Grants:Project/Rapid/Serieminou/WikiLovesWomen2021/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2022-23 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Serieminou/WikiLovesWomen2021.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

The goal of the project was to improve the visibility of Cameroonian women on Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikicommons and Wikiquote) and to train new female editors in Cameroon. I am quite happy of how the project went and the results we were able to achieve. Details about the project is available here Wiki Loves Women/Focus Group/Wiki Loves Women 2021 in Cameroon.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of events: 4 in-person events and 2 online sessions	4 in-person events and 2 online sessions	We organised 2 training sessions ( Session 1, Session 2) , 1 edit-a-thon, 1 photo activity, a closing ceremony and and 2 online sessions on Meet.
Number of participants: / New editors: 10 - 20 participants/ 10 new editors	16 participants, 8 new editors	16 people took part in at least one activity of the project and 9 took out the 16 attended at least 2 sessions. Among the 16 participants, 9 were female. We shared the story in a blog post
Number of of articles/items created or improved: 100-200	Over 80 articles/entries created, 184 articles edited, and over 100 photos uploaded	The overall objectives were achieved regarding Wikipedia Wikidata et Wikiquote. (12 Wikipedia articles, 36 Wikiquote entries and more than 30 wikidata items) and 184 articles edited (More details on the the project dashboard Over 100 photos were uploaded among which 71 photos of notable cameroonian women, grouped in the category Wiki Loves Women SheSaid Cameroon ) It should be noted that theimage uploaded don't appear in the project dashboard because most of the photos done within the project were uploaded a year after the end of the project on march 2023. the dashboard

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

The engagement: The participants were very motivated and half of them attended 3 sessions. Participants were able to develop their skills and make quality contributions on different wikimedia projects.
The quality of the photos: We benefited from the support of two photographers who took some nice photogrpahs. We were able to illustrate the Wikipedia articles of more than 25 cameroonian women with the pictures taken during our photo activity.
Partnership: We were able to partner with Activspaces on this project and they offer us their venue for our first two sessions for free. We only paid for the third session, because of the fact that the event was postponed.

What did not work so well?

The initial photo activity was supposed to take place at the National Assembly during the ordinary session of November where we could take pictures of Female deputies at the parliament. However, due to administrative obstacles and COVID retrictions, we were not granted the authorisation to carry out the photo shoot. Then, we decided to change the theme of our photo activity from women politicians to Women in the entertainment industry and opted for the Canal 2'Or awards ceremony where we were able to take the pictures of several notable Cameroonian on the red carpet.
Unfortunately, the photos taken during the activity were not uploaded by the time we held the closing ceremony on January 27, 2022. The first pictures were finally uploaded between February and March 2022, and the rest (over 50 of them ), were uploaded on march 10-12 2023 Uploads.
Secondly, the turnout at online sessions was very low. We had 7 participants at first online session and only 4 who joined for the second session.
I was eqaually not very satisfied with the retention after the first workshop. We had 15 participants at the first session, but only 9 met the requirements of attending at least 3 sessions (on the 5 sessions) to be able to receive the certificate.

What would you do differently next time?

I would probably accept the application of more candidates. Instead of limiting the nomber of selected candidates to 20, I would select up to 25 or 30 so that if some don't join us or abandon after the first session, we still stay close to the target.
I would also have a training session on free culture and free licences with each photographer who joins us on the project to make sure they totally understand how commons work before we go out on the field. The main reason we had trouble having the pictures uploaded the pictures is that the first pictures prepared for upload by the photographer had his watermark on it and he wasn't willing to upload the pictures on commons without his watermark, until recently.
Focus more on books and female writers when searching quotes. We focused more on internet for quotes and it was really hard finding quality quotes on available online ressources (Youtube, online interviews).
Better time mangement: The sessions were really long. The in-person sessions were normally planned for 3 hours each, but most of them took over 5 hours because I had to read through each individual article to correct them before publishing.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

In-person sessions Refreshments, transportation, internet : ($80 x 3 sessions) = $240
Internet support Trainer Participants (2 online events) = $100
Roll up Banner (1) and Tshirts (12): $185
Venue : (1 session) = $85
Closing ceremony (Restaurant) : $140
Hand sanitizer and face masks = $10 x 3 = $30
Trip to Yaoundé (Transportation Douala Yaoundé and Hotel) : $140
Photos at Canal 2’OR : (Transportation, refreshments and camera rental): $180
Prizes for the 3 winners (Android Tablet, external hard drive, Powerbank): $300
Certificates and gifts (notebooks, pencils, stickers etc.): = $100
Communication social media : $40

Total spent = $ 1540

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

0 USD

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

The Wiki Loves Women project 2021 project was a very enriching experience and it was my first experience me as a grantee. I learned a lot throughout the project and improved my skills not only on editing Wikimedia projects but also on project management and community building. I met great people from whom I learned a lot. A few of us gathered informally in 2022 to contribute for the 2022 SheSaid Drive in Cameroon.