Wikimedia Ghana User Group Annual Report 2020

Introduction

2020 is the year Wikimedia Ghana User Group (wmgh) first run on a Simple Annual Plan Grant. We applied in October 2019 and began our funded work in 2020. 2020 was also a year that COVID-19 disrupted offline events. Below are the events wmgh was able to execute regardless; and some activities that defined our year.

Some key user group activities

Ghana Edits Wikipedia

We were able to hold 8 events under this activity. 4 were offline events held before COVID-19 restrictions, while 4 are online events.

Date	Activity	Description
January 2020	Koforidua Edits Wikipedia	This was an offline event held in the town of Koforidua. We had 15 editors who improved 70 articles. 13 of the editors were newly registered.
February	Winneba Edits Wikipedia	This was an offline event in the town of Winneba; in partnership with Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) at the University of Education, Winneba. CAMFED invited wmgh for the training to teach their members how to edit. We engaged about 34 new editors who improved 9 pages.
February	Wikipedia 19	We had an edit-a-thon to mark Wikipedia's 19th anniversary in Accra. We had an existing partnership with Global Innovation Gathering to improve Wikipedia's coverage of migration in Ghana which saw us create Wikipedia Spoken articles in Ghanaian languages for the first time in Wikimedia's history. We held an event to improve more articles under the migration theme. We had about 8 editors who improved 11 articles in Twi, Ewe and Hausa. We will report on our partnership more extensively in sections below.
June	Wikipedia 101e and Online Wikipedia Workshop I and II	We started testing online editathons after restrictions were announced. Initially, we wanted people to take Wikipedia and Wikidata editing as a continuing course. About 70 people signed up for the course, however many were unable to finish. We named this Wikipedia 101e. We then switched from course mode, to online workshops. Online Wikipedia Workshop I yielded 3 newly registered editors: User:Miss Neyeh; User: World origin; User: sadotey. Our second event Online Wikipedia Workshop II was more successful. We hosted 7 editors, 5 were newly registered and they improved 4 articles.
June	COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana edit-a-thon I	This edit-a-thon began as a one-time online Wikipedia session to improve Wikipedia's coverage of COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. We had 6 editors participating and 4 articles improved.
June	COVID-19 taskforce	To engage existing editors we created a task force focused on Ghana-COVID-19 related articles. It is a ten-person COVID-19 taskforce; which has repeatedly watched and improved two key COVID-19 related pages with over 200 edits.
December	Elections 2020 Editathon	This was an editathon to engage existing editors on election day in Ghana as we sought to improve articles around Ghana's elections. In all, there were 12 editors and one facilitator, 4 attended in person and the remaining 9 joined us online. More details can be found on this Wiki project page Elections 2020 Editathon and events dashboard Wikipedia Ghana Elections 2020 Editathon.

Other program aligned activities

Though not planned initially, the group held a session dedicated to helping new editors find articles to edit. We discovered that one of the critical problems editors face was deciding on what to edit or finding articles to edit. We dedicated one session to sharing tools and strategies to help editors. 9 participants were in attendance.

The event was dubbed Making Decisions on What to Edit, following which the tips discussed have been made public and shared on the African Wikimedians page and our social media handles for others to use.

Freedom of Panorama

Ghana currently doesn’t have laws specifying Freedom Of Panorama (FOP). In 2018, at re:publica Accra, we launched a campaign and added a petition for people to sign towards asking for FOP. We also made contact with the authorities and we have been given the nod to present a road map. This year we put together about 5 people within a working group to design a road map for the next stage of the campaign. The point of the roadmap is to document all that we have done, and also make the document public for anyone interested academically or in the context of advocacy, to build on what we have done. 7 people are participating in this working group.

Non Profit Status

At the beginning of the year, we began our registration as a non-profit after operating as a non-legal entity for about 7 years. It’s important for us to get incorporated because as much as being a non-profit comes with responsibilities, it will boost accountability, transparency, ease of business, a more transparent and democratic environment within which to run our operations. We have completed the process and our certificates have been handed to us.

Movement Strategy Transition Event

Around the same time, the Movement Strategy Global conversations were ongoing on the 45 initiatives that were proposed by the movement during the strategy discussions. We also held our transition event as a user group to nominate which of the initiatives we would prioritize as a user group. This was an online conversation which had 9 people from our user group participating in the discussions and nominating initiatives 1, 2, 31, 32 and 42 we must prioritize as a group. More details of our event could be found here Strategy Transition Events.

Training of the Trainers Camp

We have cancelled this meetup.

Partnerships

We partnered with Global Innovation Gathering, Impact Hub Accra and Kumasi Hive on a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage on migration topics. Through this project we created 17 new Wikipedia pages in four languages – English, Twi, Ewe and Hausa. Editors also created 2 new sections on existing Wikipedia pages and voiced 8 audio recordings Spoken Wikipedia.

The audio format was key for this project because Spoken Wikipedia had been limited to English. This project allowed Spoken Wikipedia to be made for Ghanaian languages for the first time, for users who can't read the words but can consume audio information.

The project engaged with at least twenty Wikipedia editors; both experienced and newly-trained; during the project to achieve these goals.

A wiki project titled Wikiproject: Migration from Ghana to Germany has also been created based on GIG's project so a network of editors interested in migration as a topic can continue to keep watch over the articles and improve them.

The articles worked on are below with the page views from by February when we concluded the project.


Newly created articles	Language	Number of views	Spoken Wikipedia Audio
Migration from Ghana to Germany	English	1,101	-
Ghanaians in Germany	English	488	-
Ƙaura daga Ghana zuwa Jamus	Hausa	43	Audio
Yan Ghana A Jamus	Hausa	108	Audio
Hijira daga Afirka zuwa Turai	Hausa	33	-
Matsakaici a Jamus	Hausa	28	Audio
Akwantuo fri Gaana kɔ Germany	Twi	228	Audio
Ghanafoɔ aa ɛwɔ Germany	Twi	129	Audio
Kwatikwan so fa	Twi	91	Audio
Abibifoɔ akwantuo kɔ Europa	Twi	321	-
Tukɔtena wɔ Germany	Twi	132	-
Mɔzɔzɔ tso Ghana yi Germany	Ewe	96	Audio
Ghanatɔ siwo le Germany	Ewe	131	Audio
Afrikatɔwo ƒe mɔzɔzɔ yi Europe	Ewe	90	-
Mɔzɔzɔ yi Germany	Ewe	2479	-
Sitsoƒedzidzi le Germany	Ewe	63	Audio


Edited Articles	Language	Number of views
Illegal entry	English	11, 497
Education in Germany	English	45, 320
African immigration to Europe	English	14, 487
Illegal Migration.	English	38
Immigration to Germany	English	41, 476
Asylum in Germany	English	8204