Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/SAPG 2023 - Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda

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Applicant details

Wikimedia username(s):

ALICE KIBOMBO : AKibombo

GEOFFREY KATEREGGA : Kateregga1

Organization:

Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Ltd.

G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?

Applied previously and did receive a grant

H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?

No

H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?

N/A

M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?

No

M1. Fiscal organization name.

N/A

Additional information

R. Where will this proposal be implemented?

Uganda

S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:

Local

S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.

T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)

Twitter - https://twitter.com/wikiuganda

Meta - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Uganda Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wiki.uganda/ Blog - https://wikiuganda.wordpress.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wikiuganda/

M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?

No

M1. Fiscal organization name.

N/A

Proposal

1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?

Our mission is to promote and create awareness of free and open access to knowledge in Uganda.

Some of our objectives include; To create awareness among the people of Uganda about the availability of free and open education content and enable them to effectively use them. To help build capacities of individuals and institutions to access, develop, and contribute to free and open educational resources. To support charitable work for the Wikimedia Foundation, registered at 120 Kearny Street, 16th Floor, San Francisco California 94104 USA. To promote wider participation in the creation, dissemination and expansion of information and educational resources covering the world’s knowledge and languages to all persons everywhere.

2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?

In Uganda today there is a considerable lack of strategically curated freely accessible and reusable content on notable persons, customs, norms , heritage, institutions, languages, environment and settlements. There is also a gender digital divide in terms of participants and online content created.

In 2022, Wikimedia Community User group Uganda hosted activities that targeted community growth and volunteer  involvement through  dedicated community outreach events ;the user group through different projects concentrated on increasing the number of editors, diversifying content and contributors and accessibility. This involved different language communities i.e English and Luganda, which has seen an increase in the number of editors of local language Wikipedia and better quality articles.

In response to a perceived lack of skills, the User group has been able to support community members who applied for the Lets Connect program under which they could attend learning clinics and in turn apply the findings individually and collectively. This has led to more empowered volunteers.

Leveraging existing partnerships during the International Women’s day in March, the Wikigap project has led to the creation of improved articles about women in Uganda with an emphasis on governance. This also led to increased female participation in these activities.and which has also helped us to critically higher female participation. What has led to the success of the wikigap campaign has been the consistency of the event every year.

The documentation of heritage/culture, nature, and other topics through photographic competitions has led to an increase in awareness of licences that apply to open knowledge and how they are applied in addition to the platforms that one can use . Photographic documentation has a low level barrier of participation and generates a high level of excitement which brings in new editors.

Through the diversity program we have targeted marginalized and underrepresented groups e.g refugees, human rights groups, and local amateur sports activities in association football. This has led to awareness of Wikimedia projects, and consequential development of Wikimedia communities across the country as well as partnerships outside Uganda, for example in South Sudan.

We are in undertaking a strategic planning process involving extensive consultations with the existing volunteer community in and out of Uganda, stakeholders ,partners, and allies . The process will result in an approved 5 year plan, development of organisational policies as well as recommendations to implement in order to help us reach our goals. In 2023, we will focus on implementing the recommendations deriving from the strategy process.

3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.

Diversity and Content Generation This will focus on identifying and filling content gaps that exist within online content about Uganda through yearly events organised under specific themes. These programs will increase content on Wikimedia projects eg. Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons and Wikisource. Through the identification of repeat editors , we will recruit them into the community and focus on their needs and how to improve .

WikiGap (March) This is an annual event in March focusing on creating content about prominent women in Uganda. In 2022 , the overarching theme was Women in Governance and this resulted in 115 articles on English Wikipedia, 37 on Luganda Wikipedia while 67 Wikidata items were created.

Wiki for Human Rights This is a month-long event focused on the creation and cleanup of content about various topics under the broad focus on Human Rights. 202 encouraged contribution under the theme “A Right to a Healthy Environment” which resulted in 80 articles created on Wikipedia

Wiki for Refugees Uganda is one of the largest refugee-hosting nations in the world, with over 1,400,000 refugees as of February 2020. The vast influx of refugees is due to several factors in Uganda's neighboring countries, especially war and violence in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and associated economic crisis and political instability in the region.

This will entail workshops and photographic documentation in the refugee camps.

Wiki Soccerthons This will involve promotion of Wikimedia projects with a diverse group of volunteers involved in association football, having made an outreach in 2022. The focus will be on content generation in 2023 through editathons, and photo competitions.

Education The Education Program focuses on the use and reuse of open education resources i.e. Luganda Wikipedia in the education sector. This will be through workshops that would involve training the trainer where the focus is on passing skills to educators who in turn can train others.This will be done as follows; Translator thon competitions School and university outreach

GLAM The focus in 2023 will be on : Building individual and collective capacity to engage in the community ; Recruitment and local support for local librarians to participate in the bi-annual Lib1Ref campaign. Community outreach and Introductory sessions for various GLAM institutions through their collective associations eg ULIA (Uganda Libraries Association),UgCLIA (Uganda Community Libraries Association), CUUL (Consortium of Uganda University Libraries) Introduction and expansion (edit-a-thons) for Wikimedia Projects particularly WikiData, Wikipedia, WikiSource and Commons

Photographic Competition Three photographic competitions will be carried out through Wiki Loves Africa (WLA), Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) and Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) . Activities will include but not limited to photo walks, Wikicamps, upload sessions and edit-a-thons

4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?

Diversity & Content Generation

Developing a toolkit to guide trainers and participants on how to  deal with gender-gap related engagements (identifying content), partners, handling different types of content , how do you organise an engagement e.t.c)

GLAM Practical training beyond the usual editing but on use of technical equipment that can be used to enhance the discoverability and increase the value of open access content. For the rest, please see the responses in (3) above

5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?

No

5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?

N/A

6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.

N/A

7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?

We consist of a team of 5 core group members : 1. Erina Mukuta (Username :Erinamukuta)

Erina is the Program Lead for Education which entails :

Project Management Training Event coordination and logistics Documentation and Reporting Erina is also in charge of various administration work related to grant application , monitoring and financial reporting

2. Geoffrey Kateregga (Username:Kateregga1 ) Geoffrey is part of the Diversity and Content creation team. He is the lead for WikiGap, Wiki for Refugees and Wiki Loves Monuments. In these events, he assumes the same roles as Project Management Training Event coordination and logistics Documentation and Reporting

Geoffrey is the communication lead for the user group in charge of emails and social media channels

3. Alice Kibombo (User: AKibombo) Alice is the GLAM program lead which involves roles such as entails roles such as; Project Management Training Event coordinator Documentation and Reporting

4. Sandra Aceng(User: Sandra Aceng ) Sandra leads the themed Wiki for Human, events, Wiki Loves Earth , offers support to diversity and content generation programs in addition to social media branding and communication.

5. Douglas Sebagala(User: Douglaseru) Douglas is part of the diversity and content creation team as a lead for the Wikisoccerthon program. The roles entailed are also Project Management Training Event coordinator Reporting and Documentation

He also carries out administrative work in regards to partnerships grant application and monitoring

6. Accounting This is outsourced

7. Legal This is outsourced

8.Administrator We have an administrator who is in charge of the day-to-day office administration, user group communication, supporting project leads and volunteers, providing support to the accountant in addition to reporting

8. 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, Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial

8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.

9. 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, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Diversity

10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.

Gender Identity, Linguistic / Language, Socioeconomic status, Age

11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?

Strategies Use of existing communication channels e.g. social media platforms (Telegram, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter etc) Creating events specific to their interests Soliciting feedback in order to refine their experiences Engaging umbrella/ sponsoring institutions for their communities in partnerships as they may respond better ; Offering partnerships to meet short term goals ;

12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?

Some of the recommendations under our local strategy proposal have established the need for organisational manuals and policies in particular and employee welfare manual- implementing and enforcing these will help us foster a safe working environment for the community and employees.

We have keenly observed and locally declared and enforced the UCoC at all our events. This includes having a designated safety marshall at all in-person and online events. We also intend to host and trust and safety training .

13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?

Yes

13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.

This proposal will be shared on the user group discussion page and links will be shared through our community social media lines ;

The Annual General Meeting will be used as before to inform the local volunteers about the proposal;

Project leads share plans and invite submissions through the annual community outreach event ;

The Usergroup's Meta Page will be used to document activities ;

Share on social media - twitter, facebook, telegram ; East African Wikimedians will be engaged as well through meta and social channels

14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?

Yes

14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.

We intend to maintain a relationship with the Embassy of Sweden in Uganda (for WikiGap) ; the Uganda Museum (space, network and training) and the Goethe Zentrum library (space).

Some of these partnerships increase our visibility and reputation in the eyes of the community. In addition, they provide us access to a network we do not have individual means of engaging .

Other partnerships will be cemented over time

15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?

In most programs we do , we try to have external partners in implementation which entails a program that is beyond the user group. Our preferred focus is on continued exposure of volunteer community and ensuring continued participation which has led to allround volunteers involved in all projects of the organization and as such give continuity of programs beyond individuals.

Through various engagements over the year, we make room for collective and individual mentorship of volunteers as the community and organisation expands. This ensures that programs and efforts are not pegged to the individual or organisation; work and processes are clearly documented so that one is able to start from where the other left off.

16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.

2022 has been a year of growth and learning and we anticipate the following risks as a user group :

Risk 1: Leadership transition As we transition leadership, we foresee a slowdown in activities due to the time needed for incoming leaders to acclimatize and settle in and effect meaningful changes. Mitigation : We have budgeted for an outsourced human resource component that will handle the hiring and onboarding process of this while also being mindful of the Foundation’s edicts. Risk 2 : Community health situation e.g disease outbreaks There is a high risk of disease outbreak e.g an Ebola outbreak in Uganda currently. Mitigation : To observe government-set guidelines in regard to disease control

Risk 3 : Volunteer fatigue/burnout Due to a high dependence on volunteers to facilitate activities, we run the risk of volunteer burnout Mitigation : We are considering an even distribution of duties as far as possible in order to manage both ours and volunteer expectations. We also want to involve volunteers in running interest projects through project sub-grants so that the sense of ownership can be a motivating factor

17. 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, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development

18. 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.

No

Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation

19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?

How many individuals got involved in community events beyond editing? Which kind of events did they get involved in and what was their contribution? Which events show recruitment of long term volunteers? What kind of engagement and/or training had a higher retention of volunteers?

20. 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 space provided.


Main Metrics	Description	Target
Participants	Individuals who attend various community organised events	100
Editors	Individuals who contribute to Wikimedia's projects : GLAM - New editors 10 Old editors 5 EDUCATION -New editors 10 Old editors 5 DIVERSITY AND CONTENT -New editors 20 Old editors 10	60
Organisers	Individuals that are engaged in and support community activities but are not necessarily editors	5
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A

Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.


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

21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics	Description	Target
Number of participants	Community volunteers who attend or benefit from the usergroup's activities throughout the year New participants : 30 Returning participants : 10	40
Number of editors	Editors who edit various Wikimedia projects, creating and improving content	40
Number of organizers	Change agents and implementors of what has been learned	5

**Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project**
Wikimedia Project	Description	Target
Wikipedia	GLAM - 50 Education -50 Diversity and Content -150	250
Wikimedia Commons	Photographic Competitions : Wiki Loves Africa (WLA) - 200 Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) - 200 Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) - 200	600
Wikidata	Metadata items created through various campaigns - 200	200
Wikisource	Pages transcribed and validated by local editors - 150	150
N/A	N/A	N/A

21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.

N/A

22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?

Pre and post event surveys Wikimedia Outreach Userboard Manual registration sheets Google analytics

Financial Proposal

23. & 23.1 What 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.

390159391.92 UGX

23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?

102853 USD

23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.

Link to WMUGU SaPG 2023 budget

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A_wQFB4bDDKm6JWxbylffmVrRJ5F6TcsdUGb2To0ADU/edit?usp=sharing

23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.

N/A

Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.

Final Message

By 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

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