Wikimedia Fulfulde Community/Reports/Annual Report 2023

This report outlines the accomplishments, milestones, and foundational growth of the Wikimedia Fulfulde Community between February 2023 and November 2023. This year marked a historic breakthrough for our movement in North East Nigeria. By moving away from isolated events and implementing structured, long-term programmatic timelines, we focused on bringing in participants from underrepresented groups, building localized hubs, and establishing a sustainable community culture.

Through these collective efforts, our community drove over 50,000 page views to the Fulfulde Wikipedia, expanded content across multiple Wikimedia projects, and successfully established our very first localized Fan Clubs and Hub networks.

See detailed report below.

2023 Programs and Campaigns

The Wikimedia Fulfulde Community executed a comprehensive series of campaigns and capacity-building initiatives throughout 2023. The structured chronological sequence of our milestones is detailed below:

Campaigns

Wikimedia Fulfulde Community Capacity Building and Thematic Weeks.

Wikimedia Fulfulde Community Capacity Building and Thematic Weeks (February, 2023 - May, 2023)

This project was intentionally designed to move away from one-off sessions and establish a continuous training environment. Every week, our team announced a dedicated thematic focus area. Participants looked up these specific subject gaps on English Wikipedia and translated or created the corresponding articles in the Fulfulde language.

To expand our geographical reach into remote and less-developed areas, we decentralized our operations. Physical bi-weekly workshops were carried out across several locations, including Karasuwa, Kolere, Bajoga, Potiskum, Damaturu, and Fika. Out of more than 100 enthusiastic attendees mobilized during our outreach campaigns, 86 editors were successfully onboarded onto our event tracking dashboards.

A monumental outcome of these thematic weeks was the identification and formal creation of our community's first structured specialized networks:

Fula Wikidata Lexicographers Hub
Fulfulde Wikipedia Funakaye Network
Fulfulde Commons Photographers Hub
Fula Wikipedia Federal College of Education (Technical) Potiskum Fan Club

Wiki Loves Africa 2023 Campaign in North East Nigeria (March, 2023 - April, 2023)

Running concurrently with our thematic training tracks, the Wiki Loves Africa 2023 campaign engaged local content creators to document African culture, landscape, and climate themes. This intervention empowered our photography enthusiasts to capture media assets from North East Nigeria, expanding regional representation on Wikimedia Commons.

Wiki Loves Earth 2023 Campaign in North East Nigeria (July, 2023 - August, 2023)

From July to August, our volunteers took part in the international Wiki Loves Earth initiative. This localized environmental photo campaign encouraged participants to document the unique natural heritage, conservation areas, and biodiversity across the North Eastern region of Nigeria, securing vital open-licensed imagery for Wikipedia articles.

Wikimedia Fulfulde Community Enrichment and Hubs Launching (September, 2023 - November, 2023)

Building directly on the networks mapped out during the spring, this campaign focused on officially launching our localized fan clubs to ensure editor retention. We successfully conducted four foundational training edit-a-thons and two dedicated meet-ups focused specifically on the states of Yobe and Gombe.

By centering workshops around specific, enjoyable thematic scopes, we lowered the barrier to entry for editors while systematically chipping away at major content gaps across the Fulfulde Wikipedia.

Strategic Approaches & Success Factors

During our retrospective evaluations, our team identified several core strategies that proved highly effective in achieving our goals:

The Promise of Local Autonomy: Informing participants at the start of our thematic weeks that their long-term commitment would lead to their own official local branch or affiliate motivated teams to give their absolute best.
Dedicated Sub-Community Channels: Apart from our central community forum, we built dedicated communication channels for each individual hub. This fostered a profound sense of belonging and created safe spaces where peers could continue learning from each other long after formal workshops wrapped up.
Strategic Media Partnerships: We secured live broadcast media coverage through regional outlets, including Sakiraabe Radio and Koode International Radio. This conventional radio publicity was instrumental in generating widespread awareness and drawing in contributors from distant, rural areas.
Gamification and Incentives: Providing token prizes to our top-contributing editors acted as a vital morale booster, keeping the community highly motivated and eagerly anticipating subsequent project phases.
Open and Organized Documentation: By maintaining detailed records of our participants via manual registers and online documentation forms, we easily assigned community members to respective group leaders, optimizing post-event tracking.

Lessons Learned & Adaptations

Programmatic Continuity Drives Activity: Our data clearly showed that Fulfulde editors are significantly more active and high-spirited when an organized campaign is underway. Page views and article creation metrics spiked rapidly during active programmatic cycles compared to fallow periods.
Healthy Inter-Hub Competition: Once the Fan Clubs were introduced, a friendly, competitive spirit emerged. Each local hub began encouraging its own members to out-edit the other groups, which drastically boosted overall data outputs.
Navigating External Challenges: Our team faced timeline interruptions due to the 2023 Nigerian General Elections, which required shifting travel dates and reworking event schedules. We learned the importance of building flexible buffer periods into our project planning to accommodate local civic realities.
Technical Dashboard Limitations: We encountered persistent technical glitches with the Outreach Dashboard tool, which occasionally failed to load or track edits accurately. To mitigate this in future cycles, we utilized manual registration systems alongside digital tracking tools.

Project Documentation & Resources

Below are the official documentation links, media vaults, and communications assets generated during our 2023 initiatives:

Thematic Weeks Resources (Feb - May 2023)

Local Event Page: Fulfulde Wikipedia Thematic Weeks Hub
Outreach Dashboard: Thematic Weeks Tracking Link
Ecosystem Impact Coverage: Diff Blog Post: 7-in-7 Celebrating Wikidata Impact
Multimedia Training Assets: Facilitator Video Testimonials & Remarks
Video Documentary Reference: On-Ground Training Video Documentary
Presentation Guides: Core Community Slide Presentations
Social Communications & Campaign Banners: Live Update Box 1 | Live Update Box 2 | Campaign Flyer 1 | Campaign Flyer 2

Hubs Launching & Enrichment Resources (Sept - Nov 2023)

Outreach Dashboard: Enrichment Campaign Dashboard
Media Vault: Event Photographs & Uploaded Visual Documentation