Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Election/2024/Candidates/Iwuala Lucy

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Iwuala Lucy (Questions)

Account Iwuala Lucy (talk meta edits global user summary CA)
Candidate details
  • Languages: English and Igbo
  • Region: Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Active wikis: Wikipedia, WikiCommons, Metawiki, Wikiquote, Wikidata
  • Wikimedian since: 2022
Selected home wiki Igbo Wikipedia
Type of seat (regional; community-at-large; or both) (division of regional seats) Regional seat (Sub-Saharan Africa)
Candidate Introduction
Introductory statement / Application summary (maximum 200 words): Why are you running for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee? What would you contribute? Promoting a safe and inclusive online community is one of of my major interest in the community, and I believe that to ensure a respectful and welcoming environment for individuals (notwithstanding the differences), will go a long way to ensure that even newbies a free to express themselves without fear. Also, in terms of what I can offer, I believe that my experiences so far in the movement in various capacities, has equipped me with both conflict resolution and communications skills. Also, I have always been an individual who enjoys working collaborative and as such has had my fair share of the working with diverse groups of people both within and outside the Wikimedia movement to develop and implement policies and procedures that has individuals at the core of its activities. I am also experienced in delivering trainings and programs for newbies in my community. I am committed and dedicated in ensuring that the UCoC is well understood, upheld and enforced consistently without any bias while at same time ready and willing to give ear to issues that concerns members of the community so as to ensure the sustainability of an environment (online and offline) that fosters a progressive and accommodative community.
Please describe your Wikimedia experience (such as contributions to the Wikimedia projects, memberships in Wikimedia organizations or affiliates, experience working on conduct issues in your community, activities as a Wikimedia movement organizer, or participation in building Wikimedia policies). Contribution/Involvement in home Wiki & broader Wikimedia Movement:

I contribute my quota to the growth of the Wikimedia Foundation in so many ways and different capacities as captured below:

Organizational Roles:

  • Co-founded the Igbo Wiki Fan Club, Alvan (under the Igbo Wikimedians User Group) on 9th March, 2022 which recorded a total of 16 registered participants with the theme "Wikipedia in Campus: On Becoming a Wikimedian". The event focused on introducing and teaching, sensitize and training the students of Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, about the Wikimedia Foundation new participants the basics of Wikipedia and translating on the Igbo Wikipedia page. Comprehensive information can be found on the event dashboard. The founding/launch of this project is the most important to me in the sense that it does not only create room for diversification of the Wikimedia community, but also garnered me the platform to reach out to many youths, and most especially, students with SPECIAL NEEDS. And series of wiki-related projects I carried out in the community as can be seen here
Professional Experience, Skills and Education
Please briefly describe 3 situations that show how you worked on, or advised others on, a complex conduct or policy issue. How did you work with others to address the situations? Fund mismanagement: When I tried resolving this issue and t proved beyond my capacity, there was the involvement of experienced individuals in the community who helped to share their experiences as a case study and through this, a peaceful resolution was achieved.
Leadership Experience
Can you describe a policy, on wiki or off, that you helped to create or change? What did you learn from this experience? Ensuring that being a newbie does not prevent a dedicated but newbie wikimedian or even new wikimedia community from accessing local community fund to implement a unique and important project. And this policy has come to be accepted in our community.
How have you been able to empower people to make their voices heard? Having served and currently serving as a Grant Reviewer, Wikimedia User Group Nigeria Community Support Fund, I have always advocated for empowering newbie wikimedians who are dedicated and has depicted consistency in the activities of the movement. I do this by advocating they be given opportunity to implement a local project in their community level so as to encourage and imbue this sense of confidence in them. Once their application met all the necessary criteria needed and in good standing with the community, I always encourage approval of their applications and through this, we have seen quite a good number of positive outcome from this new but dedicated individuals. And through this means, they are empowered and challenged to even perform much better than their previous activities.
Sometimes in professional situations, there are personality conflicts. Explain how you remain productive even with personality conflicts. I believe that every individual has their way of seeing the world and such, what I may see as number 9 may seem as number 6 and as such needs patience to explain so as to ensure understanding. So, I have always had this handy in conflict situations and with patience, there's definitely bound to be a mutual understanding that would resolve such conflict situations. In a situation this mutual understanding fails to work, I always seek advice from experienced individuals who would definitely intervene so as to ensure peaceful resolution.
Strategic Thinking
In your opinion, how can the U4C be a positive influence in the Wikimedia movement? With every member of the U4C bringing and sharing something meaningful learnt and assimilated over time from their different communities, I believe that each member has something unique and important to extend to the U4C policies which would be a positive influence on the Wikimedia Movement.
How would you help the Universal Code of Conduct develop and improve over time? I believe every individual from different communities have something new to offer and as such, I will be ready and willing to share my experiences in different roles I have contributed so far and ensure that some of these ideas I being introduced and implemented so as to help develop and improve the Universal Code of Conduct on the long run.