of origin of some dances who had no knowledge of the history and story behind the dances they have known for years. For such people, it was quite an unforgettable experience listening to the stories of such dances. Hence, we were able to build an understanding that the value of these dances is not only in their performances but also in the stories and how communities are best suited to tell their own stories especially for the benefit of the future generation. The history and stories of these endangered dances is one that's valuable for the Igbo extract in Nigeria, given its scarce information in the digital space and relevant institutions which plays a significant role in shaping the understanding of their cultural heritage for both now and future generations.
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- One of the outlined learnings is to determine the number of indigenous Igbo dances in Nigeria and how many are covered in the project. Through this project, we have successfully confirmed and documented 16 indigenous dances in the form of audiovisuals, images and audio pronunciations of the names of the dances. We have also learned that there are differences in the organized structure of communities, groups and individuals in upholding this cultural heritage. Some of these dances are also evolving in terms of names and structure of performance over time and space.
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- As next steps, we will be uploading contents to Wikimedia Commons, internet archive and Library of Congress once we are done with post-production. We will also initiate the Wikimedia community engagement part of the project, working with relevant communities to organize Edit-a-thons and Write-a-thons to create articles for the documented dances on language Wikipedias
Part 2: Metrics edit
8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| of audiovisuals produced | The narration of will value systems, culture, beliefs, lifestyle and the environment of the people where the production is done. | 56 | 16 | N/A | N/A |
| of audiovisuals uploaded to Wikimedia commons, Internet Archive, and Library of Congress. | The preservation and transfer of culture and knowledge to other generations. We will have a one stop digital repository where educators and researchers can access information about these dances. | 56 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| of training and capacity development. | Possible replication of the project and ability to work on preserving endangered culture by trained participants in the future. | 30 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| of Edit-a-thons | The projection of the culture and tribe of the Igbo group to people beyond their language and tribe by reusing the contents on Wikipedia pages. | 5 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Social Media Awareness | Project visibility will be attained through awareness on relevant platforms. | 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 | The number of participants in all activities including cultural leaders, native dance performers, staff of partnering organizations, and other knowledge experts. They are going to be mostly new participants and a few returning ones. | 100 | |||
| Number of editors | The number of editors in all activities including a mix of new and returning editors from wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria, Igbo Wikimedia Usergroup, wikimedia hubs in Southeastern Nigeria, and other language wikimedia communities that will be interested in participating. We hope that 10 out of this 30, will be new editors. | 30 | |||
| Number of organizers | The number of organizers in all activities including advisors, coordinators, trainers, facilitators and planners. | 13 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons | Minimum of 56 audiovisuals uploaded to wikimedia commons | 56 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Wikidata | Minimum of 56 wikidata items created or improved. | 56 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Wikimedia Commons | Minimum of 100 images uploaded to wikimedia commons. | 100 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Wikipedia | Igbo Wikipedia. Minimum of 100 articles created or improved. | 100 | 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?
- No
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?
- We hope to have a session to share about the work of the project done so far at the 2022 WikiIndaba conference.
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.
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance edit
12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 6049680
13. Local currency type
- NGN
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's been an interesting journey working with the different Project team, partners and stakeholders and learning a lot in the process.