Grants:Project/Rapid/Wikimedia Nigeria Foudation Inc/Visibility Project/Report

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Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 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/Wikimedia Nigeria Foudation Inc/Visibility Project.
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?

Goals were partly met.

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
5 trainings in 3 major community in Africa (English, Arabic and French)	Webinar Session was held only in English while, Mentoring program was held in all the three languages	Visibility Project Day 1-Wikimedia Commons: Licenses and the Use of Freely Licensed Images on Wikipedia Visibility Project Day 2-Basic Wikipedia Editing and How to Cite a Wikipedia Article Visibility Project Day 3-Work-Flow of Creating Wikipedia page Visibility Project Day 4-Cheat Sheet of Wikipedia Editing Visibility Project - Day 5 Jifunze kuhariri Wikipedia (Learn how to edit Wikipedia)
Number of participants: 100 across Africa	35 participants took place in the proogram.	Arabic community English community French community
Number of new editors: 20 editors	35 new editor participated in the training.	See table 2 above
Number of articles created or improved: 50 articles	18 new articles were created , 45 articles were improved.	See the gallery in table 2
Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events)	35	See the gallery in table 2

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?

1. Diversity of participants and trainers

We selected participants from the three language-speaking countries, including Nigeria, Algeria and Cameroon. Also, the diversity of the participants during the training and mentoring session provided a platform for networking.

2. Diversity of trainers

We selected trainers from 4 countries, Nigeria, Uganda, Cameroon and Algeria. The trainers were experienced members of the Wikimedia community with a track record of leading similar training in their respective Communities. This diversity of trainers worked well during the mentorship session as well.

3. Patnership with journalists

There is a huge gap between encyclopedists and journalists. Journalists and their works are important to Wikipedia as we rely on contents published by them to write the encyclopedia. This partnership worked well as it created a platform for us to learn more about their works, and what we share in common as content writers. The pre-and post-meeting worked well.

4. WhatsApp group for coordination

Identifying the easiest and cost-efficient means of coordination was challenging, but the use of WhatsApp worked well. It is easily accessible, cheap, and popular among the participants and trainers. It was easy for mentors to timely respond to questions from the participants and, provide feedback on performance.

5. There is a good communication flow between the organizing team and the facilitators

6 There was regular follow up throughout the project and, things were even changed in an attempt to improve the situation

7. The interest of some participants:

Though they were not many, I appreciate the fact that there were a few participants who were interested and passionate about the project and Wikimedia in general and were willing to learn.

8 Dedication of facilitator:

Some of the facilitators invested extra time to organise an online session for the participants who were not available during training.

What did not work so well?

1. Internet connection

The Internet is a problem in Africa, but we manage to provide at least two different internet network and that worked a bit fine for us.

2. Timing

The project was postponed several times because of the involvement of many stakeholders in the project, and it was difficult to determine when the event will take place. So, many of the participants were discourage and lost interest in the program. So, when we eventually started, many of them were not available for the event.

3. Diploma (Certification)

Aside from teaching, the program didn't make provision to motivate the participants in exchange for the time invested in the training.

4. All the participants are professionals, so, some of them were not available for the training whenever it clashes with their normal work time.

What would you do differently next time?

1. Certification

We need to inform prospective participants of rewards available to them for joining the program .e.g. certification.

2. Timing

We need to ensure that we adhere strictly to project timing.

3.Experienced Mentors

We plan to ensure that interested mentors are willing to dedicate their time for the training by developing a contractual agreement between the Organizer and Mentors.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

You can see the details of the money spent.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

None.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

List of articles created by community

Anglophone

Francophone

Arabic

Zahia Ben Arous زهية بن عروس
Bye Qasimi باية قاسمي
Leila Birat ليلى بيراط
Baya Gacemi