Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Medicinal Herbs Project

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statusNot funded
Wiki Medicinal Herbs Project
start date2023-06-01
end date2023-09-30
budget (local currency)14108910.03 NGN
amount requested (USD)30738.37 USD
grant typeGroup of individuals not registered with an organization
funding regionSSA
decision fiscal year2022-23
funding program roundRound 2
applicant and people related to proposalUser:Oludegun , User:Debolaglamour and User:Tunde247

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Applicant details[edit]

Wikimedia username(s):

User:Oludegun , User:Debolaglamour and User:Tunde247

Organization:

G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?

Applied previously and did receive a grant

H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?

No

H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?

N/A

M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?

No

M1. Fiscal organization name.

N/A

Additional information[edit]

R. Where will this proposal be implemented?

Nigeria

S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:

Local

S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.

T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)

  1. https://www.openglamafrica.org/
#https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_GLAM_Africa/Projects
  1. https://twitter.com/glam_open

M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?

No

M1. Fiscal organization name.

N/A

Proposal[edit]

1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?

Overall vision [edit]

We want to prevent the extinction of African legacy, knowledge, art, and culture by making it accessible to the following generation and made available under open licenses.

How does this proposal contribute to this?[edit]

By developing medicinal knowledge and information under open licenses and making it available in indigenous languages to benefit indigenous people who require access to such content in their native tongues, this proposal will support the aim mentioned above.

To accomplish this goal, the initiative will concentrate on two crucial factors;

  • Language as an Intangible Cultural Heritage: According to UNESCO, 40% of the world's population needs education in the language they comprehend (1). Moreover, Article (2)2 of the Unesco Convention states that language is an Intangible Cultural Heritage that must be preserved. It also characterizes languages as oral traditions and expressions, including Language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural legacy as one of the realms in which the intangible cultural heritage is manifested (2). Their language determines the ethnicity of the culture's carriers. Because it embodies ethnocultural, psychological, and mythical concepts and experiences, it plays a significant role in national development and is the repository of each nation's intangible legacy.

As a result of imperialism and colonization of African states, most of the colonized nations are known for using foreign languages as official languages and so useful for research, commerce and business, meetings, teaching and learning, contracts, etc. In contrast, the local languages are used primarily for communications at home and among friends. Hence, foreign or official languages commonly serve as a medium for preserving knowledge and vital information among the colonized nations. Nigeria was a British colony, and English was its official Language. Most of the research works, knowledge, and works produced by professionals in the country are available in English. Hence, much of its medical knowledge is available in the Language that most of its populace might understand, and there is a high demand to make this information available in local languages.

  • Endangered Medical Knowledge: Unlike patient-specific data, it refers to the body of knowledge about diseases, causes and etiology, medicines and interactions, and lab test interpretation broadly applicable to judgments concerning many patients and public health policy.

In Nigeria, a developing country, 12.9% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty as of 2022, according to statistics (3). As a result of the facts mentioned above, 160 million Nigerians, or 80% of the population, use herbalists as alternate methods of managing their health. Sadly, important data and knowledge regarding this area of expertise are unavailable in local tongues where people may use them. Ref:

  1. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000243713
  2. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000135870
  3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1287827/number-of-people-living-in-extreme-poverty-in-nigeria-by-gender/

2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?

The Change that this effort aims to bring about are;

We seek to make medical information available in native languages by increasing the inclusion of the body of knowledge among those who are not included in this spectrum.

Why is the project important? Nigeria comprises 36 states plus a Federal Capital Territory located in the western part of the continent. It is Africa's largest country in terms of population, with over 200 million people. There are over 500+ languages representing 25% of the entire languages on the continent. English is the official language, and Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa are the most popular indigenous languages. Nigeria is a developing nation, and statistical (1) reported that 12.9 percent of the global population in extreme poverty was found in Nigeria as of 2022. As a consequence of the mentioned statistics, 80% (160 million of the population) of the Nigerian population patronize herbal practitioners as an alternative means for their health management(2) Unfortunately, vital knowledge and information about this field of expertise are unavailable in local languages where people can access them. So, this project is important in many ways.

  • It helps to identify popular medical knowledge among the population not available in local content and make them public.

The project will promote knowledge inclusion by ensuring local people who hitherto cant access medical knowledge in their language can now do so. De-anglicization of medical knowledge- According to the National Library of Medicine, Absolute numbers for 2007: among 5204 journals in Medline, 4609 (88.6%) were in English, 98 (1.9%) in German, and 81 (1.6%) in French(3). As a result of this scenario, We intend to make more medical content available in local languages.

  • The project will promote the usefulness of local languages in preserving vital information and knowledge for the next generation by making the identified medical knowledge available in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Gungbe, Funfide, etc
  • It will promote collaborative work among the Wikimedia community and medical professionals in Nigeria.

The project will tend to recruit medical professionals volunteers as Wikimedia editors into the Wikimedia community in Nigeria. Ref

  1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1287827/number-of-people-living-in-extreme-poverty-in-nigeria-by-gender/
  2. https://punchng.com/80-nigerians-patronise-herbal-medicine-practitioners/
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › articles › PMC2696676

3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.

We intend to use four main strategies;

1.We will translate medical content from English into native languages
2.Provide documentary evidence of medical expertise through the following ways;
a. Create a bibliography of medical herbs in local languages.
b.Creating audiovisual resources to show oral knowledge documentation of specific herbs' therapeutic properties.
3.Teaching our prospective partners' staff employees how to contribute to Wikipedia and its sister projects.
4. Archiving the project's digitized content on a platform that supports open licensing.
5 Edit-a-thon, where we will use the materials created by the initiative to enhance Wikipedia and its sibling projects.

Why do you think they'll be successful?

1. The project is unique in using an open license to demonstrate the advantages of herbal remedies within the Wikimedia movement.
2. Because English is considered as the medical language(1), more than 160 million Nigerians couldn't access important information and can now do so in their native languages.
3. The initiative plans to employ audiovisual content to convey the medical benefits of herbs because spoken messages are simpler to understand and follow than written ones.
4. The initiative will be one of the few ways to recruit medical volunteers for the movement.

Ref (1) NLM National Institutes of Health website: pmc/articles/PMC2696676

4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?

The following initiatives are planned for implementation as part of the methods and strategies;

1. Translation of medical knowledge; our team will collaborate with the Wiki Project Med Foundation to create medical content that will be translated from English to regional languages by teaming up with language-focused Wikimedia affiliates and proofreading by institutions/institutions that specialize in the respective languages.
2. The project will collaborate with accredited medical professionals in local languages to compile a bibliography of therapeutic herbs using published work from credible sources.
3. To present the narrative of the medical advantages of herbal medicine in regional languages, the initiative will collaborate with medical specialists to create audiovisual content.
4. The video material will be preserved on an open-source platform that supports it, such as Wikimedia Commons, Internet Archives, the US Library of Congress
5. To enhance the reading experience for users and support the material supplied on wiki pages, we will arrange series of edit-a-thons to use the videos on pertinent Wikipedia sites.
6. Awareness; We will donate audiovisual resources to mission-aligned institutions to promote research and educational efforts, such as universities, embassies, etc.
7. Staff training for institutional partners to help with the Wikimedia movement's recruitment of medical specialists.

5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?      

No

5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?

N/A

6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.

7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?

===Project team===;

1. Project Coordinator: Pharm. Adebola Ayomide Kasali (Certified Pharmacist) (username: Debolaglamour),

Role: Coordinates every task, manages schedules, Manages meetings, and ensures budget is used for the originally planned purpose, identifies and liaises with partners, assigns tasks to team members, and follows up. Engagement; Salaried

2. Wikipedia In Residence; Ibrahim, Abiodun Ayinla (Username: Oludegun)

Role; He connects the project to other Wikimedia projects and affiliates and organizes training for partner staff, edit-a-thons, and mentoring programs. Engagement; Volunteer

3. Documentary filmmaker; Dimeji Babatunde; coordinates audiovisual production and manages the production crew.

Engagement: Salaried

4. Medical Advisor; Dr (Mrs) Temi Ajayi, Ph.D., pharmacognosist, supports the project with her knowledge of pharmacognosy.

Engagement: Volunteer.

5. Documentation Officer; manages all the project documentation, Metadata, and designs and maintains the medical elicitation protocol for interview.

Engagement: Salaried.

6. Location Manager ( Vacant); manages logistics for all the field works

Engagement: Volunteer.

8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.

Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial

8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.

We will partner with The Wiki Project Med to translate its published medical works into local languages. We will also produce audiovisual materials that we can use to improve the quality of Wikipedia and its sister project. These tasks will be carried out as follows:

1. We plan to partner with at least three local Wikimedia affiliates' languages in Nigeria - Yoruba, Dungbe, Hausa, and Igbo.

2 Organise a series of translate-a-thon to translate Medical content to the local languages in partnership with experienced Wikimedians and proofread the published content by language experts and professionals to enhance the quality of work.

4. The team plans to list over 50 medicinal herbs and their benefits in local languages by referencing authorized sources and medical experts.
5. The team will produce audiovisual content to improve Wikipedia articles' quality in the focused areas.

9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.

Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Advocacy, Diversity

10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.

Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Linguistic / Language

11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?

The Wiki Herbal Medicine plans to partner with Medical experts (individuals and organizations) within the space of herbal medicine. Our approaches for engaging participants include but are not limited to the followings;

1. Organise a series of translate-a-thons in indigenous languages like Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Tyap, etc.
2. The project will recruit medical experts with knowledge of the local languages to review the translated content for quality assurance.
3. The project will produce audiovisual content in the local language through medical experts to explain the medicinal benefits of herbal medicine.
4. Recruitment of medical expert volunteers into the community through training and mentoring programs using Wikipedia and its sister project.
5. The project will work with medical and language experts and reliable sources to build a bibliography of medicinal herbs' benefits to humankind.

12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?

Our team is familiar with the Universal Code of Conduct and the Friendly Space Policy. We will ensure that our partners and Wikimedia affiliates working with us on this project see the importance of UCOC and the consequences of bad behaviors within the community. Some highlights will include the behavior expected from every community member.

13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?

Yes

13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.

Wiki Herbal Medicine project intends to work with Wikimedia affiliates whose work focuses on Language and medicinal contents.

1. We have gotten the consent of the Wiki Project Med Foundation to use their published works for our translate-a-thons. Our team emailed the team and explained our planned activities with the Foundation, and they agreed to work with us.
2. We have contacted Language based Wikimedia affiliates in Nigeria, like Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Tyap, etc., to work withtheir experienced community members. They have shown interest in working with us on the project.

14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?

Yes

14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.

1. Yoruba World Center: The center focuses on the documentation and preservation of Yoruba heritage, e.g., arts, language, clothes, etc. The organization is motivated to join the project because it promotes using and protecting the Yoruba language.

The center will partner with us to provide linguists who will help proofread published articles by Wikimedians to enhance the quality of work and avoid misrepresenting terms.

2. Department of Herbs at the University of Ibadan; The department will provide information on herbal medicinal content for the bibliography.
3. Teddy Bioscience Laboratory, Akure- Assist in identifying plants and their phytochemicals.
4. Nigeria Institute of Medical Research- Support with medical information to support findings.
5. Ibadan College of Natural Medicine ( ICNM)- Support with information to support the proposed medical bibliography and feature in the audiovisual documentary.

15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?

Using the following model strategy, we plan to sustain this project after the grant. We plan to sustain this project after the grant using the model strategy.

1. Our partners will be carried along from the beginning of the project and trained on the various basis involved in the project execution so that they replicate it after the project.
2. We intend to reach out to other interested donors in the medical world on the importance of the project and the need to support it.
3. We plan to evaluate the entire project to understand areas needing further attention and those that need to be dropped.
4. We plan to develop very strong communication and marking plans that can tell the story of the importance of the project to the medical world and the need to be supported.

16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.

The team anticipates the following risks and mitigate in the following ways :
1. Risk- The likelihood of misrepresenting medical terms in local languages

Mitigation- The project intends to engage linguistics and medical experts that will proofread all translated documents before publication.

2. Risk- We envisage a lack of or inadequate materials for the project.

Mitigation- We have consulted a reliable organization with a track record in documenting medical knowledge eg Wiki Project Med Foundation and the Department of Herbs at the University of Ibadan

3. Risk- We envisage the challenges in the project continue after the expiration of the grant

Mitigation- We are talking to donors within the Medical space who are interested in supporting this project.

17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.

Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge

18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.  

Yes

Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]

19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?

The following information regarding the project results will be of interest to the team:

1. The effects of content localization and how quickly indigenous people access, accept, and use resources.
2. How effective is using the regional tongues to convey medical information?
3. The simplicity of finding resource people to work on the regional languages with a medical project in mind.
4. How many published works can be used as references for the project's main topic?

20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.

Main Metrics Description Target
Translate-a-ton We want to host a series of translate-a-thons to translate medical information released in English by the Wiki Project Med Foundation into regional Nigerian languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Dungbe, and Tyap. 1
Audiovisual materials We intend to create at least 30 audiovisuals narrated by medical professionals on the therapeutic advantages of regional plants in indigenous Nigerian languages. 30
Edit-a-thons We intend to host a number of edit-a-thons to assist in developing fresh and improved articles about notable herbs and their advantages in regional languages. 3
Articles to be translated We plan to translate 20 articles each into local languages ( Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Tyap) 60
Article to be created and improved We plan to create 20 new articles on notable medicinal herbs per local language and improve at least ten each. 60

Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.

Additional Metrics Description Target
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities These are the experienced editor that we plan to recruit for the translation and edit-a-thon. A least 10 editor each per langauges 40
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities Tranlate-a-thon: this task will be handled by experienced wiki medians and proofread by linguists. 10 Wikipedians per project and

Edit-a-thons: This task will be anchored by experienced wiki medians per project (10 per project) = 40 Proofreaders= due to the sensitivity of this project, we will recruit linguists to proofread content created by wiki medians 1 per project.

36
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability These external people or groups will collaborate with us on the project to assist the skill sets that are not present on the team.
1. The Wiki Project Med Foundation
2. Yoruba World Center
3. Department of Pharmacognosis University of Ibadan
4. Teddy Biosciences Laboratory:

5 Department of the Pharmacognosis Federal University of Technology Akure

5
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors N/A N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Tyap are just a few of the communities that the project will attempt to involve. We also make sure that gender equality is upheld. 40
Number of people reached through social media publications We deploy the use of social media to create awareness for the project 1000
Number of activities developed N/A N/A
Number of volunteer hours The hours of volunteers that will be deployed in this program. 720

21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target
Number of participants 1. Training; We intend to familiarize our potential partner employees with Wikipedia; 5 employees per partner (25)
2. Production team: The following individuals will be a part of the project's audiovisual production:

Cameraman, post-production, producer, etc. (3)

28
Number of editors N/A 40
Number of organizers The project will recruit three main organizers
1. Project Coordinator
2. Document Officer
3. Logistics Officer
4. Wikipedia In Residence
4
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target
Wikipedia Number of new and improved articles each (40 each Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Tyap) 160
Wikimedia Commons At least 30 Audiovisual will be produced and uploaded to Wikimedia commons 30
Wikidata We will maintain wiki data items for each new items 80
N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A

21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.

N/A

22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?

Wikimedia Outreach dashboard

Financial Proposal[edit]

23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.

14108910.03 NGN

23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?

30738.37 USD

23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.

23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.

I have included a sheet to the budget template explaining the budget breakdown

Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.

Other public document(s):

Final Message[edit]

By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.

We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes


Feedback[edit]