Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy/Implementation/Affiliate health criteria/Reports/2024/Wikimedia Botswana Community Usergroup
| Affiliate basic information | ||
|---|---|---|
| What is the affiliate name? | Wikimedia Botswana Community Usergroup | |
| Please list the languages supported by this affiliate | Setswana, English, Sekgalagadi | |
| Please list countries where this affiliate operates | Botswana | |
| Reporting timeline (e.g. January-December) | June 2023-May 2024 | |
| Reporting year (e.g. 2024 or 2024-2025) | 23/24 | |
| Primary contact (user name) | Shoodho | |
| Secondary contact (user name) | Kolobetsoo | |
| Goal delivery | ||
| What is the affiliate mission? | The Wikimedia Community User Group Botswana (WMCUG Botswana) is dedicated to making knowledge free, accessible, and open for all. We empower local communities by creating and translating content in Setswana and English, with a strong emphasis on Botswana's culture, history, and geography. Through training volunteers, hosting edit-a-thons, and partnering with schools, libraries, and cultural groups, we foster wider participation and raise awareness of Wikimedia projects. We are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion, engaging women, youth, and other underrepresented groups. Our mission is to bridge the gap between local knowledge and the world by ensuring Botswana’s rich heritage is shared and celebrated globally. | |
| What are the affiliate goals? Link to the strategic plan, if there is one. | Focus on creating and translating high-quality articles in Setswana to safeguard the language, ensuring it thrives on Wikimedia platforms as a representation of Botswana’s cultural heritage.
Celebrate Botswana’s Culture and History: Generate and share content that highlights the rich cultural heritage, history, and geography of Botswana, preserving these important aspects of the nation's identity for future generations. Support Linguistic Diversity and Endangered Languages: Document and preserve Botswana’s diverse languages, particularly those facing extinction. Create language versions in the Wikimedia Incubator and work towards bringing them into full Wikipedia editions to ensure they are represented and preserved online. Raise Awareness and Foster Community Engagement: Increase awareness about the value and use of Wikipedia across Botswana by organising community sensitisation campaigns, educational initiatives, and events that encourage more people to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Build a Sustainable and Inclusive Wikimedia Community: Strengthen and grow a vibrant, empowered community of contributors who can engage with Wikipedia without the need for external competition or incentives, ensuring long-term participation and self-sufficiency. | |
| Organizational development | ||
| How does the affiliate make decisions? How are decisions communicated? | The Wikimedia Community User Group Botswana makes decisions by involving the community and following a structured process. First, they gather input from members through events like the Strategy Bootcamp, where they discuss strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. They also hold brainstorming sessions to develop strategies based on this feedback. Two designated contacts, such as Candy Khohliwe and Oteng Kolobetso, lead discussions and help guide decisions. The group also learns from other Wikimedia affiliates to improve their plans. Decisions are shared openly through online platforms like their meta page, WhatsApp group, social media, as well as during in-person events and workshops. This ensures everyone stays informed, even those without regular internet access. By working together and communicating clearly, the community ensures decisions are inclusive and transparent. | |
| What is the current state of the affiliate finances? Link to the latest financial report, if there is one. | Our user group does not have a general support fund right now. We rely on applying for rapid grants to fund our campaigns and projects. This helps us continue supporting the Wikimedia movement despite limited funding. | |
Affiliate health and resilience
| ||
| How many people participate in the decision-making process in the affiliate? | 17 Active Countributors | |
| Has there been any significant changes in the level of the affiliate membership body (e.g. increase/decrease of number of dues-paying members)? | During this reporting period, the Wikimedia Community User Group Botswana (WMCUG Botswana) saw a steady growth in membership. This was due to having monthly events and outreach activities like the Francistown outreach and Palapye as well as having interviews in different local radio stations and the national Television(BTV) and events like the Wikimedia Botswana Bootcamp 2024, which brought together 20 community members for planning and learning. Other activities, such as edit-a-thons, WLW, School Adoption projects in two universities Limkokwing and Botho University, and training workshops, also helped attract new volunteers and keep existing members engaged. We have close to 40 new members. | |
| Are there any affiliate activities in the past year that were led by affiliate members? Please share the highlights. | Yes: WLW, WLA, Black Lunch Table, Art n Feminism | |
| Leadership and inclusion | ||
Diverse, skilled, and accountable leadership
| ||
| What kind of skills does the affiliate leadership possess? | Knowledge sharing, skill development, increased participation, resource support, greater impact, and diversity, engagement, collective growth, user training and support, community building and translation skills. | |
| Is there any kind of succession plan for the affiliate leadership? | Yes | |
| Are there any trainings that affiliate leadership undergo before they assume their leadership position? | WLW Focus Group Members, Lets Connect, Africa Wiki Women, Wiki Mentor Africa, African Wikipedian Alliance | |
| Are there any requirements for affiliate leadership to disclose their conflict(s) of interests? | Yes | |
Diversity balance (especially gender)
| ||
| What is the diversity level of the affiliate leadership and membership body? | Leadership is 100% female, participants is 75% female and 25% male | |
| How is the affiliate leadership encouraging gender diversity in the decision-making process(es) of the affiliate? | 60-40% | |
Universal Code of Conduct compliance
| ||
| How does the affiliate leadership ensure, enforce, and evaluate compliance with the Universal Code of Conduct obligations? | The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) is emphasized in all Wikimedia Community User Group Botswana (WMCUG Botswana) trainings and activities, both online and offline. Through dedicated sessions during events like the Wikimedia Botswana Bootcamp 2024, members are educated on its principles of respect, inclusivity, and ethical behavior. | |
| Engagement and Collaboration | ||
| Please share the publicly available records of regular meetings, activities, events, or conference in the past year where the affiliate has participated. | Affiliate Meta-wiki page link here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Botswana | |
| Community connection | ||
| How many affiliate members are active contributors to the Wikimedia projects? | 17 | |
| How many affiliate members are not active contributors to the Wikimedia projects? | 23 inactive editors and 1 inactive organizer | |
| How many affiliate members are active organizers (of projects, events, conferences, initiatives, etc) within the Wikimedia movement? | 7 active organizers | |
| How many people have participated in affiliate projects, events, conferences, and/or initiatives in the past year? | 40% of members participate in organized activities | |
| Partnerships and collaboration | ||
| Please list all activities/initiatives that the affiliate has organized or co-organized in past 12 months. | SheSaid Campaign, setswana Wikipedia challenge, WikiGap, Wiki Loves Africa, School adoption, community outreach activities and Wikidata challeng | |
| What would affiliate leadership list as the top 3 (three) capacities of the affiliate? (e.g. evaluation, community governance, programs and events, organizational governance and resource policies, conflict management, partnerships, fundraising, communication and media relations, contributor development, on-wiki technical skills, policy advocacy, etc) | Wikimedia Botswana believes in empowering contributors with skills to contribute across diverse wiki projects, often times we motivate our contributors to keep going through workshops like the capacity building workshop to equip them with leadership skills and strategy bootcamp to empower them with event planning skills and cross wiki editing skills, | |
| Community governance: Wikimedia Botswana believes in having structures, processes and practices that ensures fairness, accountability, inclusiveness and transparency in community management. We believe in creating an environment where members have a voice and decisions are made in the best interest of the collective ensuring collaboration, social cohesion and long term sustainability. | ||
| Wikimedia Botswana believes in empowering community members with skills to contribute to various platforms in Wikipedia and its sister projects that is why we have project that contribute towards the incubator, Wikiquote, Wikipedia, Wiki commons and Wikidata. in due time we believe we can expand our rich to other platforms like Wikivoyage and many more. | ||
| What are the 3 (three) capacities that the affiliate would like to strengthen in the next 12 months? | Partnerships are vital to the success of Wikimedia Botswana as they can provide the necessary support to grow and expand our initiatives. Partners can help us to improve local content representation, increase community engagement, promote digital literacy, and ensure the sustainability and scalability of our projects. By forming strategic partnerships with diverse stakeholders, Wikimedia Botswana can continue to advance its mission of promoting free and open knowledge in Botswana and beyond. | |
| Fundraising is essential to the continued success and growth of Wikimedia Botswana. By securing the necessary financial resources, the organization can support content creation, expand its community engagement, raise awareness, and advocate for policies that align with its mission of promoting free knowledge. Fundraising also ensures sustainability and effective presence the digital knowledge ecosystem, contributing to both local and global Wikimedia initiatives. | ||
| Organizational governance and resource policies are fundamental to the efficient and transparent operation of Wikimedia Botswana. These concepts will ensure that we operate in an ethical, legal, and effective manner, and they provide frameworks for managing resources (financial, human, technological, etc.) responsibly and sustainably. | ||
| What are the organizations, community projects, or groups that the affiliate had been working or seeking to work with to develop and support the 3 capacities? | Local Universities: University of Botswana, Limkokwing
NGO with the same vision: Mebala Studio | |