Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki For Human Rights New Mexico 2023 (ID: 22119931)
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Applicant Details edit
- Please provide your main Wikimedia Username.
pambelle12
- Please provide the Usernames of people related to this proposal.
Jwale2 Fquasie
- Organization
N/A
- Are you a member of any Wikimedia affiliate or group, including informal groups like Wiki Fan Clubs, emerging language communities, not recognized Wikimedia groups etc.? Please list them all.
Open Foundation West Africa
Grant Proposal edit
- M. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wiki For Human Rights New Mexico 2023
- Q. Indicate if it is a local, international, or regional proposal and if it involves several countries? (optional)
Local
- Q2. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
- R. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has.
- 1. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important.
Challenges/ Problems: The State of New Mexico in the US is fraught with various environmental problems including climate challenges that affect water resources among several others.
These challenges partly caused by the emission of greenhouse gas methane from fossil fuel development has resulted into air pollution. Adding to that is the issue of climate change. Climate Change has caused havoc to inhabitants through dust storms and wildfires, flooding, and water issues.
This has necessitated the need to create awareness and educate college students in New Mexico about these challenges that impacts inhabitant of the state through Wikimedia projects.
Secondly, there is no Wikimedia community/ presence in this State, which means both students and educators are missing out on the potential of Wikipedia both as a pedagogical tool in academia and an effective avenue to tackle environmental issues.
Solution:
To use the Wiki for Human Rights 2023 campaign as an opportunity to create awareness about the state of the environmental landscape in New Mexico.
To introduce students to the Wiki for Human Rights campaign and get them thinking about how they can contribute content on human rights and the environment on Wikipedia and other sister projects.
To communicate the level of New Mexico Climate challenges that affect water resources and brainstorm on how to reverse the trend through Wikipedia.
To use the Wiki for Human Rights Campaign as a tool to help establish a Wikimedia presence in the community.
In sum, this project is important because it will position college students as part of the solution to the state’s environmental issues by documenting and contributing fact-based content on Wikipedia.
- 2. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Strategies:
- To introduce Wikimedia to the students to give them an overview about the community and its work. This will lay the foundation for the introduction of the Wiki For Human Rights Campaign 2023.
- Introduce Wiki For Human Rights 2023 Campaign to the students
- Build the capacity of students on Wikimedia related project.
Why these strategies
I chose these strategies based on my theory of change, which is to include college students in the fight against New Mexico’s environmental woes through Wikipedia.
I believe these strategies would produce the desired results because we adopted same strategies in last year’s (2022), Wiki For Human Rights Campaign and it was successful as evidenced here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/New_Mexico/Wiki_for_Human_Rights_New_Mexico.
Additionally, we exceeded our projections for participation and contribution and as such we believe our set strategies would go a long way to enhance this year's campaign.
- 3. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
To execute the strategies above, the following will be the main activities:
- Organize a two-day training session for over 20 undergraduate college students.
The first session will be dedicated to introducing Wikimedia and its sister projects to the students. This will pave way and provide a foundation for the day two of the event.
As a long time, Wikipedia advocate, volunteer, and graduate teaching assistant, I am constantly reminded of the low levels of knowledge and skills that university students in New Mexico have about Wikipedia and related campaigns and how much capacity building and training could be beneficial to their academic advancement and community in general.
The first known effective activity to execute among newbies is to provide a solid background by introducing them to Wikimedia and additionally creating awareness about its sister projects. After which we would narrow down to the WikiForHumanRights campaign. This would enable participant to understand the basics, the need for such project and motivate them to build interest.
The day two will primarily be used to introduce the campaign and its importance to the students and their community. It will also include a hands-on practice on editing Wikipedia, contributing environmental content and an edit-a-ton to contribute images of the State’s mountainous landscapes, sceneries and the environment in general to Wikimedia Commons. These activities were selected based on previous experience organizing the campaign in 2022 and its impact in building their capacity, skills and contribution, in creating awareness about the environmental challenges in the State.
- 4. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign or event? If so, please select the relevant campaign below. If so, please select all the relevant campaigns from the list below. If "other", please state which.
WikiForHumanRights
- 5. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
Yes, I have the team to help implement this project and they are as follows:
- Pamela Ofori- Boateng (Pambelle12) is a Wikipedia editor/volunteer over the last six years with a portfolio of community leadership and activities in Ghana, where she originally hail from and now a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the US- Project Lead
- Jesse Akrofi (Jwale2) is an active Wikipedia editor and host of the Podcast, Wiki Update- Co Lead
- Francis Quasie (Fquasie) is an active contributor primarily on Wikimedia commons and community leader - Technical Support
- Event will also include a speaker with expertise on environmental issues from the movement
- 6. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Geography, Other global topics for impact (topics considered to be of global importance)
- 6.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
The State of New Mexico may be considered as one of the lesser-known States in the US and as such issues concerning this State are not adequately available on the internet particularly, issues about the environment. By contributing to the WikiForHumanrights campaign, through this project, we seek to produce fact-based content which includes visuals and text about the State to Wikipedia and Wikimedia commons.
- 7. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Human Rights, Climate Change and sustainability
- 8. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities?
Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Disabilities
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities?
This proposal is designed to contribute to the annual WikiForHumanRights Campaign by involving college students’ contribution and building their capacities through Wikipedia resources. We hope to primarily engage undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds including indigenous students of the state of New Mexico.
- 1. Content gap and sexual orientation- This project will include participants with different sexual orientation as I teach a diverse class in my quest to promote inclusion as a Teaching Assistant.
- 2. Disability- Students with learning disabilities will not be left out of this project because per my experience, this social group when provided with assistance bring rich contribution to projects.
- 3. Gender identity: We seek to ensure that all students irrespective of their gender are involved and contribute to this project.
- Since the State has no Wikimedia presence and most students are not exposed to the project, no prior experience is required to participate.
Strategies for follow up and engage new participants. Connecting with other student organizations: By collaborating with student’s organizations, we hope to benefit from their membership list by engaging in their events and aligning with similar events they may have.
- Visibility and impact: We will send out periodic emails to demonstrate to participants the impact of their work such as additions to articles they contributed to, articles that featured images they contributed and views of their contribution globally.
- Exposure to other Wiki communities : We will introduce participants to other Wikimedia projects to encourage them develop skills that will be useful to other Wikimedia projects.
Additionally, we will share other Wikimedia resources with participants to enable them access free trainings and capacity building materials useful for their academic trajectories and career development through initiatives such as The Community Development Online Training among others.
- 10. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants?
We will ensure a safe space for all participants by introducing the WMF Friendly Space Policy ahead of the event to ensure that everyone understand what is expected of them.
We will also lay out the consequences involved should anyone engage in activities contrary to the Friendly Space Policy and encourage participants to abide by it.
We will work towards inclusivity where all participants irrespective of their backgrounds, sexual orientation are respected.
- 11. Please tell us about how you have let your Wikimedia communities know about the planned activities and this proposal. Use this space to describe the processes you carried out to make the community more involved in planning this proposal. Please link the on-wiki community discussion(s) around the proposals.
• Added this campaign to the list of WikiForHumanRights events
- A meta page with details of the event has been created to enable community members and prospective participants have access to information about the event (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_Human_Rights_New_Mexico_2023
)
- Distributed emails about the project to other Wikipedia editors for suggestion and support to better execute the project.
- A diff blog about the project will be published after the project. Last year’s diff blog here: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/07/28/college-students-document-new-mexico-through-wikiforhumanrights-campaign-for-the-first-time/
Additionally, a podcast has been scheduled with the Wiki Update podcast team about the campaign. This podcast will be publicized within the community to help them learn more about the campaign.
- 12. Are you aware of other Rapid Fund proposals in your local group, community, or region that are being submitted and that align with your proposed project?
No
If yes:
- 12.1 Did you explore the possibility of doing a joint proposal with other leaders in your group?
- N/A
- 12.2 How will this joint proposal allow you to have better results?
- N/A
- 13. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedia partners to implement this proposal? Required.
No
- 13.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
- 14. 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, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Innovate in Free Knowledge
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation edit
- 15. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
Learning questions
- How have participant’s perception about Wikipedia and related projects after contributing to the campaign changed?
- What inspired them to contribute or participate?
- What challenges manifested during the campaign?
- Were we effective with the Friendly Space Policy?
- Did we effectively ensure inclusivity and ensure that all were treated and supported fairly?
- Did we ensure respect for all irrespective of their backgrounds?
- Did participants receive enough training to effectively contribute?
Possible outcomes
- Students/participants would gain insight about Wikipedia and its ideals in promoting free knowledge.
- They will become aware that they do not require special skills to contribute to Wikipedia and that they need an editing training and the passion for free knowledge
- Participants would learn about the Friendly Space policy and conduct themselves ethically during the events.
- 16. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following spaces provided.
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
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- 17. Core quantitative metrics.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 1. At least 20 students with no editing experience will be introduced to Wikipedia.
We would use a survey platform such as Google forms to measure participant’s perception about Wikipedia and related project and why they decided to participate in the campaign. This will be distributed at the end of the campaign, |
24 |
| Number of editors | This project would have 3 experienced editors who are also going to be facilitators of the campaign. The participants who are students would mostly be newbies without experience and would be provided the needed support throughout the campaign. | 24 |
| Number of organizers | There are three organizers to help implement this project and they are as follows:
|
3 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
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| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 17.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
- 18. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support.
We would use the outreach dashboard to measure and track contribution to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
We would also use Google forms for evaluation after the campaign to analyze participant's perception and areas for improvement.
Financial Proposal edit
- 19. & 19.1 What is the amount you are requesting from Wikimedia Foundation? Please provide this amount in your local currency.
2360 USD
- 19.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
2360 USD
- 20. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback edit
Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).