Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Edit-a-thon on Biographies of African Innovators and changemakers (ID: 23095758)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
The project kicked off with a big push on social media platforms to raise awareness and get people interested in contributing to Wikipedia. It was all about rallying the community's preparedness to engage in edit-a-thon to boost the content in mos.wikipedia. After that, the team organized some training workshops, both in-person and online, including recorded videos. These sessions aimed at introducing Mooré language speakers to Wikipedia basics, like editing and article creation, plus some of its sister projects. They even had practical demonstrations and guided editing, focusing specifically on local content on mos.wikipedia.org. Based on demands of editors to have series of physical engagements for the concepts to be grasped well, quite a few physical training sessions were organised at different locations. During these, mentorship and peer support turned out to be super important for both new and returning editors. Experienced editors were brought in to help guide those with serious challenges in the process. Once the training wrapped up, we launched an edit-a-thon where participants created a number of articles and improved many existing articles on mos.wikipedia.org particularly focusing on the biographies of Africans who have made a significant impact on economic growth and social progress in their communities. After all the training, the team really ramped up community outreach and engagement. Participants were kept in the loop through social media, addressing any challenge or concern while keeping their spirits high as they dove into the edit-a-thon. Social media platforms were harnessed to provide real-time support and to foster community interaction. The digital learning materials helped thirty-nine (39) young editors got trained in Wikipedia editing, content creation and upload of images on commons wikimedia. By the end of the writing contest, the editors had managed to achieve the following results: Thirty nine (39) editors were recruited and trained to volunteer for the project. Three hundred and forty (340) new standard articles were created, Ninety three (93) existing articles were improved to meet standard article requirements., Fifty (50) new lexemes, were created, One hundred and eighty one (181) representing (100%) ProofreadPage user interface translated on translatewiki.net, One hundred (100) images were added to Wikimedia Commons uploaded, Wikidata items improved by adding labels (521), descriptions (266), and aliases (158) in the Moore language and added one hundred and six (106) Wikidata items.
The most effective techniques that allowed in terms of achieving these results were that participants learned faster and contributed more through direct, instructed practice under hands-on practical training. Physical training sessions in Mooré combined with English enhanced understanding and made the project more inclusive. Moreover, the provision of guides and guidance through the implementation of recorded videos to guide editors whenever possible reduced dropouts and built confidence among participants. Aside that, the involvement of youth as principal actors in crafting the campaign made it relevant and very interactive. Lastly, the employment of social media platforms helped promote events and maintain participation momentum.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Project page on Meta-Wiki : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovators_and_changemakers#Description
Outreached Dashboard: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moore_Wikimedia_Community/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovator_and_Changemakers_(15th_July_-_15th_August,_2025)/home
Some photos of event
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOk8GIDEXwUy7I8Fl72nS2OlWQ3d3HQsB8I1skx2cGYTxRU2EjPDGBJS00PPgOvOA?key=dl91V1Y4bjFEOU01TGMyZjZSalgtbGZ4c3B6YnRR
Social media post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Azi2ida9X/
Surveys results: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/08/28/moore-wikimedia-community-embarked-on-edit-a-thon-on-biographies-of-innovators-and-changemakers-in-africa/
Mos Wikipedia: 340 articles created: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivibrance/Articles
mos Wikipedia: 97 articles improved: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moore_Wikimedia_Community/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovator_and_Changemakers_(15th_July_-_15th_August,_2025)/home
Translatewiki: 181 representing 100% translated in Proofreadpage Interface: https://codelookup.toolforge.org/mos
https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Translate?language=mos&group=ext-proofreadpage-user
Wikimedia commons: 100 images added: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikivibrance_2025_in_Ghana
Lexemes: 50 lexemes added: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moore_Wikimedia_Community/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovator_and_Changemakers_(15th_July_-_15th_August,_2025)/home
Wikidata: items (106) Labels(521), descriptions (266) and aliase (158) : https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moore_Wikimedia_Community/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovator_and_Changemakers_(15th_July_-_15th_August,_2025)/home
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
Training materials and guides:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xf7WGcuV4iPOkGvUDt5xpsBvlbz2uHOu/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xf7WGcuV4iPOkGvUDt5xpsBvlbz2uHOu/view?usp=sharing
Recorded videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndiv4UAhQzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-8YsJChmw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdRiWqLx6Nw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cl-6GH5_UE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPKi6V3WjxA
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: We hope to learn what passion inspire participants to this project. We hope to learn the challenges that hinders participants contributing to the free knowledge. We hope to learn how user friendly the moore wikipedia is since this is the first time we are embarking on a project since its creation in September 2024. How does the campaign helps in increasing the Biographies of Africa innovators information on wikipedia? What is the impact of the wikivibrance project to the moore wikimedia community?
A survey was conducted on these learning questions after the edit-a-thon. Each of the five main learning questions were presented with multiple choice answers and shared to participants to respond accordingly. The results of the data was then collected and analysed. The raw data can be accessed on this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zpoeRoZBNi7TXWTxVmA2gUYYdS8AiMH8AUQI4v1EWww/edit?usp=sharing.
What inspired participants to this project are: Cultural and Linguistic Preservation, and Cultural Heritage and Identity, Knowledge Sharing and Education , Creative Fulfillment, Personal Development , and Personal/Community Growth or Institutional Support. Recommendation for future programmes are creating and improving Wikipedia articles, Wikidata entries, and Wikimedia Commons materials on Moore language, ensuring cultural and linguistic diversity is well-documented online and using Wikimedia platforms to capture oral histories, traditional knowledge, local innovations, and cultural practices, safeguarding them for future generations.
What challenges hinder participants contributing to free knowledge are capacity and Skills Limitations, language and Content Barriers and Motivation and Awareness Gaps are also notable challenges, suggesting that language diversity and limited awareness hinder active participation. Technical and Access Challenges affect over a third of respondents, pointing to infrastructure and connectivity issues. Cultural and Societal Constraints and Community and Structural Weaknesses are less common but still relevant. Overall, the findings highlight that addressing skills, language, and access issues could greatly enhance contributions. Designing targeted Wikimedia training programs, workshops, and mentorship to address the capacity and skills gap, ensuring contributors feel confident in editing and content creation. The learning will help in the future by promoting translation efforts, developing multilingual resources, and encouraging content creation in local languages to make participation more inclusive. Organizing outreach campaigns, school programs, and community events to show the value of contributing to free knowledge and inspire long-term engagement. Provide better internet access, offline editing tools, and user-friendly mobile solutions for contributors in low-connectivity areas.
On how user friendly the moore wikipedia site is, majority of respondents (75%) find the Moore Wikipedia site easy to use when editing, suggesting a generally positive user experience. Majority of the responded opined that the moore wikipedia site was easy to navigate and use. The leadership of Moore Wikimedia Community will train the remaining participants to catch up with ease of use of the site in the next project.
The learning on whether the campaign helped incrased biographies of African innovators data on wikipedia was that most significant impact reported is that the campaigned really Improved and expanded articles of innovators in Africa and also increased the visibility and Long-Term Impact on site. In future, these learning will help design campaigns that prioritize creating and expanding high-quality articles, since this is the strongest reported impact. Building on the campaign’s ability to increase reach by promoting content through social media, partnerships, and community events to ensure lasting impact. Incorporating more projects that document local languages, traditions, and histories, strengthening the role of Wikipedia as a cultural archive. Introducing programs, edit-a-thons, and themed challenges to encourage ongoing participation. Embedding training opportunities within future campaigns so that skill-building becomes a consistent benefit alongside content creation.
When it come to the impart of the wikivibrance project to the moore wikimedia community, the highest reported impact is Community Growth and Collaboration, followed by Increased Representation on Wikimedia Platforms, Youth Empowerment and Engagement while both Capacity Building and Skill Development and Language and Cultural Promotion were cited the least. Creating more collaborative spaces, both online and offline, to sustain the strong community growth and teamwork already achieved. Moving forward, the following will be considered, Launching targeted initiatives to cover more underrepresented topics, voices, and cultural perspectives on Wikimedia platforms, Developing mentorship programs, youth-led edit-a-thons, and leadership roles to keep young contributors active and inspired, Integrating structured workshops and continuous learning opportunities to improve editing, research, and digital literacy skills, Encouraging more content creation in local languages and documenting traditions, ensuring cultural identity is preserved and shared globally.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
There were a lot of new contributors who were eager and had never edited the Mos.Wikipedia site since it went live in late 2024 but were happy to learn and contribute. Even long-time contributors, who had never viewed the live site before, were excited and motivated, viewing what was changed and what was alike between the live wikipedia site and the incubator. The acknowledgment of the community also grew, which was actually very inspiring.
Although, technical hiccups and poor internet connections made it tougher. Frequent power outages and slow or unreliable internet interrupted some of the training sessions, making it challenging for the participants to save the edits smoothly. The second observation was that there were fewer women who took part in the workshop, despite all efforts at outreach, their numbers were still lower than what we had expected.
We established that having peers and mentors nearby has a significant effect on keeping people motivated and assured enough to keep editing. It is clear that constant support like providing internet data or devices can go a long way in boosting participation. Inclusiveness, especially among women and marginalized communities, demands a lot of planning and effort. These experiences, both positive and negative, reaffirmed the necessity of staying flexible, addressing the needs of the community first, and planning inclusively. They also illustrated the potential for WikiVibrance campaigns to have a real impact by engaging local communities when their own culture is valued and respected.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
To ensure that the knowledge, experiences, and outcomes from our WikiVibrance project benefit not just our team but the wider Wikimedia and language community we has prepared a detailed project report and blog post, highlighting key activities, results, challenges, and lessons learned. The report was shared on Wikimedia Diff blog at https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/08/28/moore-wikimedia-community-embarked-on-edit-a-thon-on-biographies-of-innovators-and-changemakers-in-africa/. We also will discuss the report on community physical meetings so as to broaden the discussion for input and suggestions regarding the growth and development of Moore Wikimedia Community and its rippling impact on mos wikipedia.
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | 50 | https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOk8GIDEXwUy7I8Fl72nS2OlWQ3d3HQsB8I1skx2cGYTxRU2EjPDGBJS00PPgOvOA?key=dl91V1Y4bjFEOU01TGMyZjZSalgtbGZ4c3B6YnRR |
| Number of editors | 30 | 39 | https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Moore_Wikimedia_Community/Edit-a-thon_on_Biographies_of_African_Innovator_and_Changemakers_(15th_July_-_15th_August,_2025)/students/overview |
| Number of organizers | 5 | 5 | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivibrance/Organisers |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 200 | 340 | 97 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 200 | 100 | 0 |
| Wikidata | 200 | 106 | 521 |
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | 50 | 181 | 15 |
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikidata lexemes | The editors will create 50 detail lexemes | 50 | 50 | https://codelookup.toolforge.org/mos |
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
26250
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
1835.2
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aORLQQ7ByLP2XfbAQSMETokcA7oT3lOu8Hz-ISwm154/edit?usp=sharing
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. 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
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A