Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 in Ghana (ID: 23653694)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Alhassan Mohammed Awal
- 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)
I am the founder and Co-Lead of the Ghanaian Educators Wikimedia Community. It is an informal Wikimedia community of Educators, teachers, Education Directors, and other leaders of the education directorates in Ghana, including non-teaching staff.
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 in Ghana
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2026-02-13 - 2026-03-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Ghana
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Wiki Loves Folklore
- 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)
This campaign aims to contribute folk cultural images, videos, and audios of different cultures from Ghana, especially in the Savannah and North-East regions, where Wikimedia activities and projects are not yet known to them. The campaign will focus on: 1. Recruiting new editors and training them on basic photography skills, Wikimedia Commons upload rules, selection of appropriate licenses, appropriate titling, captioning, and descriptions of media files uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons platform. This will help participants contribute high-quality images to the campaign. 2. Engage existing editors in refresher training sessions. 3. Upload Media files captured during the campaign on Wikimedia Commons 4. Training of participants to create Wikidata items for images and other Media files captured during the campaign. Participants will guided to ensure that each Wikidata items have at least the following: English Label English Description Local language Label Local language Description At least 2 references and Instance of (P31)
Due to internet connectivity challenges and the campaign's intention to recruit and train new volunteers, most training sessions will be held in person to provide maximum support to participants. Of course, there will be some online engagement with participants in the course of the campaign as well.
- 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.
Workshops: We will organize workshop training sessions to introduce new participants to Wikimedia Commons and build on the knowledge of existing users.
We will also train participants on how to create Wikidata items for the various places we have visited and the media files captured and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. This will increase their visibilities and usage.
Photowalk: We will embark on a photowalk to capture photos of folklore activities in the Savannah and North-East regions of Ghana respectively where Wikimedia activities are less covered. Through these photowalks, we will interact with the natives to take their folk cultural activities and create their awareness about Wikimedia by letting them know how we are going to use the media files taken to preserve their cultural identities on the Wikimedia Commons platform. We will recruit new volunteers in the procces from these areas. Focus shall be on their food, music & dance, rites, games, work and festivals.
List of potential Folklore activities to visit/capture are: Construction/Building - Mud buildings/houses which are common in the northern part of Ghana are being constructed between January to March (dry season) when there are no more rains. Funeral events - Most funeral services are organized between January and March (Harvest season for farmers) in most parts of the northern region. Weddings/Marriage ceremonies - Most traditional marriages are organized during the harvest season. Art and craft centers in Salaga, Bole, Damongo, Nalerigu, Walewale et al. We will visit these places to take photos and videos of how they process animals skins into leather and use them to produce leather products such as bags, hats, belts etc. Blacksmith centers, smock weaving and pottery production centers. We will visit these centers to interact with and take photos and videos of the processes of their work and the kind of things they produce with their local skills. Wawale Shea butter processing centers: We will visit these centers where a group of women work on the production of Sheabutter. We will capture images and videos of the processes involved in the production of local Shea butter in the region. The palaces of Wawale, Nalerigu, Damongo, Bole, and Kpembe cheifs presents the real Folk cultures of the people and we shall visit to interact with the chiefs and take images, videos and note down the stories behind certain practices. Also, Smock weaving centers in Walewale, Bole and Yendi shall be visited for same purposes as well as visit the local farms in these areas to understand and document their local farming methods and inputs.
ISA Campaign: At the end of the contest, we will use the ISA tool to tailor a campaign to better depict the captured images so that they will be more useful
- 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.
User: Alhassan Mohammed Awal - Is an experienced organizer and coordinator of Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism and Folklore campaigns in Ghana in the past years. He has led the organization of the campaign in 2022, 2023, and 2024. He is also a volunteer core organizing team member of Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP) that focuses on adding quality images to Wikipedia pages with missing photos. He served as a Jury member for the 2025 campaign. He will be the main coordinator and trainer for this campaign.
User:T Cells is the founder of WPWP and will be an advisor and photo judge
User:AFA IBRAHIM is graphics designer and will be in charge of promoting the campaign accrioss the various social media platfroms and other Wikimedia channels such as mailinglists and so on.
User:Mzz afraw will be incharge of logistices
- 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)
The target participants are members from the Ghanaia Educators Wikimedia Commuity. We will engage them on their communitie's talk pages and social media platforms especially Whatsapp where majority of the members are. We will design a post campaign evaluation survey to solicit the views of participants for improvement in the future.
We will holds training sessions for participants and respond to their queries on especially the WhatsApp group where many of them prefer to have their communications.
We will also keep our participants more engaged in the variety of the activities we will be doing so that we will have a bunch of choices to make. We will be doing Wikimedia commons and using tools like the ISA campaign to vary the interest.
- 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.
We held discussions about the project in our community's discussion page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ghanaian_Educators_Wikimedia_Community
We also discussed extensively about the planning for the project in the community's whatsApp group which is most preferred and convenient communication channel for most members. https://chat.whatsapp.com/DeXn53QjJ3K7XeJATt2lCT?mode=wwt
- 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)
Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
- 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)
Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
The walks will focus on capturing photos, audios and videos of different cultural groups from the northern part of Ghana, especially the North-East and the Savannah regions respevtively where Wikimedia activities are less covered. Their food, music/dance, games, work and festivals. When there is improvement in the coverage of these ares and there are contributions by volunteers from these areas. How many folkcultural activies from the Savannah and North-East regions are covered on the Wikimeda Commons platform? How many of them are being used on Wikipedia and other open source platforms to increase their visibilities? How many volunteers from these areas showed interset in learning and contributing to Wikimedia projects?
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 40 | The membership of the community is large and many new commers are still joining. These 40 participants will be put into two groups to ensure many are able to participate in the photowals to the different areas. |
| Number of editors | 40 | Both the average and the new ones will be guided to make meaninful edits or contributions |
| Number of organizers | 4 | All things being equal, the team members will take part in the activities till the end of the project. |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |
| Wikimedia Commons | 600 |
| Wikidata | 400 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
The project seeks to gather and upload over 600 high quality images of folkcultural activities and add their wikidata items
- 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)
We will use the WMF outreach dashboard tool to measure the metrics. The ISA tool The glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorous/ to track the number of Wikis that made use of the images uploaded.
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vJ_qg_pzLPyTpQWTb-BkDaT0QuR0O4j-yrqfxVaJ1gY/edit?gid=0#gid=0
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
40400 GHS
- 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.
2833.61 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).