Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Digitization of Heritage Blueprints (ID: 23479455)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Lutarchitecture
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
I'm a group leader of an informal Wikimedia group.
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Group Leader of the Heritage Conservation Integration (Proposed Wikimedia Heritage User Group Nigeria)
Manage community events - Handle events of the community, from training events to campaigns for the group, including partnerships and trainings with other organizations and institutions that are GLAM-oriented. Organize Trainings - organize trainings for the members, like Wikidata training, Wikimedia Commons training, and how to edit wikipedia and contribute to GAM projects in the country Lead Digitization Projects - Manage the digitization project from the rummaging to sorting to curation to digitization Head of Policy and Advocacy - organize a webinar that is geared toward policy advocacy for the GLAM and heritage work in open knowledge platforms in Nigeria.
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Digitization of Heritage Blueprints
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-09-01 - 2025-11-29
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Nigeria
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) WikiGLAM
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
The change I aim to bring is to preserve, digitize, and make accessible Nigeria’s heritage architecture. Nigeria possesses a wide range of historic buildings, indigenous architectural styles, sacred spaces, and colonial-era structures that represent the country's diverse cultural identity. However, these physical assets are at risk from neglect, rapid urban development, environmental degradation, and lack of preservation efforts. Digitization — through high-resolution scanning and archival documentation — offers a way to protect and share Nigeria’s architectural heritage with future generations and the world.
Skill Development and Growth of Community Members: The proposal will help participants develop their skills on all levels, ranging from research and development skills, technical skills for Wikimedia projects, project management skills. One major skill that the proposal will help in developing community members is on the part of digitization, training, and upskilling as many community members as possible on the technical aspects of digitizing, metadata creation, and indexing as well.
Challenges
Fragmented and Uncoordinated Archives: Where records exist, they are often scattered across government offices, private collections, universities, and individuals — unorganized and inaccessible to the public or researchers.
Lack of Digitization: Physical documents are vulnerable to damage from humidity, insects, poor storage, or disaster, and there has been little effort to systematically digitize and preserve them.
Insufficient Skills and Infrastructure: Few institutions have trained staff capable of creating and managing digital architectural archives. Necessary equipment like large-format scanners, 3D laser scanners, and digital storage systems are largely unavailable.
Policy Gaps: There are no strong national mandates or frameworks specifically requiring the creation, maintenance, or digitization of heritage architecture archives.
Limited Public Awareness: There is little recognition of the importance of maintaining architectural archives among decision-makers, the construction industry, and even within some parts of the academic and cultural sectors.
Approaches to achieve
Systematic Survey and Documentation: Conduct detailed site documentation, including measurements, architectural photography, 2D scanning, and narrative histories.
Create a Digital Archive: Develop an open-access digital repository where all architectural records can be stored, catalogued, and made available for education, conservation, and research purposes. creating a storage zone for thew institutional website.
Capacity Building: Train a new generation of wikimedians from different communities and the Igbo Wikimedia community digital archivists, architects, and conservation specialists in documentation standards, digital archiving, and heritage management.
Pilot Projects: Begin by selecting key architectural heritage archival documents to preserve, digitize and archive as examples to build momentum.
Community Involvement: Engage local communities in identifying important structures and contributing oral histories and undocumented knowledge to the archives.
Advocacy: Lobby for policies that recognize digital architectural archiving as a critical component of national heritage preservation strategies.
guidance and counselling: The proposal will provide avenues for participant opportunities to receive counsel and guidance from trainers and more experienced wikimedians that will be involved in the proposals
Effective task distribution and monitoring: the proposal will help participants get more involved in the projects by getting them involved in every step of the projects, distributing tasks ranging from curation to research and development to editing and providing necessary support and monitoring for them as well to check and oversee performance metrics
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
Proposed Activities:
Our digitization and documentation workflow will follow these main steps:
License Approval: Before digitization begins, we will secure written or recorded permission from custodians, ensuring proper licensing for Wikimedia Commons uploads.
Rummaging and Sorting: Work with custodians to identify, rummage through, and sort relevant heritage materials. Items will be assessed for significance, condition, and suitability for digitization.
Curation and Scanning: Selected materials will be carefully curated and scanned using portable, high-resolution scanners and digital photography equipment. Where scanning is not feasible, high-quality photographs will be taken.
Metadata Creation: For each digitized item, detailed metadata will be created, including title, description, date, creator (if known), location, historical context, and license information — aligned with Wikimedia Commons standards.
Trainings for use of wikimedia tools like pattypan
Batch Uploads to Wikimedia Commons: Materials will be batch-uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using Pattypan to ensure efficient, properly categorized uploads with structured metadata fields.
Verification and Categorization: After upload, materials will be double-checked for correct licensing, descriptive completeness, and proper categorization within Wikimedia Commons heritage architecture categories.
Community Review and Engagement: Uploaded materials will be shared with the wider Wikimedia community for review, improvement, and use in articles, Wikidata items, and educational projects.
Documentation and Expertise We will rely on a combination of the following:
In-house expertise from our team in heritage conservation, Wikimedia uploading standards, metadata best practices, and digital archiving.
Existing Wikimedia documentation such as:
Wikimedia Commons Upload Wizard and Pattypan manuals Wikimedia licensing and copyright guidelines Best practices for GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) partnerships Training materials developed from previous successful Wikimedia heritage documentation projects.
Additionally, we will adapt standard field documentation methods used in heritage conservation to ensure the materials' authenticity, accuracy, and ethical handling.
Curation and digitization training This curation and digitisation training is a partnership between myself and Tecres Technologies, who are professionals in anything digitisation They will be training participants on the use of large scanning machines to save documents as JPEGs and TIFF files and equipping them for when the community will get those kinds of machines to eliminate the cost for digitization in future projects.
Curation This activity is an important part of the process, and since most of the community members are architects, we will be teaching them the process of digitizing the architectural heritage archives, which will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
Digitization This activity, which is the actual process of converting large-scale physical drawings to digital format, is a major part of the work process. Digitization is very important, and we hope to teach and expose the community and members to the nitty-gritty of the process before the training starts.
Cross-border Collaboration and partnership A part of the proposal will involve having events that foster cross-border collaborations within Africa and other parts of the global community where possible and further spread the reach of the end product of the work being done.
Interministerial collaboration and partnerships A major part of the project is strengthening the relationships between ministries that aid and support the digitization of archives and the materials to be digitized and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, like NIA, NCMM and ICOMOS. Collaboration and partnerships play a vital role and help with unhindered access to these archives.
Wikiproject Trainings Other training in the Wikiverse, like Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons etc., will be part of the project event, and activities training on these projects will be provided, and all participants will benefit accordingly.
Timeline Document Link - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EI2G7qpP90X4noY-8vwAekZuO-_LfLVI/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114140177641679956391&rtpof=true&sd=true
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Team Information This project is led by a committed team of Wikimedia contributors and cultural heritage advocates from Nigeria, each with specific roles to ensure the project's success.
Lutarchitecture (Username: Lutarchitecture) Role: Lead Trainer and Stakeholder Liaison Contact Lutarchitecture will oversee the training program, ensuring that participants are properly equipped with the necessary skills for digitization and Wikimedia contributions. Lutarchitecture will also serve as the main liaison with external stakeholders, including cultural institutions and heritage organizations.
Hillary Ogali (Username: Hillary Ogali) Role: Trainer and Project Manager Hillary will support training delivery, manage the project timeline and deliverables, and oversee the smooth operation of all project activities.
Lucy Iwuala (Username: Lucy Iwuala) Role: Trainer, Project Coordinator, Affiliate Liaison, and Communications Officer Lucy will assist in delivering training sessions, coordinate internal project activities, handle project communications, and manage liaison efforts with Wikimedia affiliates. Lucy will also specifically aid in coordinating efforts with the Igbo Wikimedia community to foster wider regional engagement.
Jefhex (Username: Jefhex) Role: Communications, Media, and Graphics Coordinator; Trainer and Mentor for Upload Tools Jefhex will handle the project's media, communication, and graphic needs; document project activities; and provide mentorship and technical training on the use of Wikimedia Commons uploading tools such as Upload Wizard and Pattypan.
Engagement Type All team members are contributing to the project as volunteers. No member of the team is salaried or engaged as a paid consultant or contractor. Each individual is committed to advancing open knowledge, promoting cultural heritage preservation, and supporting Wikimedia community growth through this project.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
Target Participants and Communities The target participants for this project are
Members of the Igbo Wikimedia User Group and Wikimedia Heritage User Group Nigeria
Professionals and volunteers from heritage conservation and integration organizations
Individuals from heritage communities across Nigeria, including local historians, architects, cultural activists, and students interested in architectural preservation.
These groups have been identified because of their shared commitment to cultural preservation, open knowledge, and community development.
Engagement Strategy Before and During the Activities:
We will engage participants through a variety of methods to ensure strong involvement and readiness:
Online Trainings: Structured virtual training sessions covering digitization techniques, Wikimedia Commons contributions, and open licensing basics.
Webinars: Thematic webinars featuring experts on topics such as architectural heritage documentation, digital archiving, and the importance of free knowledge sharing.
Surveys: Pre-training surveys to assess participants' knowledge levels and tailor sessions accordingly; mid-project surveys to gather feedback and adjust activities if needed.
Online and Physical Meetings: Regular planning and check-in meetings to build community, foster collaboration, and maintain momentum.
Direct Outreach: Personalized emails, social media engagement (especially via Telegram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Instagram), and collaboration with community leaders to recruit and inform participants.
Creation of a Resource Hub: A shared online folder or wiki page where training materials, guides, and templates are easily accessible for all participants.
After the Activities:
Post-activity engagement is essential to sustain participation and community growth. Our follow-up strategies include
Upload Sessions: Organized group sessions to help participants upload their digitized architectural materials onto Wikimedia Commons, ensuring they feel supported through the technical steps.
Mentorship Sessions: One-on-one or small group mentoring to assist participants with questions about uploads, metadata, licensing, and categorization.
Follow-up Surveys: We will send our post-project surveys to measure impact, gather feedback, and identify areas for future improvement.
Building a Sustainable Community: Encouraging active participants to join Wikimedia Nigeria and Igbo Wikimedia User Group activities long-term and creating opportunities for leadership roles in future heritage documentation projects.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
Community Discussions and Involvement The idea for this project was discussed off-wiki with members of the Igbo Wikimedia User Group through WhatsApp communication channels. We engaged with the group's leadership and active members to introduce the project concept, explain its objectives, and explore opportunities for collaboration. During these discussions, the co-founder of the Igbo Wikimedia User Group expressed strong support for the project and gave a green light for collaboration with community members.
Community members were informed about the project’s goals, the planned activities (such as trainings, upload sessions, and photowalks), and how the project aligns with the Igbo Wikimedia User Group’s broader mission to promote open knowledge and cultural heritage documentation.
The discussions included:
How participants would be selected and trained
Ways to integrate the project’s activities with existing Igbo Wikimedia programs
How to sustain participant engagement after the initial events
Ensuring that the project complements, rather than duplicates, ongoing efforts within the community
While the primary discussions took place off-wiki, we plan to document the project updates and participant engagements on Meta-Wiki and Commons throughout the implementation period.
Note: We will also create an on-wiki notification post on the Igbo Wikimedia User Group's Meta page before the project launch to formally invite broader community participation and maintain transparency
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Other Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context)
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Digital Access
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
Building Heritage in Nigeria: its sustainability and future
Architectural history in Nigeria and its relevance to the general public. Why is it important we have it published on open source platforms?
Climate Change Architectural Design Style Community management stakeholder Management and custodial relationships—navigating bottleneck in the process of digitizing archives sustainable Heritage conservation processes.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | |
| Number of editors | 20 | |
| Number of organizers | 5 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 20 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 1000 |
| Wikidata | 25 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
N/A
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
Support provided from the created Dashboard for the project that automatically updates Itself based on the contributions of Participants Google documents to take surveys
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19nZiaCe1IzMx18uleMv6ClknaZXJ3ZjLMdBMGs0vPKY/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
7568000 NGN
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
4914.98 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).