Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Open Foundation West Africa Annual Plan 2022
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Applicant details
editWikimedia username(s):
- Rberchie
Organization:
- Open Foundation West Africa
Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did receive a grant
Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
Organization details
editWhat is your organization or group's mission?
- Mission
Creating the awareness of all the available open resources, enticing its use by many and sharing the benefits of contributing towards the future of education and open learning Vision Getting more people to understand and use open resources as a basis for improving the quality and accessibility of educational resources.
If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- Social Media
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/ofwafrica LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/ofwafrica Twitter- https://twitter.com/OFWAFRICA Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/ofwafrica/ Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmoG8dQ8KsbWb7_kanElMfQ Website- https://ofwafrica.org/
Grant proposal
editPlease state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page.
- Open Foundation West Africa Annual Plan 2022
Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Ghana
Indicate if it is a local, international, or regional proposal and if it involves several countries? (optional)
- Regional
If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
- West Africa (Ghana, Liberia) and on the African continent
What are the main challenges you are trying to solve and your proposed solution?
- In line with Wikimedia Foundation's vision of a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, Open Foundation West Africa aims to empower people on the continent with skills on how to tell their stories using Wikipedia and its sister projects.
The Guardian reported in 2016 that only about 2.6 percent of the content on English Wikipedia was about Africa. Despite numerous concerted efforts to improve the statistics since then, the disparity persists. This is due to the fact that most people in our part of the world are either unaware of how they can contribute to platforms like Wikipedia or lack the requisite skills to participate in knowledge creation. Another factor contributing to the low representation of African content on Wikipedia and other sister projects is the region's low number of editors, which is also not gender balanced. Another issue we intend to address is the barriers to information access. Many schools in Ghana and across the continent continue to face difficulties in gaining access to online information or resources to improve their teaching and learning.
We developed specific goals to combat the threat of Africa's low representation on the web after identifying these challenges and their causes. This is accomplished through three thematic areas: Advocacy and Awareness, GLAM and Content Creation, and Training and Development (via our hubs and clubs network). Running campaigns and writing contests across the country and on the continent has been one way through which we are tackling the content gap and topics of impact within Wikimedia. We also provide certificate causes and progressive learning models to encourage content creation while gaining some credentials to ascertain the knowledge acquired (which could be used on CV’s). We make these training sessions open to the public in order to reach a wide range of people across the West Africa sub-region. We also organize annual projects aimed at increasing the visibility of African content on the internet. Through our Kiwix4schools program we provide offline access to Wikipedia and other educational resources to remote schools and deprived communities.
What is the main objective of your proposal?
- Our focus is to carry on with the mandate conferred unto us to activate, train and empower countries within the West African subregion and on the continent to create and use content from the Wikimedia projects, diversifying contributions by reaching editors from different geographical backgrounds as well as introduce diverse contributions. Our proposal seeks to request the necessary funding to continue our programs and develop new programs and initiatives that can help us reach our goal.
Describe your main strategies to achieve this objective and the main activities you will be developing as part of these strategies.
- Advocacy and Awareness: With advocacy we promote campaigns that support the broader vision of Education, Transparency in information access and copyright, gender etc. The main goal is to create awareness about Wikimedia projects and help change the narrative in these sectors. Through content campaigns like the Women of the Wiki, where we encourage diversified contributions by encouraging women participation and contribution on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
GLAM and Content Creation: The Galleries, Libraries , Archives and Museums (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, heritage of a country which increases the visibility and diversity of content on Wikipedia.
Open Education: These projects are primarily focused on the application of Wikipedia and its sister projects in education. This involves activities centered around in-class assignments (Wikimedia Education Program, clubs and societies and on campus events which inadvertently leads to contributions on Wikipedia and its sister projects through students, instructors, patrons, etc. or making wikipedia and other open educational content accessible by schools which are offline all within an academic setting.The goal of this program is to present more opportunities within the education space in Ghana to ensure there are enough opportunities to create awareness and train more advocates within academia.
Hubs, Clubs and Societies: Partnering with tech hubs enables us to set up local wikimedia communities across the country to allow members from those communities to have the opportunity to learn about wikipedia and its sister projects. Our clubs provide a similar experience to students and our developer community creates an avenue for other forms of contribution (developers) within Wikimedia.
Please state if you will be carrying out any of these activities within your programs? Select all that apply.
- Organizing Meet-up online, Organizing Meet-up offline, Workshops, Edit-A-Thons, Train-the-Trainer, Photowalk, Contest, Wiki Loves campaign, Conference/Event Organizing, Media outreach campaign, Central organizing for movement campaign
Are you running any in-person events or activities?
- Yes
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WeE825kHsmft7QufDul8pZ9c1-2mwxSVmAXZuqpJNT0/edit?usp=sharing
Please state if your proposal aims to work on any of the identified content knowledge gaps?
- Content Gender gap, Age (regency) , Geography, Language, Sexual Orientation, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or thematic focus.
- Education, Advocacy, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Open Technology, Diversity
Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select all categories that apply.
- Gender Identity, Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Linguistic / Language, Age, Digital Access
Please tell us more about your target participants.
- General Public:Our projects are open to the general public and are not restricted by specific criteria such as age, background, gender, or location.In view of this we have created open educational resources materials including videos on our Youtube channel to make them accessible by the general public. Depending on the project we are running, our target audience may be specific to a particular audience.
Learning Communities: Most of our programs are targeted towards the learning community in the region and continent. For instance secondary and tertiary institutions and teachers. Eg. Kiwix4schools project, Wikimedia in Education, Wiki Clubs, Summer Open School etc. target learning groups. Thematic Audience: Though our campaigns are open to the general public they ten to appeal to specific audiences. For instance, the Africa Wiki challenge tends to interest Pan Africanist people and groups across the continent and in the diaspora, Wikimedia affiliate organizers who will love to organize this event in their country. On the other hand, the Founders’ Day Ghana Writing contest attracts mostly the local people from Ghana who find interest in Ghana’s history, culture and heritage and are happy contributing to such information on Wikipedia and other sister projects. Campaigns like the Women of the Wiki encourage diversified contributions in terms of gender by encouraging women participation and contribution on Wikipedia and its sister project.
Hub and club technique: By establishing Hubs and clubs across the region, we ensure diversity in participation and fair representation of individuals with diverse backgrounds and geographical locations to participate and contribute information about their region on the Wiki projects. These hubs are located in different communities across the region, country and institutions to make local participants feel more at ease and ensure that they are well supported in terms of acquiring knowledge about wiki projects.
Do you have plans to work with other Wikimedia communities, groups or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
- Yes
Please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
- Wiki pages
We have shared our 2022 annual plan on the affiliate report portal on meta - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports Our current annual plan is currently featured on our Open Foundation West Africa meta page - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Foundation_West_Africa The Africa Wiki Challenge audience can also see our plans on the project metapage - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Wiki_Challenge The Founders Day Ghana Writing Contest audience can also see our plans on the project metapage - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Founders_Day_Ghana_Writing_Contest Offline We will be presenting our full 2022 annual plan to the community at our upcoming AGM Social Media Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/ofwafrica LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/ofwafrica Twitter- https://twitter.com/OFWAFRICA Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/ofwafrica/ Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmoG8dQ8KsbWb7_kanElMfQ
Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
- Yes
Please describe these partnerships.
- Media partners - Media partners support the work we do by offering us free airtime to share insights about Wikimedia and our ongoing projects.
Technology Hubs - These partners are integral to our growth strategy and they support us with training spaces where our hub networks across the regions convene for their meetups.
Project partners - We collaborate with partners on specific projects who support us in diverse ways. The Geothe institut, our partner on the DTI Contest which focuses on language contributions to Wikimedia projects provided a myriad of prizes and resource persons.
Universities - These institutions provide us with free training space on campus, and access to their students through the establishment of campus clubs.
Government agencies - Governmental organizations can be great allies and strategic partners to amplify one's work. We have partnered with institutions such as the Ministry of Information, GMMB, National Film Authority and Ministry of Tourism.
How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
- Ensuring sustainability through strategic alliance with Tech Hubs- Our strategic alliance with tech hubs across the country provides a unique sustainable growth strategy for us. Each of these regional hubs are somewhat autonomous due to their affiliation with our partner hubs, meaning that in the absence of OFWA these partnership structures can continue to empower their communities and create awareness about Wikimedia projects.
Ensuring a sustainable legacy through our regional organisers framework - Through our regional hub structures we are growing and building the capacity of new organisers at the regional level. Through this leadership structure we are empowering communities across the country of Ghana and in other West African countries to sustain their activities without the help of OFWA.
Initiating the next generation of users and contributors of Wikipedia through the Kiwix4school project: Wikipedia becomes more powerful when it is read, hence empowering the next set of users to identify Wikipedia as that meta platform for knowledge is crucial, which is what the Kiwix4schools project seeks to achieve. Initiating these youth to this program creates awareness about Wikipedia and inspires these students to contribute to it.
Building academic pathways to Wikipedia through Librarians in Ghana: With our Librarian project, we will empower the librarian community to create awareness about Wikipedia and encourage its continued use in their respective universities.
Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
- We have a diverse and dynamic team capable of championing and stirring our organisational goals and reaching the objectives of our programs. Our team members bring an array of expertise and come from different backgrounds that complement our organisational trajectory:
The Board: Raphael Berchie (User:Rberchie)-Co Founder and Organizational Strategist who helps to provide strategic direction and support for the organization. D.r Harry Barton Essel: University Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah Science and Technology (KNUST) who supported in the implementation of a Wikimedia Education Program at KNUST Dr. Anima Wiafe-Akenten: A lecturer at the University of Education Winneba language school and the first person to have a PHD in a local Ghanaian language. She brings her expertise on board as a language expert and educationist and helped us establish the Wiki Club on campus. Kweku Berko (User:Kweku Berko)- A community representative on the Board and Language enthusiast who supports developing language communities.
Core Team Ruby Damenshie-Brown (User:Ruby D-Brown)- She is currently supporting in a volunteer capacity for the role of Administrative Executive, was formerly the communications person, but took on a temporal role at the WMF as a Content campaign Fellow Eugene Masiku (User:- Communications officer (Paid staff) Jesse Asiedu (User:JWale)- Training Associate (Volunteer) Maxwell Benjamin (User:xhibit)- Training Associate (Volunteer)
Vacant roles(Roles that needs attention of a full time staff) Program Officer- a role that we really need to fill because there is a programmatic need of the organization. Programs Officers who will be responsible for overseeing program development, planning and executing program activities, performing program reviews, and writing reports, among other things.
In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
- Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Ensure Equity in Decision-making, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge, Identify Topics for Impact, Innovate in Free Knowledge, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here. (optional)
- No
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation
editWhat do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
- All of our programs' organizations include program assessment as a key component. We create goals for ourselves as we organize our campaigns. In order to evaluate the development of our projects, we define milestones and develop a set of questions that we will answer before the project is completed and from which we will learn. Our work focuses on equipping Africans with the skills they need to contribute their fair share to the representation of the continent on Wikimedia projects. The following are some of the questions we seek to answer or look into:
How many people did our message (communications) reach? How many people inquired about the project when they came across it? How many people did we train on how to edit Wikipedia and its sister projects? How many people actually contributed African content on Wikimedia projects? How many new participants were recruited? How did we encourage diverse participation in terms of gender? Did participants have major challenges assessing the world of Wiki? How many people participated in our project(s)? How many articles were created? How many new partners were recruited? What is the rate of retention? Who was impacted? How did we overcome obstacles in executing projects/programs? Challenges/obstacles faced by organizers? Challenges/obstacles faced by participants? Did we meet our objective? What was the feedback from participants?
Core Metrics
editEnter a description of the metric and a number in the target field. If the metric does not apply to you, enter N/A for not applicable.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Participants from 10 regions in Ghana and via our online training/campaigns from across the continent will benefit from our activities.
We target about 1000 participants throughout the year. 500 new participants and 500 returning participants. |
1000 |
| Number of editors | The number of editors in all activities; 300 particularly females and students from the various universities where we have clubs.
300 new editors or account creations |
300 |
| Number of organizers | Our organizers include 5 core team members, 20 hub and club leaders across the region, 10 affiliate organizers across the continent, 15 community volunteers to implement Kiwix project. | 50 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | our programs will seek to derive content surrounding gender, biographies of notable women, and increase information about the regions of Ghana as well as bridge thematic gaps like culture, history, geographic locations, Africa, etc.
1500 articles |
1500 |
| Wikimedia Commons | We seek to generate audiovisual content on Wikimedia Commons through our Wiki Loves campaigns and other related campaigns on WIkimedia through images, videos etc.We want to be able to generate over 1800 images 200video files on Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other sister project | 2000 |
| Wikidata | We seek to generate wikidata items from existing articles, newly created articles and uploads on Wikimedia commons by encouraging members and participants about the importance of wikidata as well as build their capacity around it. | 2000 |
| Incubator | We seek to grow contribution on local languages in incubator wiki eg Ga | 100 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
- N/A
Additional Metrics
editEnter a description of the metric and a number in the target field. If the metric does not apply to you, enter N/A for not applicable.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | 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 |
What other information will you be collecting to learn about the impact of your work? (optional)
- Participant Feedback on the impact of the project
Information about gender
What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
- Programs & Events Dashboard
Google forms to collect information about participants as well as feedback Event metrics Creating categories for photo contest
- tools
How do you hope to share these results so that others can learn from them?
- Create a video of our experience, Make a short presentation of the experience, Create a training workshop to show others what we learned, Share results on social media, Share results with our communities, Participate in one on one peer sharing session with other grantees, Develop learning material for other users, Share it on Meta-Wiki
Financial Proposal
editWhat is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 1090816.32 GHS
What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 185198 USD
Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
- No
If you have calculated it, please provide an estimate of the year 2 or year 3 request.
- N/A
Please share your budget for this proposal.
- We have attached a spreadsheet listing all items in bullet as requested
What do you do to make sure there is a good management of funds?
- By keeping up to date records and track of all expenses
Receiving and filing receipts where available for every expenditure Ensuring that every project expenses are made within budget We try not to overspend on a program, but where there is a need to overspend:
up to 20%, there must be an approval sought from the Administrative Executive 21% and more, there must be an approval sought from the Board
We meet tax payment deadlines to avoid penalties There is a always a 2 signatory required in order to withdraw funds (1 member of the board and the Administrative Executive)
How will you contribute towards creating a supportive environment for participants using the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy?
- By ensuring that members are made aware of the UCOC and friendly space policy this will be linked to our registration forms, social media platforms and places where it will be visible for others to read about it.
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Staffing plan or organogram:
- Other public document(s):
Final Message
editBy submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback
edit- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.