Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda/2020 - 2021 Annual Report

The Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda was recognized as a Wikimedia user group in June 2018. This report outlines the accomplishments of the user group including activities organized between July 2020 and June 2021.

July - December 2020[edit]

Luganda Wikipedia Webinar[edit]

This was held on 22 August 2020 and was aimed at not only sensitising participants on editing and the presence of their local language (Luganda) on Wikipedia but also how they could get involved with the User Group to contribute in ways like standardising Luganda vocabulary online.

Uganda. Tanzania: Seeking Sources[edit]

Poster for Uganda.Tanzania Seeking Sources, August 2020

Between July - August 2020, Wikimedia Community User Group Tanzania and the Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda collaborated on a regional effort under the global 1Lib1Ref campaign. The event had the following aims:

Encourage recruitment and participation of local GLAM communities and workers in East Africa.
Increase EA-GLAM specific content on Wikipedia.
Encourage participants to strengthen the quality of content English, Luganda and Swahili wikipedians.
Leverage the existing bibliographic knowledge of participants.
Improve the information literacy in relation to identifying, assessing and using reliable sources.

Below are some useful links:

WMUGU Annual General Meeting (AGM)[edit]

This was held on 12th September, 2020 by the Wikimedia Uganda to discuss the challenges and success of the 2019 projects including annual plans for 2020/2021, projects and learning points in the previous projects. The user group also worked on the annual grant application.

Wiki For Refugees 2020[edit]

The #Wiki4Refugees Editathon Sprint is an initiative of Platform Africa and the Wikimedia User Group in Uganda aimed at gathering diverse stakeholders from Refugee Settlements in Uganda to co-create and collectively improve information about Refugee Settlements on Wikipedia, the world’s largest collaborative knowledge base. The second editathon in 2020 was held as a Virtual event from September 13th, 2020 to October 1st, 2020.

With a total of 16 editors, 34 articles were created, 75 articles edited, 676 total edits, 45.5k words added, 269 references added, 292k article reviews and 124 commons upload.

Link to WikiForRefugees Meta Page:
Link to WikiForRefugees outreach dashboard.

Here are images of the sceneries at Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement.

Water point in Rhino camp refugee settlement
Hope primary school in Rhino camp refugee settlement
Ocea C Early Childhood Development Centre

Movement Strategy (Wikimedia 2030)[edit]

The User group took part in Movement Strategy (recommendation) Prioritization events between 30^th September - 14^th December 2020. The theme for these events was Transition into implementation.

Opening of the 5th December event by Katherine Maher.

This included local, regional, and global conversations with;

East African affiliates
Local Usergroup Volunteers
Global conversations with other Wikimedians.

Movement Communications Focus Groups[edit]

The User group members participated in the Movement Communications insights. This activity by the WMF Communications Department started with community consultations through office hours on 2^nd December 2020. The theme was How the Foundation can better support communities with communications. Some of the results from these insights included;

Build a better front door. Create a single point of entry for information, support and resources from the Foundation.
Use humans. Take a human-centered approach to communications -- as opposed to a tech-centric or channel-centric approach. Hire regional communications specialists that can localize, listen, represent, support and amplify. Clarify who talks to the movement.
Speak human. Use language that is simple, relatable and translatable. Showcase the humans behind the communications. Resist the temptation to over-explain when issues are complex or to be vague rather than acknowledge when details are unknown.
Balance “broadcast” with “on-demand.” Invest more in centralizing and storing movement information so that people can access what they need, when they need it.
Coordinate, then communicate. Coordinate within the Foundation first, and then communicate with the larger movement. Avoid causing confusion by failing to align internally first.
Clarify, connect and reflect. Use the Foundation’s platforms to tell the movement’s story centered on these three communications goals.

Useful links

Movement communications insight report

Wiki Soccerthons[edit]

This was a project that started as a pilot between 20^th August - 20^th November 2020. It was carried out with a theme of Community, content and outreach focusing on association football in selected District Football Associations of the Ugandan league. This project had similar objectives of the User group's Diversity and content generation program, but also two unique objectives;

Increasing the diversity of Wikimedia volunteers.
Increasing the geographical reach (footprint) of the User group in Uganda.

Some of the outcomes from the project included;

An outreach was made which ensured awareness of User group activities beyond Kampala: in Mbale, Jinja, and Iganga.
- Volunteers in Jinja contacted the User group in February 2021 (at the end of the pilot project) with interest in more activities.
- Contact was made with two new education institutions for future User group activities, also resuming collaboration with one additional institution which the User group had worked with in the past.
- A focused team of 8 female volunteers participated.
The project provided an avenue for volunteer retention by providing an opportunity for new and existing User group volunteers to get involved in leading roles for event and training preparation.
A total of 11 editors were able to participate: editing 3 articles and uploading 24 commons upload, despite this being a pilot project limited by limitation to most of the offline activities.

January - June 2021[edit]

WMUGU Annual Planning Meeting[edit]

The Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda had its annual planning meeting in February 2021. This was to review the Annual Grant Budget plan for 2021, review the NGO registration criteria such as constitution, defining the roles of volunteers under Wikimedia Uganda.

Wiki Loves Africa 2021[edit]

Wiki Loves Africa is an annual contest where anyone across Africa can contribute media that relates to that year's theme to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wiki Loves Africa encourages participants to contribute media (photographs, video and audio) that illustrate the specific theme for that year. Each year the theme changes. Each year's theme is chosen by the community to be a universal, visually-rich and culturally-specific topics (for example, markets, rites of passage, festivals, public art, cuisine, natural history, urbanity, daily life, notable persons, etc.).

The theme for the 2021 contest was Health and Wellness, and took place from 15th February 2021 until 15th of April 2021.

Some of the Outcomes included;

A total of 506 content pages and 58 uploaders/participants
A total of 7 images used in other Wikis

Link to WikiLovesAfrica 2021 video
Link to Wiki Loves Africa 2021/Uganda Commons Page.
Link to Wiki Loves Africa 2021 Meta Page.

WikiGap 2021[edit]

WikiGap is an event during which people around the world gather to add more content to Wikipedia about women figures, experts and role models in various fields. Similar events were arranged worldwide to improve women’s representation on the internet and bring about a more gender-equal internet – and a more gender-equal world.

This year, the Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented through the Swedish embassy to Uganda, and Internet Society of Uganda Chapter organized a WikiGap Contest from on 8th March to 8th April 2021 with four regional events in Kampala (Embassy of Sweden), Mbarara (Mbarara University of Science and Technology), Tororo (Busitema University) ,and Gulu (Gulu University) as well as an online event with an aim of bridging the content gap about the African woman on Wikipedia.

With a total of 42 editors, we created 250 articles, 363 articles edited, 2.7k total edits,238k words added, 1.18k references added, 41.1k articles reviews, and 87 commons uploaded.

Link to WikiGap Meta Page.
Link to WikiGap Outreach dashboard.

Here are pictures from the four regional editathons conducted in Four Regional Universities in Uganda.

Wikigap uganda2021
WikiGap 2021 Editathon in Kampala
WikiGap 2021 in Mbarara University
WikiGap 2021 in Busitema

Wiki For Refugees 2021[edit]

The #Wiki4Refugees Editathon Sprint is an initiative of Platform Africa and the Wikimedia Community User Group in Uganda aimed at gathering diverse stakeholders from Refugee Settlements in Uganda to co-create and collectively improve information about Refugee Settlements on Wikipedia, the world’s largest collaborative knowledge base. The editathon this year was held from May 15, 2021 to June 15, 2021 at Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement. The program involved Intensive training on how to update/ edit and add articles to Wikipedia, Edit-a-thon aimed at improving stub articles and creating new entries about critical topics, underrepresented groups, initiatives and putting up-to-date figures about refugees, and creating content for upload on Wikimedia Commons including videos, audios, and videos to document the life of refugees in Uganda.

With a total of 18 editors, 39 articles was created, 86 articles edited, 317 total edits, 31k words added, 149 references added, 5.35M articles reviews, and 10 commons uploads.

Link to WikiForRefugees Meta Page.
Link to WikiForRefugees outreach dashboard.
Link to WikiForRefugees May 2021 YouTube Video.

Below are some pictures for the editathon and event.

Poster for Wiki For Refugees 2021 Editathon in Uganda]]
Wiki For Refugees 2021 in Uganda
Wiki For Refugees 2021 Editathon in Uganda
Wiki For Refugees 2021 in Uganda

Wikipedia in African Libraries - Uganda meetup[edit]

A number of librarians from Uganda signed up for AfLIA's Wikipedia in African Libraries project and it was important for the user group to reach out to them for support and continuity. The meeting was held on 10th April and hosted by the National Library of Uganda.

Wiki For Human Rights 2021[edit]

The #WikiForHumanRights is an initiative by Wikimedia User Group in Uganda with the theme "Right to a healthy environment" aimed at writing about human rights, environmental health and diverse communities impacted by environmental issues around the world. The purpose was also to celebrate Earth Day starting on April 15 to May 15, 2021.

Every human being should have a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment to live in. Fortunately, the right to a healthy environment is partly recognized in one way or another in more than 150 countries worldwide. For #WikiForHumanRights, we encouraged Wikimedia's and advocates to document on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms the story of these rights which enable safe and stable climate, healthy ecosystems and a non-toxic environment: we can increase knowledge about the healthy natural systems upon which all people rely for the water they drink, the air they breathe, the food they eat and the resources they need.

Fulfilling the human right to a healthy environment empowers those most affected by environmental harms such as pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss to defend the environment, participate in decision-making, and access justice. Like COVID-19, environmental degradation disproportionately affects different communities: including persons, groups and peoples in vulnerable situations. Better knowledge about human rights and the environment, helps society recover from COVID-19: understanding the knowledge related to these will help communities around the world decision making at all levels will ultimately lead to a more effective and greener crisis response and recovery.

With about 17 editors, we were able to create 33 articles including on Wikipedia and Wikidata, 39 articled edited, 1.12k total edits,23.3k words added, 188 references added, 4.09k article reviewed, and 400 commons upload.

Link to WikiForHumanRights meta page
Link to WikiForHumanRights outreach dashboard
Link to articles translated to Luganda

Here are a few images of participants during the editathon.

Wiki For Human Rights 2021 Editathon
Wiki For Human Rights 2021 editathon
Wiki For Human Rights 2021 Editathon
Wiki For Human Rights 2021 Editathon
Wiki For Human Rights 2021 Editathon

Wikipedia For Museums in Uganda 2021[edit]

Hosted by the Uganda Society Library, Friday 21 - Saturday 22 where 2 days of learning from museum curators and archaeologists as they honoured an invitation from the Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda to jointly celebrate International Museum Day 2021.

Under the theme “The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine” a discussion revealed a lot of truths and gaps in practice in relation to how museums and archives in Uganda were responding to the situation presented by COVID-19 and relating to the Open Knowledge Movement. Curators revealed that most museums and archives were not making use of images themselves and neither was the public accessing them. Of interest to note that Uganda has only 4 regional museums supported by the government while the rest are private which explains their relation to the Open Knowledge Movement.

With at least 11 editors, activities included editing on Wikipedia for new and existing editors in addition to dealing with images on Wikimedia and the Creative Commons Licenses. The use of QRPedia to enhance the visibility of their respective collections was also dealt with. With contributions to Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, we were able to get 20 articles and 18 uploads respectively.

Link to Wikipedia for Museums in Uganda 2021 meta page
Link to Wikimedia outreach dashboard
Link to report on GLAM newsletter

Below are some images generously contributed by participants :

Church of Uganda Archives, Uganda
The Karamoja Regional Museum, Moroto, Uganda
Kabale Regional Museum, Kabale, Uganda
A bust of Hamu Mukasa displayed at the Uganda Museum