Grants talk:IEG/Mbazzi Village writes Wikipedia/Final

Report accepted

Dear Paul Kiguba,

Thank you for all of the work that you and your team did to complete this Final Report. I am accepting the report now with the following comments:

You and your team have done a laudable job beginning to establish partnerships to support the growth of Luganda Wikipedia. Your work in the village of Mbazzi, as well as through broader partnerships such as those formed at Makerere University, have begun to establish an awareness of Wikipedia that we hope will gradually forge a foundation for a self-motivated network of active volunteers. We deeply appreciate the groundwork you have laid.

That said, I want to acknowledge that a network of active volunteers has not resulted at this time from the work done at the centre. The edit history suggests that there are no active editors that have continued in the wake of the project. Furthermore, the large majority of the articles added in the course of the project appear to be stubs. Per your email, you have listed the following challenges as contributors to these outcomes:

1. Availability of internet is one of the hardest challenges.
2. Poor or no computer skills among the population
3. Very, very few own a personal computer and use it from home.
4. Bad quality of the Internet or no Internet access at all. 
5. Bad quality of the electrical infrastructure with power cuts  all the time. 
6. Low level of knowledge in the rural population, low skills in reading and writing and how to write an interesting article. 
7. Wikipedia is, for a beginner, a very hard way to spread information. 
8. Lack of local Wikipedia support. 
9. Lack of a culture to share knowledge. 
10. No digital cameras. 
11. Wikipedia Zero stopped to function in Uganda.

Furthermore, you noted, "It must be out of  great interest for somebody to buy data to upload articles. At university, internet is still an impediment. If people must volunteer their time to write, it must be an extra mile for them to pay for the expensive internet... From our findings, we have never come across anybody who knew  about the Luganda Wikipedia. Not even within the Administration of the Buganda Kingdom, the custodians  of the Luganda Language. Wherever we go, it is news to the listeners. Therefore, it is not automatic that somebody will get hooked immediately into the passion of writing articles.There is more to do in the struggle to attract more articles."

All of these challenges are very significant obstacles to the creation of a network of active, self-motivated volunteers, which is the most important infrastructure needed for Luganda Wikipedia to sustainably expand. The investment of resources required to overcome obstacles like lack of infrastructure and lack of computer skills is beyond the means of a grantmaking program like this one--especially at scale. Consequently, I don't believe that continued funding of a physical center makes sense. In light of the cost of funding a staffed building, we would want to see greater impact resulting, particularly the emergence of a self-motivated group of volunteers creating quality articles, not just stubs.

That said, there are strides you've made in this project that are really important. Through your outreach, you've begun to build meaningful partnerships, particularly with universities like Makerere, where some of the challenges listed above may be mitigated. We'd like to support you in continuing to build these relationships, which are truly a positive step for Luganda Wikipedia. I would be interested in brainstorming with you about how we can best support you in this work.

Thank you for all of your good work on this project.

Best regards,

Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:13, 20 September 2016 (UTC)