Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Tanzania University Students Wikimedians 2024/2025/Final Report
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Part 1: Understanding your work
[edit]Per the recent update on the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy process, Wikimedia Affiliates that are General Support Fund grantees will fulfill their affiliate reporting requirements through their final or yearly grantee report.
If you are a Wikimedia Affiliate, you will use this form for your affiliate reporting and to address the affiliate health criteria. You do not need to submit a separate report to AffCom. Follow the guidance in the green boxes to report on how you met the corresponding affiliate health criteria.
If you are not a Wikimedia Affiliate, aligning your responses with the affiliate criteria is optional and not required.
1. Please share to what extent your programs, approaches, and strategies contributed to addressing the challenges you shared in your proposal. If they did not contribute as you believed they would, please share what obstacles you faced and what, if anything, you learned from them? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 1.) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 1.1 (Goal delivery). Describe how you actively delivered on mission goals, e.g. content creation.
Our programs and strategies contributed significantly to the challenges outlined in the proposal:
- Digital Literacy Gap: Through Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom and continuous edit-a-thons, more than 70% of student participants improved their ability to critically evaluate sources, use citations, and contribute meaningfully on Wikipedia.
- Content Gap: The Bantu Trails in Tanzania and Tanzania: A Wiki Travel Diary 2024 created over 1,000 new articles/pages across Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, and Commons, directly expanding Tanzanian-related content.
- Community Engagement & Retention: Drop-in edit-a-thons and themed campaigns (Swahili Month, Women in Wiki, Wiki for Human Rights, etc.) helped retain 220+ active editors out of the 300 trained, close to our target of 250 retained editors.
- Sustainability: Offline access initiatives like Kiwix4Schools were piloted in two partner institutions, proving valuable for students with limited internet. This creates a foundation for future scale-up.
Obstacles.
- Limited internet connectivity at some universities slowed editing events. We mitigated this by using Kiwix offline packages.
- Balancing academic schedules with Wikimedia activities was sometimes difficult for students. Weekend and flexible “drop-in” sessions helped overcome this.
- Budget fluctuations due to inflation reduced our flexibility in logistics. We adjusted by leveraging volunteer facilitators and strengthening partnerships with local NGOs.
Lesson Learned.
'Building adaptability into planning is crucial. Flexible event formats (drop-in sessions, hybrid events, offline tools) help us engage more students despite infrastructural and time-related challenges.
2. Is there a plan to build on the key successes you had? If yes, please describe the plan and if no, please share the limitations to do so. For instance, did the activities lead to any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future? (required)
Yes, we have a clear plan to build on our successes:-
- Institutionalizing Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom: We plan to formalize partnerships with at least three universities to embed Wikipedia reading and editing into digital literacy courses.
- Scaling Kiwix4Schools: After the pilot, we aim to expand offline access to more rural and semi-urban universities.
- Expanding Bantu Trails: We will continue documentation of Bantu cultures in Tanzania and connect with Wikimedia Commons campaigns like Wiki Loves Africa to ensure broader visibility.
- Leadership Development: Student leaders who emerged during this cycle will be trained as local club coordinators, ensuring continuity even as older members graduate.
- Sustainability: We intend to apply for multi-year funding to stabilize programming and deepen impact, while also engaging local donors and institutions for co-funding specific activities.
New priorities identified.
- Developing more gender-focused programs to balance participation.
- Establishing a mentorship program between experienced Wikimedians and new editors for stronger retention.
- Creating a digital resource hub for Tanzanian Wikimedians (guides, tutorials, toolkits in Swahili).
3. Please provide a link to reports that detail the activities that took place in the last year. This can include an annual report, Meta pages, and websites. If there are no links available, briefly describe the implemented activities and programs below or upload any files. (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 3.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.1 (Affiliate health & resilience), 4.1 (Internal engagement), 4.2 (Community connection), and 4.3 (Partnerships and collaboration):
- Describe your activities engaging new users, new members for your decision-making body(ies), and developing leaders and organizers (2.1).
- Describe your activities creating or hosting spaces to encourage greater collaboration and engagement among your members (4.1).
- Describe how you engage with the contributing community that you serve and/or support (4.2).
- Describe your partnerships with other affiliates or with non-Wikimedia entities (4.3).
4. Are you interested in sharing what you achieved or learned this year with the wider community through different peer learning programs (e.g. Let's Connect program, Diff)? (optional)
We will share our learnings through:
- Meta-Wiki documentation: Publishing outcomes, syllabi, and student feedback from Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom and Kiwix4Schools pilots.
- Diff blog posts: Highlighting case studies on “student-led Wikimedia engagement” and “offline access for digital literacy.”
- Conferences: Presenting at regional Wikimedia events (Wiki Indaba, Wiki Student Summit) to share how Tanzanian students adapt to infrastructure challenges.
- Cross-collaboration: Partnering with neighboring affiliates (e.g., Wikimedians of Arusha, Kilimanjaro User group and Tabora fan club, Tanzania Wikimedia User Group) to replicate student club models and cultural documentation methods.
5. Did you collect feedback from your community or target groups on how the activities implemented impacted them? If yes, please attach/provide information on the results (e.g. community surveys, stories, impact booklets/reports, interviews with partner institutions, etc). Did you collect other impact-specific data? (required)
For affiliates, the response to Question 5. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criteria 4.1 (Internal Engagement), 4.2 (Community Connection), or 4.3 (Partnerships & collaboration), where applicable.
Yes, we collected both qualitative and quantitative feedback from our target groups:
- Community Surveys.
- Post-event surveys were conducted after edit-a-thons and training sessions. Results showed that 85% of participants felt more confident using Wikipedia as a learning tool, and 78% expressed willingness to continue editing beyond the program.
- Feedback highlighted the usefulness of practical sessions, especially citation training and Commons uploads.
- Post-event surveys were conducted after edit-a-thons and training sessions. Results showed that 85% of participants felt more confident using Wikipedia as a learning tool, and 78% expressed willingness to continue editing beyond the program.
- Interviews with Partner Institutions.
- Educators from Universities and Schools appreciated the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, noting improved research skills among students.
- ICT officers reported that integrating Kiwix4Schools reduced reliance on unstable internet and broadened access to reference materials.
- Educators from Universities and Schools appreciated the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, noting improved research skills among students.
- Stories and Testimonials.
- Several student leaders shared that being part of the Wikimedia activities boosted their public speaking confidence and digital literacy, skills they are now using in other academic and community initiatives.
- One female participant from the Women in Wiki campaign reported her first-ever published article in Swahili Wikipedia, which motivated her to join the organizing team for subsequent events.
- Several student leaders shared that being part of the Wikimedia activities boosted their public speaking confidence and digital literacy, skills they are now using in other academic and community initiatives.
- Other Impact Data Collected.
- Wikimedia Dashboard and event metrics (number of editors trained, articles created, bytes added).
- Retention tracking via social media groups and Telegram channels for follow-up engagement.
- Volunteer involvement (number of facilitators, returning editors leading sessions).
- Wikimedia Dashboard and event metrics (number of editors trained, articles created, bytes added).
- Retention tracking via social media groups and Telegram channels for follow-up engagement.
Next steps: We plan to compile these findings into an Impact Booklet for the next reporting cycle, showcasing stories, metrics, and institutional feedback in both English and Swahili.
6. During the fund period, did your efforts do any of the following? (required):
For affiliates, the response to Question 6. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criterion 2.2 (Diversity balance).
- 6.1 Bring in participants from the following groups: women, people from lower socioeconomic status, young people
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, people with disabilities, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.3 Support the retention of: Editors, Organizers, Partnerships
7. What, if any, effective tactics or approaches can you share that worked well when dealing with the programs under points 6.1-6.3 that you selected? (optional)
6.1 Women, people with socioeconomic status, young people
- We intentionally recruited from university clubs and student associations to ensure strong youth participation, which also helped us reach students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
- To lower barriers, we provided data support and offline access tools (Kiwix) so that students from lower-income backgrounds could continue editing beyond campus Wi-Fi limits.
- For women, we worked with female peer-leaders who co-facilitated events, making sessions more inclusive and encouraging first-time female editors to stay engaged.
6.2 Women, people with disabilities, underrepresented geographic regions
We partnered with student disability support offices to ensure accessibility (venues with ramps, recorded tutorials with captions).
Small-group mentorship proved effective for building confidence among women participants, especially in the Women in Wiki campaign.
6.3 Editors, organizers, partnerships
- For editors: using the Wikimedia Dashboard to track contributions created a sense of ownership and healthy competition among participants.
- For organizers: we set up a Telegram group where facilitators could coordinate in real time, share resources, and troubleshoot during events. This reduced delays and improved overall efficiency.
- For partnerships: instead of one-off engagements, we nurtured institutional agreements with universities and NGOs by aligning Wikimedia activities with their academic or social goals (e.g., research skills, open knowledge, digital literacy). This approach created stronger buy-in and sustainability beyond the grant period.
Overall:The most effective tactic was embedding Wikimedia activities into existing community structures (student unions, women’s clubs, disability support networks, and university faculties). This reduced the cost of outreach, built trust quickly, and ensured that Wikimedia programs were seen as supportive rather than separate initiatives.
8. If you developed partnerships, which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors (optional):
Permanent staff outreach, Board members’ outreach, Volunteers from our communities
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]| Metrics name | Target | Result | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 350 | 518 | Google forms, website forms |
| Number of all editors | 300 | 437 | |
| Number of new editors | 20 | 120 | |
| Number of retained editors | 250 | 400 | |
| Number of all organizers | 17 | 25 | |
| Number of new organizers | 2 | 5 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages | Target - Number of improved pages | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 1000 | 500 | 25314 | 2370 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 300 | 100 | 834 | 310 |
| Wikidata | 500 | 300 | 1340 | 719 |
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | ||||
| Wikimedia Incubator | 250 | 50 | 378 | 87 |
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | 200 | 50 | 483 | 291 |
| Wikivoyage | 600 | 50 | 1438 | 354 |
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
11. Did you set other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): No
11.1. Other Metrics.
In your application, you outlined some other open metrics that you would like to measure. Please fill out the achieved results for each of the open metrics you defined.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Part 3: Skill Development / Capacity Building
[edit]12. Reflecting on your programmatic (external) and organizational (internal) work, did your grant support you to undergo any skill development that made a difference to your success? If yes, what skill was developed, and how did it lead to success? (e.g. received coaching on public speaking, attended training on nonviolent communication, hosted professional development conversations on leadership, learned and used a new tool for project management, etc.)? Can you share any materials? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 12.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.2 (Diversity balance) and 3.1 (Diverse, Skilled, and Accountable Leadership):
- Describe actions taken to prioritize gender balance in affiliate leadership, as well as any areas of diversity relevant to your affiliate's context (2.2).
- Describe the management, financial, or other leadership skills of your affiliate leaders. If you have a succession plan, please include it here (3.1).
- Describe any training or skill development (as outlined in the question above) (3.1).
- Incorporate into the annual report a disclosure of conflict of interests (if any) from the leadership (3.1).
Yes. The grant enabled us to build and strengthen several key skills that directly contributed to the success of our activities:
Programmatic (External).
- Facilitation and training skills: Through repeated workshops with university students, our facilitators improved in delivering Wikimedia training in more interactive and accessible ways. We refined techniques such as using live editing demonstrations, breakout mentorship, and integrating practical examples from students’ own fields of study. This made sessions more engaging and led to higher editor retention.
- Community engagement skills: By working with diverse groups (youth, women, students with disabilities), we learned how to adapt communication styles and materials to different audiences. For example, producing simple “how-to” guides in Kiswahili helped participants from underrepresented backgrounds feel more included.
Organizational (Internal).
- Project management and coordination: Managing timelines, budgets, and reporting within this grant cycle sharpened our internal planning and accountability skills. We adopted tools like Google Workspace and the Wikimedia Dashboard for tracking progress, which helped us remain organized and transparent.
- Partnership-building: The grant gave us confidence to approach institutions (universities, NGOs) and frame Wikimedia activities as aligned with their missions. This skill in institutional engagement will benefit future collaborations.
- Documentation and reporting: The requirement to collect data (attendance sheets, contribution metrics, participant feedback) strengthened our capacity to systematically document impact. This will make future grant applications and reports stronger.
Impact of skill development:
- These skills allowed us to reach more students (beyond initial targets), improve inclusivity, and maintain strong accountability with partners.
- They also laid a foundation for sustainability: our team can now run Wikimedia programs more independently, with better organization and stronger institutional ties.
Materials available:
- Training slide decks (Introduction to Wikipedia, Commons uploading, Women in Wiki campaign).
- Session recordings with student participants.
- Documentation templates (attendance sheets, feedback forms, budget tracking sheets).
13. What is one capacity/skill area that you would like to focus on for the next year? And how do you plan to achieve this capacity? (required)
We would like to focus on strengthening our digital project management and monitoring & evaluation (M&E) capacity. While we have improved in facilitation and coordination, we see the need to develop stronger skills in using digital tools to track impact, manage volunteers, and analyze data so that our programs are more sustainable and scalable.
How we plan to achieve this:
- Training and mentorship: Identify online or Wikimedia Movement learning opportunities on M&E, volunteer management, and digital community engagement.
- Adopting tools: Use platforms like Programs & Events Dashboard, Meta-wiki, and collaborative project trackers to improve reporting and transparency.
- Peer learning: Collaborate with experienced Wikimedia affiliates and organizers (e.g., through Let’s Connect sessions) to learn best practices.
- Internal workshops: Dedicate time for our team to practice digital reporting, data visualization, and volunteer coordination using real project data.
14. If you have additional information or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. Use the space below to upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your report.
For affiliates, also use this section (Question 14) to fulfill the Affiliate Health Criteria requirements.
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for affiliate governance, including affiliate leadership and membership with a breakdown of the demographics; how elections are conducted; how conflicts of interest are declared; and how decisions are made and communicated (2.2, 2.3, 3.1).
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for activities incorporating, promoting awareness about, or enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct in your affiliate's activities (3.3).
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for internal membership engagement, such as notes from your regular meetings and how you communicate to or involve your membership (4.1).
Implementing this grant allowed us to see clearly how Wikimedia projects can be a bridge between local knowledge and global audiences. Through the activities, we learned that communities are most motivated when they see their own culture, language, and identity reflected on Wikimedia platforms.
We also realized that partnerships with schools, universities, and cultural institutions are key to long-term sustainability. By introducing Wikimedia projects into education settings, we are not only training new editors but also embedding free knowledge practices into the learning environment.
Internally, this grant helped us grow as an organization improving how we plan, communicate, and document our work. The experience has reinforced our belief that investing in capacity building, inclusion, and partnerships will multiply impact beyond a single grant cycle.
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]For affiliates, also use this section (Part 4: Financial reporting) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 3.2 (Financial & Legal Compliance).
| Description | Planned / received budget for this category (TZS) | Amount spent (TZS) |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 33687500 | 33687500 |
| Operational costs | 17820000 | 17820000 |
| Programmatic costs | 32367500 | 47367500 |
| Total General Support Fund | 77765400 | 92765400 |
| Other revenue | 15000000 | 15000000 |
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | N/A |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
92765400 TZS
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- Operational costs: 17820000 TZS
- Programmatic costs: 33687500 TZS
- Staff and contractor costs: 47367500 TZS
17. Did you have any other revenue sources (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): Yes
- 17.1. Provide the total amount received from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 15000000 TZS
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 15000000 TZS
18. Provide a financial report document which will provide the details of funds received and spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
18.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
N/A
19. Do you have any unspent funds from this funding?: No
20. Final confirmations (required)
- 20.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement? You must be in compliance with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement. In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- Yes
- 20.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
- Yes
- 20.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- Yes
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