Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Ghana User Group Project Grant 2022-2023
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Applicant details[edit]
Wikimedia username(s):
- User:Owula kpakpo
Organization:
- Wikimedia Ghana User Group
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?
- Ghana
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)
- Website: www.wmgh.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaGhanaUG
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WikimediaGH
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wikimedia-ghana-user-group/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wikimediaghana/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyeg0bvC7_Dn5CeUtU3DLnA
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?
In the past nine years, our vision has been to give the Wikimedia movement visibility in Ghana.
Through the activities outlined in this proposal, Wikimedia products can be discovered by more Ghanaian internet users. We can share Wikimedia values, locate those who align with them and build the capacity of Ghanaian content creators to contribute to Wikimedia projects.
Activities in this proposal will use tools like Nimble we started creating in 2021/22, engage editors recruited over the years, and share our Wikimedia public and advocacy work since 2020.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
Compared to other digital content products by companies like Meta, Alphabet, ByteDance, Twitter etc., in Ghana, Wikimedia wikis (and the Movement) are just as valuable and still obscure to internet users.
Through workshops and online public relations campaigns, sharing our advocacy work, this grant will tackle ignorance about content creation for Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, ignorance about the Movement behind the content, and address the low numbers of active editors in Ghana.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
1. Wikipedia editing is still considered niche. We want to demystify editing or knowledge about editing.
- 2. We want to make access to the Wikipedia community and projects very easy for the average Ghanaian to know about.
- 3. Develop community engagement tools to increase engagement with our community and empower them to further our work.
- 4. Empower our community to take the initiative and support them in that regard.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
1. Policy And Advocacy The "Policy And Advocacy" would support the expansion of the work we are doing in "Freedom of Panorama", "Wikipedia Language Project", and Movement Strategy implementation conversations. On the back of FOP, we want to get the Government starting with the Parliament of Ghana, to adopt open licensing of public documents and websites.
Activities
- 1. Present the Freedom Of Panorama roadmap to the Parliament of Ghana and other public interest groups to start public education on Government can help us adopt it.
- 2. Finish and share the Wikipedia Language Project white paper with the Wikimedia community and the Ghanaian population using our media partners and selected educational language institutions.
- 3. Start implementing the movement strategy initiatives, which we have already started with our language research and white paper—targetting more marginalized people like women, children and people from other regions in our discussions. Also, start working on peer learning and capacity-building initiatives for members of our community.
- 2. Community Development
The "Community Development" program seeks to improve our work concerning memberships-focused activities and improve the user group's community culture. This program will implore strategies we have learned to grow our community and get them fully integrated into the Wikimedia movement.
Activities
- 1. Annual General Meeting
- 2. Training of the Trainer Programs
- 3. Membership Drive
- 4. Membership Sustainability Drive
- 5. Wikimania Scholarships
- 6. Quarterly Community Meetings
- 7. Board Retreats and Capacity Building
- 8.Community Grants
- 3. Increasing Participation
The "Increasing Participation" program would be building on the work we are already doing, building online tools (Nimble) for trainers and new editors. It will also grow more partnerships to increase the number of people we intend to recruit. Use Twitter Spaces to educate the Ghanaian community and Africa on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Activities
- 1. Finish building and start using Nimble as a tool for the recruitment of new editors for Wikipedia and our community.
- 2. Engage with the Twitter Ghana team to help us gain visibility as we host Twitter Spaces on "Wikipedia Hour".
- 4. Content Creation
The "Content Creation" program would aid in spearheading the content creation drive by engaging various types of editors and volunteers. We would use the online tool "Nimble", which we are currently testing, to do many new editor recruitments. Engage our existing partners growing facilitators and empower them to lead workshops and editathons in their various communities.
Activities
- 1. Participate in the All African Games hosted in Ghana in 2023. We would take photos of the tournament participants and upload them to Wikimedia Commons to improve their Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items.
- 2. Organize 12 editathons across the regions in Ghana.
- 3. Engage GIJ, the University of Professional Studies Accra, and GIMPA to further our partnerships with education programs.
- 4. Create new partnerships and opportunities to introduce Wikipedia projects to many Ghanaians.
- 5. Grow a community of editors for the Ga Language to further its move from the incubator and make sure Ga Wikipedia becomes live soon.
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?
Team Members Name: Justice Okai-Allotey Role: Grantee and Board Member Username: User:Owula kpakpo Responsibilities: General support of grants and funds administration. Would help in the recruitment of a substantive Program Manager and all advertised roles below.
Name: Robert Obiri Role: Community Manager (Paid role contract) Username: User:Robertjamal12 Responsibilities: Support program manager in general grant support and program administration. This is also a temporal role which ended with the previous grant program.
Name: Enock Seth Nyamador Role: Advisor and Board Member Username: User:Enock4seth Responsibilities: Provides advice on programs and overall grant administration. Enock has been a long-time Wikipedia volunteer and a member of our user group.
Vacant Position
Program Manager (Paid Role)
Software Developer for Nimble (Paid Role)
Administrative Intern (will receive stipends)
Communications Intern (will receive stipends)
Volunteer Facilitators (will receive stipends)
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.
Geography, Language, Content Gender gap
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 want to address content gaps by creating content campaigns that will bridge some of the gaps we have on the various Wikipedia changes. We want to empower a few language editors, especially speakers of the Ga language, to write and move it to the main space on Wikipedia.
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.
Advocacy, Public Policy, Open Technology
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.
Gender Identity, Linguistic / Language, Digital Access
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
In the coming year, we want to engage in a lot of communication regarding our work through Twitter Spaces, a platform provided by Twitter. We would also seek partnerships with various media organizations and consistently engage with the work we are doing to drive awareness.
Community Members: These are registered Wikimedia Ghana User Group members who have been part of the user group over the years. We offer different kinds of membership depending on what the volunteers sign up for themselves.
Government Agencies: We will be working with the staff of government agencies, especially the Parliament of Ghana and the Ministry of Information.
General Public: The general Ghanaian population is one of the main targets of our work and benefits from the knowledge we share on public platforms. We recruit volunteers, editors and participants from the general public. When doing a program involving the general public, we announce it openly and invite them to participate. There are no age limits. You must read, write, and use a laptop or mobile device.
Other Wikimedia Affiliates: Other Wikimedia affiliate volunteers from other communities are always invited to our training, workshops and editathons.
Educational Institutions: We run Wikipedia Education Program, which targets educational institutions and the students involved in the schools. We have held education programs and workshops for them in the past, and we will continue.
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?
Yes, we are very much involved in the UCOC process as a User Group, and we always make mention of Wikimedia's Friendly Space Policy during all our events. We constantly share all new development of the UCOC with our community and actively encourage them to be very active in the process. Also, we actively train people on the UCOC and Friendly space policy during all our in-person and online events.
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.
Our grant proposals have always been public documents. In the run-up to this grant proposal, we sent out a newsletter calling on all our members to make inputs into our new grant.
Find the link here: https://mailchi.mp/6a3c40071403/wikipedia-in-local-ghanaian-languages-15917525
Our current 2021/2022 grant proposal can be found on Meta here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_Ghana_User_Group/2021
You can find our activity and grant reports here as well on our Meta page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Ghana_User_Group
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.
The Parliament of Ghana, in the past, has offered us in-kind support by donating images to one of our programs. In this same light, we would be working with them to further the programs we have planned with them.
We plan on working with Twitter Ghana in the coming year to reach an agreement to use their platform to intensify our programs' public education.
Media partners: We have previously worked with a few media organizations to spread the news or our programs. We would intensify the already established partnerships for this grant as well.
Tech Hubs: We partner with tech hub spaces to run our workshops and editathons in different regions in Ghana. We would continue that partnership with them to host more of our workshops.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
Our partners are independent organisations in their own rights who already run programs on their own. And since the programs we run mutually benefit our partners, they more often invite us over when they run programs requiring our input. Some of the work empowers members in the various partner's communities so they can continue from where we have left off and would receive support from us.
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.
- 1. Financial Risks
The grantee would ensure proper record keeping of all financial obligations and help the auditors produce timely audit reports of all amounts spent per Ghanaian laws.
- 2. Covid-19 Risks
All approved Covid-19 risk assessment protocols of the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Ghanaian government would always adhere to them. Ghana is currently very open and has relaxed Covid-19 protocols allowing in-person events.
- 3. Timely Hiring of Paid Contractors
Once this proposal is approved, the Wikimedia Ghana User Group board will initiate hiring processes and ensure suitable candidates are hired in time for the start of the grant year.
- 4. Capacity Building
We would institute capacity-building measures for all paid contractors and volunteers working on implementing the grant. This would allow us to deal with some of the challenges we faced during our previous grant.
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.
Improve User Experience, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Identify Topics for Impact
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.
- No
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
1. What went well for us doing the duration of the grant?
- 2. How many people signed up for each of the events?
- 3. How many new editors have we recruited?
- 4. How many repeat editors did we get to attend our programs?
- 5. How many people are we reaching with our communications?
- 6. What feedback did participants give after each session?
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Participation using Nimble is 500, and we want to reach another 500 in our outreach activities. Then our content creation drive should also give us 300 people. | 1500 |
| Number of editors | We seek to get 500 editors through the content creation drive, and if we are able to retain 90% of them that would be great. | 1000 |
| Number of organizers | Since we would be starting on community grants, we want to do 20 across the various cities in which we have had partnerships. | 20 |
| Number of workshops | The number of workshops and editathons to have across the country. | 35 |
| New Editors | Number of new editors we plan to have by end of yeah | 500 |
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 | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A |
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 | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Number of participants that continue to participate/retained after activities | 300 |
| Number of editors | The number of newly registered users and new editors through nimble. | 500 |
| Number of organizers | The number of organizers we want to train to start carrying out their own training. | 50 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | We want to improve 1500 content pages on Wikipedia comprising of both new pages and existing pages. | 1500 |
| Wikimedia Commons | We are looking at 500 images from the programs we want to have in the year | 500 |
| Wikidata | We would improve 200 Wikidata items | 200 |
| 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?
1. Outreach Dashboard (https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/)
- 2. End-of-event surveys using Google forms
- 3. With Photo competitions, we create a category which we monitor for all to upload their images.
- 4. Sending out surveys using Qualtrics.
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.
- 803595 GHS
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 79420 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- 1. Programme 1: Policy & Advocacy, 1 year= $3,000.00
- 2. Programme 2: Community Development,1 year= $9,500.00
- 3. Programme 3: Increasing Participation,1 year= $9,000.00
- 4. Programme 4: Content Creation ,1 year= $22,000.00
- 5. Paid Contractors & Volunteer Stipends, 1 year= $29,920.00
- 6. Administrative Costs, 1 year= $6000
Total =$79,420.00
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- We have $15,000 remaining funds from last year and that could be deducted from this proposed one should it be approved.
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s): Our banking information has not changed from what the Wikimedia Foundation already have.
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]
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.