Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki In Africa’s exciting program of activities over 2022/Midpoint Report

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
Midterm Learning Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2022-07-15T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Midterm

Application Final Learning Report

This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the grantmaking web service of Wikimedia Foundation where the user has submitted their midpoint report. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.


General information[edit]

This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.

  • Name of Organization: Wiki in Africa
  • Title of Proposal: Wiki In Africa’s exciting program of activities over 2022
  • Amount awarded: 135300 USD, 2060700 ZAR
  • Amount spent: 853677 ZAR

Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]

1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?

Wiki in Africa’s 4 key goals were met by the following activities:
1. Inform, make visible and advocate
  • Visual representation gaps – Wiki Loves Africa + Tell Us About Her
  • Gender gaps & citations gap – Inspiring Open
  • Accessibility + digital skills development + offline access – WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique (WCAS) + WikiFundi
2. Provide multiple fun, engaging and accessible ways and formats towards contribution
  • Photo competition - WLA
  • Podcast + articles + multiple access pathways - Inspiring Open
  • Drives with easy contribution tools:ISA and WikiFundi
3. Identify and train leaders to activate open movement projects
  • Making open female leadership visible – Inspiring Open
  • Mentoring women in leadership – WLW Focus Group
  • Mentoring community leaders – WLA bi-lingual office hours + focus webinars
4. Grow networks of communities to boost the open movement, reduce knowledge gaps, facilitate cross-pollination between communities
  • Monthly platform to unpack global topics through an African lens – WikiAfrica Hour
  • Educating youth in open practices – WCAS

Focused on 5 key areas for improvement:

1. Build inter-project communities
  • WikiAfrica Hour – guests from across the movement
  • Gender-gap busting guests – WLW Focus Group Sessions
  • Showcase Open movement success – Inspiring Open
  • Fiscal sponsorship support for communities prejudiced by international diplomacy
2. Train and mentors leaders [q. 2]
3. Train key skill groups
  • alternative opportunities for photographers – Wiki Loves Africa
  • offline OER materials for teachers in 3 languages
4. Foster digital skills within and contribution by the next generation [q. 2]
5. Advocate for open practices through external-focused campaigns [q. 2]
6. Expand our circle of friends in the open knowledge movement
  • Partnership with Africa Tech Radio
  • OERs and WikiFundi at Open Education Week 2022
  • WikiFundi and WCAS at OEGlobal Congress 2022
  • Wiki In Africa at WCAS awards ceremony in Dakar, Senegal

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?

Training and mentors leaders within the Wikimedia movement

a. WLA 2022 focus was to increase support for WLA organisers, especially newbies. 31 communities hosted ’official’ activities in 26 countries for the 2022 contest. WIA provided bi-lingual office hour support every Saturday morning, and hosted focus webinars (on communications, national juries, etc.)

b. The WLW Focus Group’s first months of 2022 were focused on the analysis of and discussion about the needs of the members, thus ensuring that these pivotal Wikimedia organisers could be best supported over 2022. The resulting 8-month schedule was activated in June.

Harnessing populous platforms to bridge the ‘real world’ and silos of the open movement
a. WLW’s Inspiring Open podcast (podcast.wikiloveswomen.org) was launched in March 2022. This externally-funded project showcased 16 successful African women whose personal values intersect with the open movement. The podcast enables multiple bridges to be created between the ‘real’ world and Open silos, it closes citation and representation gaps, and allows women to tell their story in their own voice, etc.. Report: https://w.wiki/5T9H
b. As a live monthly program, WikiAfrica Hour bridges the Wikimedia and real world divide by showing Wikimedia relevance to global issues, such as:

  • offline technologies bridge access gaps
  • communities built through photographic contests,
  • women use podcasting to inform both ‘outsiders’ and the initiated on the open movement
  • the mutually beneficial relationship between GLAMS and the open movement, etc.

Focus on the next generation of open movement practitioners
WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique is a project funded externally. The 2022 (5th) contest took place in 9 francophone African countries and resulted in 80 articles and 442 photos, drawings and videos submitted by primary school students from 69 schools. View the impact of the contest over 5 years: https://w.wiki/5T9K

3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?

Staffing

a. Changing needs: Our initial staffing expectations changed between submitting the grant application to the time of hiring. Administrative support became an essential requirement – we were lucky to find the right fit straight away. We put out a call for two further positions (community + communications) in January. The range of community applicants persuaded us to hire two people to fit the community liaison post (focusing on different elements and languages).

b. Volunteer to staff Unfortunately, one of our new community liaisons became overwhelmed by a combination of local challenges and overpromising on their volunteer and professional commitments. The exec team spent 2 months troubleshooting solutions, and providing support. Ultimately, we agreed that the timing was not right for him, and parted ways.

c. Communications The focus on the community liaison position left the communications support position unfulfilled. In the end, we focused on project-by-project support to get through Inspiring Open and Wiki Loves Africa – and have decided to adjust our expectations and experience level for communications. A more focused plan for Communications will rollout over the 2nd half of 2022.

External funding applications January to June 2022 has been very busy! We have not been able to provide the focus required to research funding opportunities. We have already activated a plan of action for the 2nd half of 2022.

Fiscal Management The CF grant from the Wikimedia Foundation arrived in one tranche in December 2022. The exec team felt that keeping it in a checking account was not a wise choice for two reasons. The decision was taken to place portions of the money in high interest, fixed term investment accounts to be released after 3, 6 and 9 months. This solution has effectively distributed any internal risk (on the bank’s side) and hedged against potential exchange rate fluctuations.

4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.

1. The Wikimedia movement

a. Africa’s Wikimedians

  • They participate collectively in the WLA contest. In total, 31 communities hosted 40+ activities in 26 countries for the 2022 contest.
  • Live monthly WikiAfrica Hour provides an african lens to the Wikimedia world. Over the last year, WAH’s 51 guests have showcased all aspects of the Wikimedia community and beyond. Collectively, WAH’s episodes have been watched 4,015 on YouTube (July22). The community engages through the Q&A session and News segment highlights opportunities.
  • They are informed of opportunities via African Wikimedians (Telegram), WikiIndaba (Facebook Group + Telegram), and WikiAfrica, Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women social media platforms.

b. Wikimedia women leaders

  • WLW’s Focus Group engages with each other via a closed Telegram channel for safe, secure mentoring. They meet monthly for a Working Session and are supported through bi-Weekly office hours. The 2022 program ensures active engagement with global community leaders in the gender space.

c. Global Wikimedia community – involvement via invites to WLW Focus Group sessions as guests, as guests on WikiAfrica Hour, as jury members for WLA, etc. – news shared on social media platforms, Wikipedia Weekly FB group, Diff, Telegram groups, and Wikiproject pages

2. Communities on the fringes of the open movement (such as photographers, gender rights activists, educators, and heritage professionals).

They are actively invited to participate through direct partnership or collaboration, such as WLA targeting photographers, WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique engaging teachers, and Inspiring Open showcasing successful women at the intersection of the Open movement.

3. The aligned communities (eg, Open Education or CC) are engaged through all programs, as each furthers the mission of these aligned movements. They are actively invited to participate, and are informed through presentations at such events as OEWeek, OEGlobal, CC Summit, etc.

5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.

Everything WIA does is to engage and train participants to build content from under-represented groups; specifically Africa, and especially women.

a. Wiki Loves Africa: the 8th contest since 2014. In June 2022, Wiki Loves Africa images were collectively viewed over 1 billion times!! This significant milestone validated the Wiki In Africa long term goals. It was a huge achievement for Wiki In Africa. Wiki Loves Africa was held from 15th Feb to 30th April 2022 under the theme Home & Habitat. The contest saw 16,064 media files entered by 1111 competitors in 53 countries. 72% of competitors were new to Commons. 32 communities across Africa (and beyond) hosted 40+ documented events. The International Jury and local jury processes are on going . Results: https://w.wiki/5T9Q

b. Wiki Loves Women’s Inspiring Open: Inspiring Open provides an audio presentation of what it is like to be a successful woman in Africa, in her own voice. Each of the 16 women featured is a leader in her field - from a literal rock-star to an educator, a librarian to a technologist, a writer to gender rights activists. The podcast is accessible via the website, 11 international platforms and syndication via Africa Tech Radio. Flipping stereotypes and crashing perceptions, Inspiring Open asks audiences to be challenged and be inspired by the work of Africa’s women. Further, it helps to close citation and media representation gaps by providing citable source material for future research and articles.

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?

During the first quarter of 2022, Wiki Loves Women’s Focus Group focused significant effort towards understand each member’s individual needs and challenges. This was workshopped into a list of ideas and expectations detailed on the Focus Group vision board (https://w.wiki/5T9Z), and resulted in a comprehensive prioritized list of topic suggestions, skill needs and additional areas of possible engagement. In addition, each monthly Working Session has been reconfigured to include a learning session, followed by an active real-life, real-challenges discussion on each topic.

The 2022 WikiChallenge has been completed and a thorough investigation conducted into the impact of the project. Video interviews and feedback can be found in French in this flip archive : https://flipgrid.com/29d8edda

Wiki Loves Africa has yet to be closed, once the winners are announced surveys (August/Sept) will be sent to both organizers and competitors for feedback.

The experience of creating and compiling Inspiring Open has helped to consolidate extensions of the WikiAfrica Hour program. For 2022, there are plans to edit the audio of the past episodes into podcasts in order to provide additional access streams for interested audiences.

It is too soon after the launch of Inspiring Open to assess audience reception. From the guests, we gather impact and experience feed back once their podcast has been posted. Several of these will be shared at Wikimania.

7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?

Wiki Loves Africa
  • July: WLA prize on WPWP
  • Aug: 2022 winners announced
  • Nov: Photography Tips & Tricks series

WLW Focus Group

  • 6 month schedule program
  • Oct-Nov: SheSaid

Inspiring Open

  • 10 episodes to be released
  • Secure funding to continue series in 22-23

WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique

  • Planning for 2023 francophone edition
  • Plan 2023 Anglophone edition

ISA Tool

  • Aug: ISA Featured Images challenge
  • Nov: ISA MetaData Week “Home and Habitat”
  • Promotion of the tool

WikiAfrica Hour

  • 6 episodes

Part 2: Metrics[edit]

8a. Open and additional metrics data.

Open Metrics
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
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 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
Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors Wiki Loves Women Focus Group members feedback. We’ll seek advice from the Community Resources team on how to best do this. N/A N/A We plan to collect Wiki Loves Women Focus Group members feedback at the end of the year N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications – new followers : 30% increase 30 20 We estimate our reach increase at 20%.

Giving an unique figure is complicated to give. We give 20% as a sort of average, to outline we have reached most of our targets but expect to increase further in the second half of the year (our annual expectation is 30% increase).

Facebook fans: 459 new followers. Now 48k fans across 4 pages

  • WLA – 33,307 likes
  • WLW – 9,098 likes
  • WA – 2142 likes
  • WikiChallenge - 3,338 likes

Instagram: 395 new followers up 25% to 1.6k across 2 profiles

  • WLA - 1355 followers (up 14% from Dec 21)
  • WLW - 236 followers (account started Mar22)

Twitter followers: 512 new followers – up 10% from 4,603 (1 Jan) to 5,113 (31 Jun)

  • WLA – 1929 (9.5% increase in followers - all time)
  • WLW – 1619 (10.2% increase in followers - all time)
  • WA –1565 (10.3% increase in followers - all time)

Linked In - 186 followers (25.8% increase in followers)

SM stats
Number of activities developed N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of volunteer hours N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

8b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants WLA participants = 1,500

Wikiquote participants = 9 x 20 ISA participants = 40 WAHour guests = 12 x 4 WLW Inspiring Open podcast guests = 12

1800 1386 * WLA participants = 1111. Participation is generally aligned with our expectations. The jury process is still ongoing (not counted yet) and the WLA-WPWP contest is taking place in July-August, so not accounted for yet.
  • Wikiquote participants = Activity planned Oct-Dec 2022
  • ISA participants = 40. Four activities are planned in the full year. 2 already took place. Participation is aligned with our expectations
  • WAHour guests = 14 guests. Aligned with our expectations.
  • WLW Inspiring Open podcast guests = 9 for far. Aligned with our expectations.
  • WLW Focus Group : 12. Attendance to office hour and workshops
  • Public speaking: 100. Attendance to our presentations at conference and podcasts
* WLA : direct queries on Commons WLA Category. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2022/Tools
  • ISA : statistic data publicly available on the tool
  • WAH guests : the records of each episode
  • WLW IO podcast : the records of each episode
  • WLW Focus Group : attendance figures of members to events
  • Conferences : Conservative guess that sound reasonable...

Please note

  • some people might have been counted more than once.
  • those figures do not include participation to WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique. In 2022, 9 countries, 69 schools (let’s estimate 50 students per school + 5 adults) : 3800 people
Number of editors WLA participants = 1,500

Wikiquote participants = 9 x 20 ISA participants = 40 WAHour guests = 12 x 4 WLW Inspiring Open podcast guests = 12

1800 1151 * WLA participants = 1111. Participation is generally aligned with our expectations. The jury process is still ongoing (not counted yet) and the WLA-WPWP contest is taking place in July-August, so not accounted for yet.
  • Wikiquote participants = Activity planned Oct-Dec 2022
  • ISA participants = 40. Four activities are planned in the full year. 2 already took place. Participation is aligned with our expectations
* WLA : direct queries on Commons WLA Category. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2022/Tools
  • ISA : statistic data publicly available on the tool
Number of organizers WLA org team members = 21 x 3

WikiAfrica Heritage trained = 15 WLW Focus group members = 12 + 6 additional Note: it is nevertheless likely that some figures overlap between organizers WLW and organizers WLA...

96 151 WLA org local team member organizers = 31 participating groups x 3 people average : 93

WLA global team : 8
WLW Focus group members = 12
WIA staff and core contractors : 8
Non WIA people additionally involved in implementing the activities (ISA, WikiFundi, advisors, WMF staff, outreach partners etc.) : 30

This number does not include the organizers involved in WikiChallenge, estimated to 25 people.

* WLA org local team member organizers : orgs registered to participate in organizing activities, listed on Commons and meta
  • WLA global team : members listed on meta WLA portal page
  • WLW Focus group members : members listed on meta WLW portal page
  • WIA staff and core contractors : on the payroll :)
  • Other people : conservative estimate
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Wikimedia Commons Images collected through Wiki Loves Africa photo contest 8000 16064 Wikimedia Commons : Images collected through Wiki Loves Africa in 2022 Data directly collected from contest category on Commons
Wikiquote Wiki Loves Women she said entries 400 0 Wikiquote : Wiki Loves Women #SheSaid program

This program has not yet been hosted
So no entries recorded

Articles are manually listed by their participants on several languages wikiquote.

This leads to an imperfect result, but the hashtag tool we were formally using is no more working...

Wikimedia Commons ISA descriptions and captions added 50000 26088 Wikimedia Commons: ISA descriptions and captions added during our drives

18674 + 7414 : 26088

We directly use the stats provided by the tool. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:ISA_Tool.

See

Wikipedia WPWP-WLA edits ( revisions + pages modified) 100 0 Wikipedia : WPWP-WLA edits ( revisions + pages modified)

Wikipedia Pages Want Pictures is just starting. So no results yet.

The hashtag tool is no more working. So the impact of that activity is actually incredibly difficult to track.

In the end, our main measurement of impact is Image Reuse %

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?

We did not have problem for this first 6 months, except possibly to evaluate « participants » who are not part of the wikimedia community (impact from podcast, impact from public speaking etc.)

It will be more complicated in the second half of the year, with challenges to track

  • the #SheSaid initiative : edits done on wikiquote in a dozen languages
  • The WPWP contest : using WLA images to improve Wikipedia articles (in any languages)

In the past, we used the hashtag tool, which was not perfect, but a decent tracking solution. The Hashtag tool has been broken for a year.

10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Yes

10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?

We definitely are outward facing.

Here are some examples

  • we create “Results and Best Practices” for many of our initiatives and those are public wiki pages (eg, Wiki Loves Africa), which have many times been used by others to replicate
  • we maintain and regularly update “tool” pages (eg, Wiki Loves Africa or Wiki Loves Women)
  • we host training webinars (such as the workshops for WLA and WLW). This year for example, we had a special focus on image description, image use, and image quality
  • we organize WikiAfrica Hour every month with speakers of our communities, so that they share their own stories with a different audience
  • we provide presentations during “external facing” conferences (eg, OE Global), “internal facing” conference
    (Wikimania, WikiConvention francophone, WikiIndaba, WikidataCon etc.), or during events organized by friends and partners (eg, Description Week)
  • we join partners projects (eg, WPWP organized by Nigerian community)
  • we regularly publish blogs, wikimedia newsletters short texts, or diff articles

There is an effort to do it in English and French at least. Arabic when we can.

We are hoping to share more (eg, on a future Gender Mooc) but this may be quite time consuming. This being said, all of our projects are already very oriented toward training, coaching, and sharing.

11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.

  • Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
  • Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.
All links provided in the resource document. Thanks

Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]

12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

853677

13. Local currency type

ZAR

14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

  • Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
  • Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
Full details here : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MLYb-_cPs7ygzeY-fS99YMFvY-6kNdhbetCshIsaaFk/edit?usp=sharing

15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?

No

15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.

N/A

16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.

Fluid and super useful experience that extend beyond the funding. Thanks guys.