Dagbani Wikimedians User Group/Annual Reports/2024-2025

Dagbani Wikimedians User Group
Annual Report 2024–2025

Introduction

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the activities undertaken by the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group from July 2024 to June 2025.

The 2024-2025 fiscal year marked a remarkable year of growth and impact for the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group. During this period, the User Group successfully implemented a series of carefully selected impactful programs in close collaboration with all its sister language communities, ie, Dagbani Wikimedians Community, Gurene Wikimedians Community, Dagaare Wikimedians Community, and Kusaal Wikimedians Community.

The following key programs were implemented within the fiscal year:

July 2024

General Organizational Review and Restructuring

As part of our continuous commitment to institutional growth and community impact, the organization successfully implemented all key recommendations in the project review.

We reviewed and improved our governance structures, empowered our volunteer leaders, and restructured our micro-granting system. Equity in role resourcing was achieved through internal review, and a full financial audit enhanced our accountability and compliance. These changes have positioned the organization for long-term impact and sustainability.

To keep the community engaged, two volunteers from the Dagbani Community through an individual grant from the user group's micro grant support, collaboratively implemented a "Lexemes Clean-up program". The goal of the project was to identify Dagbani lexemes on Wikidata that are either incomplete or do not conform to the standards of Wikidata lexemes. The initiative was successfully implemented, as the lead volunteers successfully recruited and trained other volunteers to do the cleaning, resulting in the improvement of 4,149 lexemes. It was the first time User: SIR SUCCESS(NAA JAHINFO) and his colleague, User:Kalakpagh led such an event and they gained valuable experience working on a Wikipedia project and engaging with the community.

Ghanaian Languages Wikimedians Meetup

This Ghanaian Languages Wikimedians Meetup 2024 marked the second edition of a unique language oriented national mini conference in Ghana aimed at bringing language Wikimedians in Ghana together to learn and share experiences to solve issues relating to language digitization. The conference brought together over 50 participants from the various language communities across Ghana and hosted at Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Guest house in Tamale.

The most memorable moments of the event included series of impactful presentations delivered by the various language community leads. They provided a comprehensive overview of the activities of theier communities over the past year. The sessions were enriched with insights into the milestones achieved, such as content campaigns, partnerships with like-minded institutions, and growth in volunteer participation. Their achievements were not without challenges and these were brought to light by the communities, including internet connectivity fluctuations, inadequate access to digital devices, and volunteer attrition.

The conference promoted a dynamic learning environment where community members shared their strengths and shared experiences. A common observation was that each community had a unique approach to challenges such as volunteer mobilization and project sustainability. The diversity created a fertile ground for communities to learn from others, as participants explored what had worked in other communities and what had not. New ideas were realized as a result of the openness in the presentations, particularly in areas such as content creation, leadership development, and use of Wikimedia tools for education and advocacy.

Again, the meetup served as a conduit to recruit volunteers and raise awareness about the Wikimedia movement. Great initiatives like the community meetup promotes public visibility and engagement, contributing to the growth of the community by drawing in individuals passionate about preserving and promoting local languages.

In a nutshell, the Ghanaian Languages Wikimedians Community Meetup 2024 was an important step forward in strengthening the Wikimedia ecosystem in Ghana. Participants were empowered and encouraged and reaffirmed the collective mission to ensure that Ghana's linguistic diversity is not only preserved but celebrated on the global digital stage. Participants left empowered, energized and enthused to further implement their learnings from this memorable conference.

August 2024

 Phase I Weekly Community online Training & Article of the Week (AoW)

There was the launch and implementation of two of the most outstanding community engagement activities. Both activities lasted for several weeks into months, that is, 19 weeks in all starting from August 2024 through July 2025.

The bi-weekly community engagement series where team members held online trainings on specific topics on how to edit on Wikipedia and sister projects took place from August 2024 to June 2025. The engagement also offered volunteers from all four sister communities to ask questions as they learn more about Wikimedia projects.

The Article of the Week (AoW) challenge was held in two phases. The phase one took place from August to September, 2024. The challenge saw volunteers collaboratively contribute to enhance the quality for selected articles each week, for all the four sister communities. Prizes were awarded to deserving volunteer at the end of each week's edittion. The challenge helped in improving the quality of many articles in Dagbani, Gurene, Dagaare and Kusaal Wikipedias whiles whipping up the interest of community members in contributing to the language Wikipedias.

September 2024

Team Retreat and Capacity Building Workshop

This is a community engagement activity that is implemented annually by the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group and 2024 was not left out. The User Group in its efforts to enhance the capacity of its team members, organized a retreat and capacity building workshop outside of its birth region. The choice of the venue was strategically done to make participants have a feel of a different environment, Mole Game Reserve, Damongo.

On the 7th of September 2024, the program officially started with total participants of 25, comprising of leadership from the 5 language communities under the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group; Dagbani Wikimedia Community, Gurene Wikimedia Community, Dagaare Wikimedia Community, Moore Wikimedia Community, and Kusaal Wikimedia Community. The program was to allow participants to be empowered and further share their experiences with their respective larger language communities.

After a remarkable opening remarks by the ED of the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group, Sadik Shahadu, Abdul-Rasheed Yussif a team member of the Dagbani Wikimedians of the User Group had the opening session where he took participants through how to use Wikipedia as a teaching and learning resource. This session empowered participants with information and digital literacy skills.

Musah Fuseini, An Open Education Resource (OER) Developer and a team member of the User Group, led a session on leveraging OER to foster the growth of indigenous languages focusing on the Mabia languages.

October to November 2024

Community Micro Grant

This period witnessed the implementation of programs by the various language communities, the communities received funding under the Micro Grant initiative and implemented their unique community programs. To support individual growth and development, and tap into the innovative and creative ideas of our community members, micro grants served as a great deal in that.

Community members were able to implement their unique programs which were not captured in the general support fund. Application form was created and link shared for communities to apply. An independent committee was constituted, it had two members from each language community. Four of our language communities applied. The committee reviewed and granted them the grant to implement their Unique programs. There was a sub-grant under the Micro Grant dubbed “Individual grant”, this served individuals with special programs outside of their language unique programs. Same procedure for accessing as the Micro grant. Random community members from the language communities applied, application reviewed and those who met the requirement got funded.

Detailed below were some of the programs that various Language Communities and Individual implemented:

✅ Wikidata Lexemes Clean Up

The program was led by a Jahinfo, a member from the Dagbani Wikimedians Community which sort to improve on the quality of the Dagbani lexemes that were already created. He implemented the program collabotively with his colleague wikimedian User: Kalakpagh. Both had the first time experience of leading community to implement a program. To be able to achieve the set objective, they used Contest as a strategy to get the work done. Participants contested and won prizes and through that the program yielded 4,419 lexemes 727 lexemes were created and 4,149 were improved.

✅ Introduction to Wikipedia

Held under this title were two separate events organized by two community members of the Dagbani Wikimedians Community. The first was organized at Tamale College of Education (TACE) and the other at Tamale Prisons Basic School by Kasi Fadila and Abdul-Hanan Chambihi respectively. In both events, participants were guided to create their accounts since most of them were newbies, they were taken through the introduction of Wikipedia.

✅ Dagaare Wikidata Lexicon Contest 1

As the name suggests, the event aimed at adding Dagaare lexemes to Wikidata. It was organzed by the Dagaare Wikimedia Community led by Zakaria Tunsung by using contest as a strategy. Participants competed for prizes hence, the whole event promoted community engagement. The event contributed a substantial number of lexemes in Dagaare to the Wikidata lexemes serving as a positive step in documenting Dagaare and at large the Mabia languages on the internet.

✅ Football Clubs in Ghana Editing Contest

As our communities have a higher percentage of its members been the youth, it is not surprising that they had this wonderful idea of documenting Football Clubs in Ghana on the Kusaal Wikipedia. The event was hosted by the Kusaal Wikimedia Community and lead by the co-leads of the community. The event sort to document Football Clubs in Ghana on the Kusaal Wikipedia, it was fun to work on since most of the members were football fanatics. The event pushed the user group's mission of documenting the Mabia languages on the internet by contributing content on the Kusaal Wikipedia, one of the Mabia languages Wikipedia.

✅ Her-Voice and Her-Story

Our commitment to continuously support the documentation of female related content to bridge the gender is overwhelming which extends to the our sister language communities. The Dagaare Wikimedia Community is the brain behind this great initiative aimed to celebrate the achievements of women from around the world by creating and improving articles related to women. It also aimed at amplifying the their voices and ensured their achievements are recognized and celebrated. Editathon as a strategy was used to implement the program and it was successfully implemented as it generated a lot of content.

Here is a detailed report about the distribution of the Micro Grant: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hib2HyrWqINACSMni5VYxHWHvI3xrLsZ/view?usp=drive_link

A detailed report about the distribution of the Individual Micro Grant is found here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a0g5mTgzVjBZX787dR-uPrWVzsm2nnt0/view?usp=drive_link

December 2024 to January 2025

End-of-year strategic meeting and Awards ceremony

As the year drew to a close, the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group organized an End-of-Year Strategic Meeting and Awards Ceremony. This was not a merely social but a strategic opportunity to honour outstanding contributions, strengthen community bonds, and provide a year of relaxation after a year of dedicated volunteer work. In line with the belief that Sustained engagement requires recognition and rejuvenation, the event fostered a sense of recognition while reaffirming our collection mission.

This impactful and recognition oriented event gathered team members and dedicated volunteers from the Mabia language communities including the Dagbani Community, Dagaare Community, Kusaal Community, and Gurene Community to celebrate our enormous contributions, share knowledge, reflect, and connect with like-minded volunteers to enhance collaboration and team work.

The Executive Director of the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group, Sadik set the ball rolling by giving the Welcome address and a heart-warming opening speech.

Strategic Planning

The meeting involved discussions on year-long activities, programs, projects, and programs identifying challenges and brainstorming solutions. Participants had the opportunity to brainstorm and get solutions to identified challenges.

Awards Ceremony

As it has been the tradition in the past years, outstanding contributors were recognized by the User Group for their exceptional contributions across various language Wikipedias. Eleven Wikimedians received awards, in addition to each been presented with a certificate of recognition. The awardees were selected from the various language community after meeting a unanimously set requirements.

The overall winners from the various communities were awarded smart phones, awarded to the overall Wikimedian of the year was a tablet. Under the overall winners category, Joel Akogo Akonyuure(Gurene), Anthony Dery (Dagaare) Awande Moses(Kusaal), Issahaku Tidoo Abass(Dagbani) won the category. The Overall Wikimedian of the year was won by Issahaku Tidoo Abass.

Winners expressed excitement about the awards and pledged to contribute more content to support achieve to the overall mission of the user group.

February to June 2025

Phase II of Article of the Week (AoW) Contest & Weekly online Community Training

This period was characterized by a series of activities, some occurring concurrently and others simultaneously. It marked the second phase of the Article of the Week (AoW) Contest and Weekly online Community Training. All the language communities under the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group participated in both community engagement activities just as in the Phase I. The AoW recorded a substancial article contributions which went a long way to push for the accomplishment of the mission of the user group. The Online Weekly Community Training empowered volunteers with Wiki skills and this enhanced their capacity to contribute to Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Hub Activities

Two more Wiki Hubs were inaugurated by the user group. The Bagabaga College of Education (BACE) Tamale Wiki Hub and the Evangelical Presbyterian College of Education (BIMBICO) Bimbilla Wiki Hub were inaugurated in June and July 2025 respectively.

This brings to five, the number of Wiki Hubs under the auspices of Dagbani Wikimedians User Group. Other hub engagement activities took place including an general Wikipedia online training opened to all hubs for participation, where participants joined regardless of which ever hub they belong to.

All the Hub activities outlined recorded an appreciable number of participants and they learned editing skills which enhanced their capacity to contribute to Wikimedia projects in diverse ways. The user group has as part of its priorities, engaging more with its Hubs in the coming fiscal year 2025-2026.

Travel Support

The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group discovered that one of the key enablers of Community engagement and capacity development is the Travel Support Initiative. This initiative was designed to provide financial and logistical support to active community members, allowing them to participate in key global and regional conferences, workshops and trainings. In 2024 one of its team members, Abdul-Rasheed Yussif was supported to attend the 2024 WikiIndaba in Johannesburg, South Africa. As the saying goes "Wisdom is like a boabab tree; no individual can embrace it". In light of the proverb, we envision to have more of our Team and community members given similar supports in subsequent years to provide them the dynamic platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and discussion of other relevant Wikimedia related issues.

Art and Feminism 2025 Editathon

In line with our commitment to bridging gender gaps on Wikipedia and amplifying the voices of underrepresented groups, the Dagbani Wikimedians User group The Art and Feminism 2025 Editathon, a bold step toward the inclusivity, representation, and equity in the digital knowledge space. An in-person workshop was organized to train participants on how to contribute to Wikipedia. The majority of participants were newcomers and were guided through the process of creating their user accounts. For standardization purposes, over 100 women-related articles were selected from the English Wikipedia, a few of these were used for demonstration, while the rest were assigned to participants to either translate, create, or improve on The Dagbani Wikipedia. This strategic approach led to the generation of a substantial number of high-quality articles, contributing significantly to the gender content gap gap on Wikipedia.

Strategic Programs Outside of the Annual Plan

While annual plans provides a structured roadmap for achieving our core objectives, the dynamic nature of community needs and opportunities often calls for flexible, timely action. Throughout the year we identified gaps, responded to emerging challenges, and seized opportunities that fell outside of our planned activities. They not only complemented our annual goals but also deepened our engagement with diverse communities and stakeholders. Outlined below are some of the strategic programs we engaged in outside our annual plan:

✅ Phase I Culture Connect Africa

The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group in collaboration with Africa & Proud brought to success the execution of a unique program that aimed at promoting African Cinema and Cinematic Heritage. In participation were all the language communities under the user group; Dagbani, Gurene, Dagaare, Kusaal, and Gurene language communities. Over 160 articles were created or improved through contest for the various groups. Winners were awarded with prizes. Generally, the program documented African culture on Wikipedia, this contributes positively to bridge the African content gap and promote African representation on the internet.

✅ Dagbani Language Digital Activism

In partnership with Global Voices, Rising Voices, and UNESCO, the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group organized a 2-day workshop to train participants on how to promote the Dagbani language online. The event titled "Build Your Own Roadmap for Dagbani Language Digital Activism" was impactful and activity-oriented. Knowledge-sharing strategies such as Group works and Think-pair-share made the event lively and engaging. Presentations were a key feature group leads stepped forward to present their group work to all participants. Individually, participants shared their intended tactics to employ to promote the Dagbani language. Since 95% of the participants were language teachers, a wealth of experiences related to Dagbani language promotion was shared.

✅ Afrocuration 2025

From May 21st to 23rd 2025, the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group joined 6 other Ghanaian language communities at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology for the 2025 AfroCuration on the theme "Who We Are". Prior to this three-day event, each language community participated in a series of weekly training sessions. Rukaya Hamidu facilitated a session on how to edit Wikipedia in Dagbani.Thirteen participants were each assigned two articles to either create or improve. By the end of the event, a total of 28 Dagbani articles were created or improved. Additionally 4 language communities receiving support from the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group also participated in the event. Each represented by one delegate at KNUST IDL. In the end 4 participants emerged as winners, representing their respective language communities.Abdul-Rafiu Fuseini, the community Facilitator, represented the Executive Director of the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group, Sadik Shahadu, and delivered a presentation highlighting the group's journey and notable success stories.

✅ Mozilla Common Voice Project

The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group, being a language-focused group, has its mission aligned with language digitization.

In pursuit of this mission and goal of bridging the digital language divide, the user group implemented the Mozilla Common Voice Project on June, 28 2025. It was funded by Mozilla Foundation. The initiative was designed to train and empower participants in voice data collection, recording, and annotation.

A step forward in the development of Authomatic Speech Recognision (ASR) and Text-To-Speech technologies for underrepresented languages like the Dagbani language. Through hands-on session and active engagement of native speakers, the project made significant contribution to the digitization of the Dagbani language for voice- enabled applications. Aspects including platform Navigation, Data upload prpocedures,Quality Control Validataion, and Community contribution guidelines were covered. The project was led by the ED of the user gr group, Sadik Shahadu.