Grants:PEG/Abbas Mahmood/Wikipedia for Schools Project

Funded
This submission to the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2010-11. This is a grant to an individual.

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  • This project has been funded, completed, and a project report has been reviewed and accepted by WMF Staff.
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Legal name of chapter
Wikimedia Kenya
Grant contact name
Abbas Mahmood
Grant contact user-name or e-mail
abbasjnr [at] hotmail [dot] com
Grant contact title (position)
Co-founder
Project lead name
Abbas Mahmood
Project lead user-name or e-mail
abbasjnr [at] hotmail [dot] com
Project lead title (position), if any
Full project name
Wikipedia for Schools Pilot Project
Amount requested (in USD)
6620
Provisional target start date
January 2011
Provisional completion date
March 2011

Budget breakdown edit

  • FIXED COSTS
  • Projector & Screen: USD 1810
  • Storage devices:- 2 packs of CDs: USD 40
  • -Flash disks 4GB: USD 140
  • Photocopy [Wikipedia pamphlets/completion certs, etc] : USD 190
  • Communication [tel + internet]: USD 225
  • Badges: USD 15
  • VARIABLE COSTS
  • i. Mombasa
  • Return transport: USD 225
  • Transport within (for 5 days): USD 440
  • Food: USD 190
  • Accommodation: USD 380
  • ii. Nyeri
  • Return transport: USD 41
  • Transport within: USD 440
  • Food: USD190
  • Accommodation: USD 570
  • iii. Kakamega
  • Return transport: USD 173
  • Transport within: USD 440
  • Food: USD 190
  • Accommodation: USD 380
  • Previsit
  • i. Mombasa
  • Food: USD 32
  • Accommodation: USD 190
  • Internal transport: USD 13
  • Return transport from Nairobi: USD 38
  • ii. Nyeri
  • Food: USD 32
  • Accommodation: USD 95
  • Internal transport: USD 13
  • Return transport from Nairobi USD 7
  • iii. Kakamega
  • Food: USD 32
  • Accommodation: USD 63
  • Internal transport: USD 13
  • Return transport from Nairobi: USD 13
  • TOTAL: USD 6620

Notes:

  • There will be at most six members of the team per region. The 6 shall further divide into two groups, meaning two groups will be undetaking the project concurrently.
  • This means that at least 2 schools will be visited per day, and since we are approaching 10 schools per region, then it will take us 5 days to finish one region.
  • Therefore, the average cost per volunteer for the 5 days in, say Mombasa, would be $206, Breakdown:
  1. return transport=$37.5
  2. transport within=$73
  3. food=$32
  4. accommodation=$63
  • The purpose of the previsit is for us to liaise and agree with the schools onto when is the perfect time for us to come, as most schools follow a fixed timetable, it would be almost impossible for us to go to a school without notice. We could have contacted the schools via phone or email, rather than conducting a more expensive phsical pre-visit, but most of these public schools do not have a website or a reliable directory of contacts. The budget has catered for the previsit for 1 volunteer per region.

Project scope edit

Wikimedia Kenya would like to bridge the digital divide in Kenya. We hope to use Wikipedia inorder to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal #2: Universal Primary Education.

We have decided to start this project with a pilot of 3 regions in Kenya, namely Mombasa, Nyeri and Kakamega. We shall visit at least ten schools from each of these 3 regions. After the implementation of the pilot, we will assess our observations and experiences and hopefully come up with a countrywide project later on.

The project shall involve installing offline Wikipedia onto school computers and giving out talks to both teachers and students on how to use and gain maximum benefit when using Wikipedia.

Project goal edit

The goal of this project is to provide Kenyan students and teachers an opportunity to access a rich source of information and knowledge through the downloading of non-Internet required versions of Wikipedia onto school computers.

Non-financial requirements edit

We would need some copies of Offline Wikipedia books/PediaPress as well as some Wikimedia merchandise to distribute to the various schools that we will visit.

Fit to strategy edit

This project will enable students and teachers who could not afford internet access to still be able to use and gain benefit from using the offline version of Wikipedia.

Other benefits edit

Measures of success edit

  • We will consider the pilot project a success if we manage to undertake this project in all the 30 schools in the three regions.
  • We will have delivered over 60 hours of giving Wikipedia talks to both teachers and students. [An average of 2 hours of talks shall be given per school: one tals for teachers and one for students]
  • We expect to receive positive feedback from the teachers and they might want to explore the use of Wikipedia in the classroom as well.
  • Each school has an average of 500 students. We therefore expect this project to have a massive impact in terms of Wikipedia usership.
  • We will also consider the project a success if the teachers yearn for more expansive Wikipedia content, and hence use the online Wikipedia as well.
  • There are an average of 20 teachers per school. We therfore expect that more than 600 teachers will benefit from the awareness and use of Wikipedia.
  • We will provide an audit 2 months later to receive feedback from the schools that we visited inorder to discuss how, if at all, the project assisted them in their studies.