Grants:Project/Rapid/OFWA/Ashesi Education Program + Wiki Club Ashesi

statusfunded

Rapid Grants

Ashesi Education Program + Wiki Club Ashesi

Open Foundation West Africa as part of its activities to promote Open Education and increase content on Wikipedia around Africa, started the first ever Wikipedia Education Project in the West African sub-region at the Ashesi University. Over 190 students who were taking the social theory course participated in the program. This also culminated in the formation of the first-ever campus-based club in the Sub Sahara Africa which we intended to grow and replicate similar models in other schools. We however, intend to sustain the momentum through series of activities and resources needed to ensure sustainability of our campaign on their campus.

targetWikipedia and Wikimedia Commons

start date24th March

end date30th June

budget (local currency)GHC 5,462.80

budget (USD)$1,239

grant typeOrganisation

non-profit statusNonprofit

grantee• Open Foundation West Africa

contact(s)• admin@openfoundationwestafrica.org• jagyepong@openfoundationwestafrica.org

organization (if applicable)• Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA)

website (if applicable)• https://openfoundationwestafrica.org/

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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".

This grant will help create awareness about the Education project on the campus as well as give visibility to the Campus based club. This will encourage other Lecturers to subscribe their students and course on the Wikipedia Education program. The campus based club will also leverage on this to attract more students as members of the club and ensure continuity of the club.

Project Plan

Activities

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

As part of our activities for the semester which ends in June we will be organising the following activities on the Ashesi University Campus together with the Ashesi Wiki Club and Dr Kajsa Hallberg Adu (lecturer in-charge of the WEP program).

• 1 WEP training session - This will include training of new students of the social theory class, to afford them the necessary skills to work on an assignment via Wikipedia.
• 3 Training Sessions - These training sessions will be focused on how to edit Wikipedia, contribute to Wikimedia Commons and how to hack MediaWiki as a volunteer developer in the Wikimedia Movement (normally happens in 2 days).
• 1 Editathon - This will be organised by the club to crown the writing contest to encourage more contributions. We have generally learnt that students tend to contribute more when they are gathered in a room for a cause.
• 2 Writing Contests - The school will be engaged in 2 different writing contest. These contests will each be organised by the club and the WEP program on campus respectively. The essence is to gather contents through these campaigns, establish the presence of the club and the WEP program on campus as well as create general awareness of the fact that students can contribute to improving Wikipedia.

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?

Since this project is highly focused on the Ashesi University Community, the club shares the information of each project on their facebook page and also via the students mailing list via their lecturer.

We will also employ other mediums such as the social media channels of Open Foundation West Africa, the Wikipedia Education Program Facebook page, the Wikimedia Foundation Social media hub and the Wikimedia Education Newsletter. to ensure the wider movement is adequately informed.

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

The Club will continue to operate on the campus. The Club will hold periodic trainings on Wikipedia and its sister projects, periodic Edit-a-thons as well as partaking in thematic projects such as Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth etc.

In addition to this, the Club can also execute other activities or projects intended to promote the cause of the WMF. We would have achieved the purpose of also training students from different parts of the continent and the world, as students from this university covers a lot more than Ghana. Hopefully some of them will go back home and want to start a community.

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. Train a minimum of a 100 students.
2. Created a minimum of 20 new articles for the semester.
3. Improved a minimum of 10 articles for the semester.
4. Upload a minimum number of 50 photos to Wikimedia Commons.
5. A minimum of 10 of such photos to be used on other Wikimedia projects

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).

1. Felix Nartey is also a long term Wikipedian and helped start the Education Program and helped set up the Club.
2. Joy Agyepong - Joy has on many occasions lead several activities in Ghana, especially gender-related activities. She is experienced and has mentored a lot of women in the past. Will be in charge facilitating the session.
3. Edith Violet Naisubi is the President of the Ashesi Wiki Club and a founding member of the club. She has shown a great deal of passion after recruiting her out of one of our programs and championed the movement goals on campus.
4. Dr Kajsa Hallberg Adu, a senior lecturer at Ashesi University has been very instrumental with the Education program and the formation of the Ashesi Wiki Club.
5. Open Foundation West AFrica (OFWA) will take oversight responsibility of this project. The Organization has organised several projects in the past that were successful and will use the skill-sets available, experience and other resources to ensure that this is also sustainable and successful.

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

ITEMS	QUANTITY	UNIT PRICE GHC	TOTAL BUDGET GHC	TOTAL BUDGET USD	COMMENTS
1 WEP training session
Transportation	2	80	160		Transportation of trainers to and from Accra to Berekusu where the campus is situated.
Feeding of trainers	3	30	90		Feeding of trainers
3 Training Sessions
Feeding	2	150	300		Feeding of trainers and participants.
Feeding for Developer Sessions	2	400	800		The developer sessions are often 2 day events because of the magnitude of things needed to be taught, also sessions start from morning till evening and hence required breakfast and lunch.
Transportation	4*2	80	640		Transportation of trainers to and from Accra to Berekusu where the campus is situated (4 events * 2 times per each event).
1 Editathon
Feeding	1	150	150		Feeding of trainers and participants.
Transportation	2	80	160		Transportation of trainers to and from Accra to Berekusu where the campus is situated.
2 Writing Contests
1st Prize Award	2	400	800		1st award prizes for the 2 writing contests.
2nd Prize Award	2	200	400		2nd award prizes for the 2 writing contests.
3rd Prize Award	2	100	200		3rd award prizes for the 2 writing contests.
Transportation	2	80	160		Transportation to and from school to present awards.
Administrative Cost
Printing	1	400	400		Printing of cheat sheets and fact sheets prepared by OFWA.
Internet	2	399	798		Required for contribution to Wikimedia projects.
Miscellaneous	1	404.80	404.80		Because the project lasts for a duration of more than 3 months there could be unforseen costs that could be attributed to changes in economic conditions (inflation, exchange rate risks, etc.), hence our provision of 10% of the total budget. as miscellaneous.
TOTAL			5,462.80	1,239

Endorsements

•  Support The benefits of Wikipedia is spreading at a fast pace. I believe in its Education for students especially when it increases their research and knowledge skills.Joy Agyepong (talk)
•  Support I am the president of Ashesi Wiki Club. The open movement and making knowledge free for all is what the club believes in. Students from various countries have joined the club and are excited towards the contribution of African Content on Wikipedia. Edith Violet Naisubi (talk)
•  Support As one of the initiators of this project I know the potential this project has and the needs it will address. I therefore endorse this project for funding to achieve the goals this project seeks to achieve Rberchie (talk) 14:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Support I believe that such a program will be very useful to students. It will help them with their education and it will improve their research and knowledge. Youssef Ben Haj Yahia (talk)
•  Support Imparting knowledge is key and i think this will be an appropriate vehicle to help train and grow the skills of these students to also contribute their bit to the dissemination of Information to the betterment of all. MichaelNanaFrimpong (talk) 21:58, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Support With the high level of interest these student have exhibited in editing Wikipedia, this grant will go a long way to help them expand and even do more on the platform. Pambelle12 (talk)
•  Support This sounds like a good project, which can make significant impact in the long run.-Jamie Tubers (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Support this grant would go a long way to help the ashesi club to contribute massively to adding to the sum of all human knowledge SAgbley (talk)