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Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda/2018-2019 Annual Report

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Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda

    Introduction

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    This was the first year for Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda as recognized user group. This year saw us defining roles as a community and partnering with other communities in East Africa. We participated in several competitions aimed at increasing content about Uganda online.

    Some key user group activities

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    Activities in 2019

    Event Date Theme Organiser Venue Dashboard Description
    #1Lib1Ref Campaign 1 June 2019 Wiki Loves Women Citations Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Goethe Zentrum - Kampala Uganda 2019 This was a one day event which involved adding citations to articles written about women in uganda
    WLW meets Kawempe Youth Centre 23 March 2019 Wiki Loves Women Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Kawempe Youth Centre ,Kawempe This included training of secondary students and trainers at the kawempe youth centre
    WLW meets Girl-Up Initiative 16 March 2019 Wiki Loves Women Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Goethe Zentrum - Kampala Girl-Up Initiative
    AUGA-DAAD Scientific Writing and Publishing Workshop 16 March 2019 Presentation/Tools Makerere University Entebbe/Uganda See Presentation
    WikiGap 2019 Kampala 8 March 2019 WikiGap WUGU Makerere University Main Campus Library WikiGap 2019
    Wikigap - pre event 02 March 2019 WikiGap WUGU Makerere University Main Campus Library
    WOUGNET 13 February 2019 Wiki Loves Women WOUGNET offices WLW meets WOUGNET
    Meet the Journalist 8 February 2019 Wiki Loves women WUGU Goethe Zentrum - Kampala WLW meets Journalists
    Wiki-Translate 8 February 2019 Wiki loves Women WUGU Goethe Zentrum - Kampala

    Activities in 2018

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    Event Date Theme Organiser Venue Dashboard Description
    WLW Meets Ugandan Bloggers 15 December 2018 Wiki Loves Women Alice Kibombo Goethe Zentrum - Kampala Bloggers event
    Wikidata in Mbarara 27 October 2018 Wiki Loves Women Geoffrey Kateregga ,Steven Bukulu , Alice Kibombo Hive Colab ,Mbarara Wikidata in Mbarara
    Wiki Loves Monuments Uganda 1st September- 30th September Kateregga Geoffrey
    WLW meets Women In Technology 8 September 2019 Women in Technology ,Wiki Loves Women Geoffrey Kateregga , Alice Kibombo WITU Offices WITU Edit-a-thon
    Wikipedia workshop with Femrite (WLW) 26th July Editing Wikipedia for writers Erina Mukuta
    Wikimania 20/07/2018-22/07/2018 Ubuntu wikimedia Southern Sun Cape Sun capetown
    WikimeetsACCT August Three day conference Fabian Von Bubnoff Kabale
    Wikiday with femrite 26/07/2018 Wiki loves women Erina Mukuta Uganda Museum
    Monthly Meet up 30/06/2018 User group meeting with Femrite Douglas Sebagala Femrite
    Monthly meet up 28/04/2018 WikiData Geoffrey Katerrega Goethe
    Art+ Feminisim Art+Feminism Douglas Sebagala Goethe
    Wiki Loves Women Steve bukulu
    Wiki Loves Monuments Erina Mukuta
    Wiki Loves Africa Alice Kibombo
    • Wiki loves Women 2018 (see for full description)
    • Wiki Loves Monuments 2018
    • Wiki loves Africa 2019
    • WikiGap 2019
    • 1Lib 1Ref

    Others

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    East Africa meetup organised by the Tanzanian team and community team at WMF . This week constituted of trainings about Wikipedia and wiki data. We were from four countries namely kenya, tanzania , uganda and mozambique. We concluded with resolutions to form and east african community that goes on beyond one weekend.

    Partnerships

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    Most of these partnered in various ways such as participation in events while others contributed in terms of space and social media mileage. These include but are not limited ro :

    • Embassy of Sweden in Kampala
    • FEMRITE
    • Girl-Up Initiative Uganda
    • Goethe Zentrum - Kampala
    • High Sound Uganda
    • Hive Colab
    • Internet Society - Uganda Chapter
    • Kawempe Youth Centre (KYC)
    • Luganda Department, Makerere University
    • School of Women and Gender Studies - Makerere University,
    • Uganda Blogging Community
    • Women In Technology Uganda (WITU)
    • Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)

    Community Good

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    The members of the Wikimedia Community Usergroup in Uganda have continued to volunteer their time and expressing commitment in carrying out training sessions, workshops, and other activities that benefit different communities and also promote free knowledge sharing and collaboration for the good of the Movement.

    • Some of these activities can be accessed on our events and projects page.
    • Project activities have benefited the intended communities in Uganda, for example Women, during the Wiki Loves Women Project, which has enabled the Usergroup build a database of volunteers, potential partners, content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects that can be considered as stakeholders for future collaboration.
    • The rapid grants program has enabled volunteer members increase content through activities like Wiki Loves Monuments which saw 590 photos uploaded during the campaign, Wiki Loves Africa, as well as an outreach to technical institutions outside Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.
    • The Usergroup has carried out a Movement Strategy salon for the Community members to provide input to the Movement Strategy Process for Wikimedia 2030, which has been instrumental in having the community understand what the future of the movement holds for them, how they can provide input and how they can be part of the Strategic Direction.

    The members are drafting documents and by-laws for the process of legal status, as a company limited by guarantee [1], in the country.

    Challenges

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    Despite having a successful year where we were able to get the User Group officially affiliated to the Wikimedia Foundation, and also run several projects, and events, we still faced some challenges as outlined below:

    1. Thefty at events: Because our events are open to the public, sometimes this attracts bad characters. On two different events, one of the participants lost money from her wallet and on the other someone lost a phone. We have so far taken precautions to make sure this doesn't happen again, by registering people with their identity cards on arrival and also finding out how they got to know about the event and which organisations they are working with.
    2. Receiving funds late to run projects. The other challenge we have faced is receiving microgrants late into projects, for example, we received a rapid grant in the last week of a one-month competition, which made utilization of the funds according to the initial plan very difficult. To avoid this in the future, we are making an annual plan way ahead of time so we can plan accordingly.
    3. Lack of citations for articles. When working on the Wiki Loves Women project where we wrote articles on notable women in Uganda, there were very few sources we could use to cite the articles, as a result, most of the articles written were always rejected. This greatly discouraged new editors, who quickly threw in the towel once their articles were rejected. To solve this challenge, we are encouraging new editors to start by improving existing articles instead of starting off with new articles. This helps build their confidence and improves their editing skills before they get to submit new articles.

    Looking Forward

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    • The usergroup is working towards an organisation status to aide in some processes and hence improve management
    • Be part of two international competitions
    • Build the east african community
    • Start a one year resident project to improve on the luganda wikipedia


    Report Writers

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    Erinamukuta (talk) 10:02, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]