Grants:Project/Rapid/Northern Region (Ghana) tinsi

statusfunded

Rapid Grants

Dnshitobu/Northern Region (Ghana) tinsi

To create and organize first, second and third-level administrative divisions information about the Northern Region of Ghana by adding/improving 250+ wikidata items and 1000+ statements.

targetWikidata

start dateDecember 6

end dateJanuary 6

budget (local currency)GHS 13000.00

budget (USD)$ 2147.70

grant typeIndividual

non-profit statusNo

grantee• Dnshitobu

contact(s)• fuseinikamaldeengmail.com

friendly space expectations

ucc

privacystatement

Review your report

Project Goal

Briefly explain what are you trying to accomplish with this project, or what do you expect will change as a result of this grant. Example goals include, "recruit new editors", "add high quality content", or "train existing editors on a specific skill".

• Organize first, second, third, and fourth level Northern Region of Ghana administrative divisions information
• Add statements and qualifiers about administrative divisions of Northern Region to Wikidata
• Document the research and data import process so other editors may replicate the process to organize information about other regions

Project Plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing?

There are 16 regions in Ghana, which are further divided into 275 second-level administrative districts. Each of these metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies consist of about 100 local areas. But there are many problems with Ghana’s Country Subdivision information on Wikidata:

1. The administrative divisions of different countries vary, and modeling these individually for different countries requires conscientious effort from Wikidata editors, particularly from editors who understand how the areas in their countries are organized. The situation on Wikidata is that, sometimes, there are few or no editors from an under-represented region to take on these tasks, and so other volunteers, mainly from the global north, in their quest to help, often model these divisions on Wikidata by reusing templates they’re familiar with. Oftentimes, these are wrong!
2. Items for geographical locations in Ghana usually do not exist or are not properly linked, which makes them very difficult to discover and maintain.
3. Reference material about geographical information on Ghana is not always readily available on the internet. The latest information about Ghana’s subdivisions can only be found in the various local districts. These have to be scanned or copied and made publicly available.
4. While Ghana’s local administrative divisions were already scant on Wikidata, or poorly modeled for those that do exist, the 2018 Ghanaian new regions' referendum saw the creation of new districts and mergers of certain areas, which further compounded the disorganization of information about the region.

I will be spending my time doing the following:

1. Visit the local district assembly offices in the Northern Region (one of Ghana’s top-level divisions) to gather information about each area in each district for this region and get some help from the office in organizing this information.
2. Start a Wikidata:WikiProject_Administrative_Units_in_Ghana with the goal of making a structure standardization of all administrative units in Ghana.
3. Clean-up of related Wikidata items and batch upload the latest data about the Northern Region of Ghana’s administrative divisions into Wikidata. Through the project, editors can create or improve Wikipedia articles related to the areas that will be covered.
4. Document the above stages, so other editors may replicate it for other regions of countries.

How will you let others in your community know about your project (please provide links to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions)? Why are you targeting a specific audience?

Messages have been posted on the relevant mailing lists:

• African Wikimedians mailing list

• Wikimedia Ghana mailing list

• Dagbani Wikimedians mailing list

These mailing lists are hubs for people who would be familiar with the Northern Region of Ghana and could provide valuable inputs.

The results of this project, being structured data about place names of Northern Regional communities, when added to Wikidata could be reused by other people in their own projects, or provide them with ideas to replicate the project in their various regions.

What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

By the end of the project, I would have:

1. Established a relationship with 16 Government of Ghana district assembly offices. I will use this opportunity of my meetings with them to talk about the possibilities of leveraging Wikidata and Wikimedia, in general, to make government records publicly available online.
2. Created a new Wikiproject to engage other Wikidata editors to continue to improve items about Ghana’s administrative divisions
3. Improved and created new items for all second and third-level local administrative divisions in the Northern Region of Ghana. I will add statements related to population and geography for these areas

we would add statements and qualifiers about administrative divisions of the Northern Region to Wikidata.

1. Document the research and data import process so other editors may replicate the process to organize information about other regions

Are you running any in-person events or activities? If so, you will need to complete the steps outlined on the Risk Assessment protocol related to COVID-19. When you have completed these steps, please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool below:

No

Impact

How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more specific to your project:

1. Number of total participants: n/a
2. Number of articles created or improved (if applicable):
   1. 250 Wikidata items
   2. 1000 statements added, reorganized, or improved
3. Number of photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (if applicable): n/a
4. Number of photos used on Wikimedia projects (if applicable): n/a

Resources

What resources do you have? Include information on who is the organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

I will be undertaking the project but will also be welcoming to help from other volunteers. I’ve always received strong community support from the Wikidata development team & community and will not hesitate to reach out if I need help.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:

ITEM	DETAILS	UNIT GHC	QUANTITY	TOTAL GHS
Cost of printing/scanning documents		500	8	4000
Food and refreshment	10 community members are expected to take part in the training session.	150	10	1500
Covid safety kits	Face masks, hand sanitizers & covid tests	100	10	1000
Data allowance	Participants will be provide with data allowance. 10 community members are expected to take part in the project	200	10	2000
Internet data + Router	The rented router will be loaded with internet data for the training session.	1000	n/a	1000
Co-working space service	Laptop rental + use of co-working space during electricity powercuts	3000	n/a	3000
Misccellaneous	n/a	500	n/a	500
TOTAL GHS				13000.00
1USD = 6.05300 GHS (Oanda exchange - November 14, 2021)
TOTAL USD				2147.70

Endorsement

• This project would be highly useful if approved. Geographical data on Wikidata about countries in the Global South is currently a big mess. And as is the case with Ghana, frequent changes in government policy about these divisions make it even harder to keep a tab on. Unfortunately, there are very few editors who know these regions well and have the time/resources to keep these items up to date as the reality on the ground changes. And while the usergroups in the region do not have the capacity to do all this work, individual efforts like these are very much appreciated. I’m excited to endorse this project, even more coming from User:Dnshitobu. I’ve observed how quickly their skills around the Wikimedia projects have improved since they started editing, and I’m confident in their ability to get this project done. -Mohammed Sadat (WMDE) (talk) 20:23, 14 2021 (UTC)
• The project is important and will be very useful. I strongly endorse this projectAdam Tuferu (talk) 08:39, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• This will help to bridge the gap on African literature on Wikimedia foundation. Uprising Man (talk) 13:28, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
• This is a very useful project and I strongly endorse it.Alhassan Mohammed Awal (talk) 02:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project Munkaila Sulemana (talk) 07:27, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project.It is a very good project to undertake.Mohammed Abdul Wakil (talk) 07:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• This project just like other projects executed very marvelously in the past would go a long way to have an indelible welcoming impact to the society and Ghana at large considering how wikimedia is penetrating internet space in this recent times. Therefore,I with much zeal vehemently endorse this project.Hasslaebetch (talk) 08:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• This is a laudable idea and I wish it is approved. I give a very strong endorsement. ALHASSAN MOHAMED NURIDEEN (talk) 08:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• Strong endorsement.Din-nani1 (talk) 08:17, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project Ruky Wunpini (talk) 08:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project Dhee jah (talk) 10:55, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project. Sir Amugi (talk) 09:39, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project. Abuja21 (User talk:Abdulai Jamila)
• I strongly endorse this project. 154.160.11.14 10:40, 17 August 2021 (UTC
• I strongly endorse this project Yakubu Fadilatu (talk) 15:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• This project would be highly useful if approved. I strongly approve it.Musahfm (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project. Achiri Bitamsimli (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this project. Hajara55 (talk) 03:04, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
•  Strong support I strongly endorse this projectNtaawa (talk) 23:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
• I strongly endorse this projectNtaawa (talk) 23:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I strongly endorse this project.A wakil(talk) 23:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)