Wikicite/grant/Ghana Histo Cita-thon/Report

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes, we achieved the goals we set for the project.

We believe that the aim of the project, which was to educate and expose members within the Wikimedia Movement in Ghana especially to the perks of using books, journals and newspapers in creating and improving Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items was met. The workshop which was organised was successful as it saw members from different communities participating to learn more. This was followed up with the launch of the contest from 1st December to 31st January which we believe yielded great results with reference to the campaign dashboard. At the end of the contest, 25 people participated, 43 articles were created, 233 articles were improved,228 references were improved.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Organise 3 events thus (training, online edit -a-thon & contest).	1-day training workshop for 20 volunteers that will focus on WikiCite. 6 online training session (once a week) for participants of the editathon 60 days editathon for participants of the training session	We were able to organize a day training for 20 volunteers, We had speakers from George Padmore Library, African Library & Information Associations and Institutions (AFLIA) and Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA) who spoke about Ghana History, Offline and Online library resources and adding citations on Wikidata respectively Six online edit-a-thon were organized for newbies and volunteers who participated in the contests and needed help. Two online sessions were added because of the low turnout during the festive season. We run a contest for participants of the training session. The contest was initially planned for a month but it was later extended to two months after consulting with the participants. It was extended due to the 2020 Ghana General Elections.
Improve 200 existing and new articles which are verifiable and reliable	276 articles were improved and new articles were created which were verifiable and reliable	43 new articles and 233 existing articles were improved with 228 references.A total of 1,164 edits were made.
Create 200 Wikidata items have been created for books, journals and newspapers	Over 2000 Wikidata items for books, journals and newspapers were created during the project.	Wikidata items were created for books, journals and newspapers. User:Billy2ocean who was a new volunteer created over 900 Wikidata items and was the overall winner of the contest.

Lessons learned

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?

Organization: We partnered with the George Padmore Research Library on African Affair, the African wing of the Ghana Library authority. The Research Library house references materials on the Pre and Post Independence of Ghana and Africa. It special collections includes : Letters of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah; Noma Collection; Bureau of African Affairs Collection; Former Drama Studio Collection; Local Language Publications; Back Files of Periodicals and Newspapers, Microfilms and Microfiche Collection and George Padmore's Personal Collection. and we were able to bring them onboard to enlighten participant of our training event on the need to tell the rich Africa Story and how to access reference materials to make our stories verifiable and reliable. We also partnered with African Library & Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) who were really helpful with how to access both online and offline citations for articles.

• What did not work so well?

Gender gap: ladies did not participate much in the project. The campaign period was during the festive period which made it hard for some to participate in the contest though they signed to the dashboard.. Lack of resources such as laptops. For instance, some participants during the workshop used their phones to edit and since they were new it was a challenge to meet their needs.

• What would you do differently next time?

Next time, we will ensure that we use spaces that provide access to computers. Next time, we will involve more ladies in the project by running Social media promotions that targets them. We will also partner with women-led organizations and let them know the need for them to participate to help bridge the gender gap.

Finances

Venue = 200

• Promotion/branding = 250
• Feeding = 535 ( (10*25)+ 285)
• Internet = 700
• Transportation = 50 (10*5)
• Awards = 200
• Miscellaneous = 200
• Total = USD 2135

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project? It was observed that there is indeed great power in using social media to reach out and engage more individuals and institutions to support the Wikimedia Movement. As shared in our project survey after the event, it will be great to hold various editions of the campaign to ensure a continuous bridge of Ghana’s history to support Wikimedia projects such as Wiki Data.