Africa Environment/Microfunding/Swahili Climatic Change and Environment voices in Northern Tanzania

Submit of request
This request for micro-funding to Africa Environment Wikifocus has just been submitted by Justine Msechu on 9-03-2023 and has been selected for support.

Proposed project

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Description

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Swahili Climatic Change and Environment voices in Northern Tanzania is a campaign that seeks to document climate change-related topics on Swahili Wikipedia to raise awareness and knowledge about the topic on the internet through Wikimedia projects. Through this campaign, we hope to bridge both the topic and language gap while creating opportunities for people to access climate change information in a way that would build awareness of the various effects of climate change in their community.

Organizers:

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  1. User: Justine Msechu
  2. User: hussein m mmbaga
  3. User: Abubakari Sixberth
  4. User: Anuary Rajabu

Context

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We will organize two Edit-a-thon about climate change and environment in Northern Tanzania were Wikimedia Community Kilimanjaro and Wikimedians of Arusha User group and other participants from Environmental activist Organization like (Dunia salama Foundation and Ksm Agro Industry Company LTD ) we will translate English Wikipedia articles about Climate Change and environment to Swahili Wikipedia , Create, and connect Swahili articles to wikidata .

Our activities will involve:

  • Recruiting new and existing participants to contribute to Swahili Wikipedia which will be 30 Participants per event.
  • We will organize a series of events of edit-a-thon by including experienced editors in writing articles about climate change and Environment topics on Swahili Wikipedia.

Outcomes

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  • Build and empower a community of contributors to contribute Environmental and climate change knowledge on Swahili Wikipedia: This will provide better positions to contribute Climate Change and other environmental information on Wikipedia. We believe this will give opportunity for environmental experts and other environmental enthusiasts to improve local expert (environmental) knowledge in Wikipedia
  • Document climate change and Environmental-related topics on Swahili Wikipedia
  • Improving the visual coverage of environmental topics: By organizing activities that focus on widening the coverage of quality and underrepresented content in Swahili to attract readership by adding images to articles with no images and improving them.
  • For writing contests:
    1. Number of participants-30
    2. Number of new editors-10
    3. Number of articles created or improved -350+

Budget

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Object Unit price ($) Quantity Total ($)
Venue for two Events $100 2 $200
Transport reimbursement for participants: $10 30 $300
Food and Refreshments for two events $15 30 $450
Internet support during sessions $50 2 $100
Coordination and Communication for facilitators & Bank rates) $100 1 $100
Awards (50USD, 30USD and 15USD gift vouchers for 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners respectively) $95 1 $95
Souvenirs for judges selected to judge the articles $150 1 $150
Router/Laptop/Camera rent $50 2 $100
Total ... $1495

Approved budget

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Object Unit price ($) Quantity Total ($)
Venue for two Events $100 2 $200
Transport reimbursement for participants: $10 30 $300
Food and Refreshments for two events $15 30 $450
Internet support during sessions $50 2 $100
Coordination and Communication for facilitators & Bank rates) $50 1 $50
Souvenirs for everyone $50 1 $50
Router/Laptoprent $50 2 $100
Total ... $1250

Final Report

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Final Report
This is the final report on micro-funded project for Africa Environment Wikifocus.

Guidelines

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  • Format of the report : the report must be provided as a wiki page on meta
  • Where to submit your report : Create it to your request for micro-funding. A format has been added to your request for micro-funding. Please provide your report on that wiki page
  • Deadline to submit the report : 15th May 2023
  • Language : English or French

Summary

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  1. User: hussein m mmbaga
  2. User: Abubakari Sixberth
  3. User: Anuary Rajabu
  • Other stakeholders (if applicable):

Activities Record

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Consider including the following information:

  • What did you do?
  • Who organised it all? Who was on your team (who did what?)?
  • Did any organisations or associations or groups partner with you to make it happen? If so, who are they?
  • When did you hold events, where and how? How did you let people know about it?
  • Who attended your event/s? What did they do at the event? What did they think of the event you held?

We have organized two events in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, where youth from Kilimanjaro and participants from the Arusha community took part. Approximately 40% of the participants were newcomers, which presented some challenges in teaching them and guiding them to write climate articles simultaneously. One of the participating organizations was the Dunua Salama Foundation, a climate activist organization.

All the activities were organized by Justine Msechu, Husein Mbaga, Abubakari Frenk, and Anuary Rajabu. The first event was held on April 15th, and the second event took place on April 29th. In all the sessions, participants were able to create new articles and edit existing ones related to the environment. However, we encountered challenges in editing English articles due to language barriers.

Documentation of activities

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Consider including the following information:

  • Photo gallery of the events
  • Quotes reflecting participant experiences
  • Social media posts and/or reports
  • Links to any media coverage

We are happy the workshop has been good, and we have learned a lot about Wikipedia. Overall, this Swahili Climatic Voice Campaign in Northern Tanzania has shed significant light on essential environmental issues and climate change. We are delighted to be a group that participated in writing matters related to the environment.

Goals and Outcomes

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

Yes, to a great extent, the goals of this project were achieved. We successfully recorded a significant number of senior citizens who were enthusiastic about sharing their wealth of experience on environmental and climate topics, as can be tracked on the dashboard. I am extremely pleased with the project and its outcomes. By the end of the project, we had a total of 28 editors registered on the dashboard, 266 articles created, 264 articles edited, and a remarkable 2.7k total edits recorded.

Please use the table below to report on the outcomes achieved, starting with the original targets you shared in your proposal for the microgrant.

Final project metrics
Proposed metrics Anticipated outcome Achieved outcome Explanations
Number of articles created or improved 350+ 400+ We achived to create and edit more than 350+
Participant 30 28
New Participant 10 13 40% of the participant where new

Learnings

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What did you learn? What are you proud of? What was challenging? From this experience, what would you do differently if you had to do it again?

Learnings:

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  • The importance of engaging senior citizens and their valuable perspectives on environmental and climate topics.
  • The effectiveness of utilizing a dashboard to track project progress and outcomes.
  • The value of creating a platform for collaboration and knowledge-sharing among editors.

Challenges:

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  • Language barriers that hindered editing English articles, impacting the project's reach and impact.
  • Potential difficulties in guiding newcomers to simultaneously learn and contribute effectively.

Areas for Improvement:

  • Addressing language barriers by providing language support or resources for editing English articles.
  • Offering additional support and guidance to newcomers to help them acquire necessary skills more effectively.

Finances

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How did the initial proposed budget compare to the final costs of the project? Were there any unexpected costs or changes to your initial budget.

Add here...

Use the table below to display your initial request, include the approved line items on your proposal and the proposed cost of these. Insert the real cost of each expected line. Add extra lines for additional expenses that were not anticipated in the proposed budget. If your budget is in local currency, please use the exchange rate on the date (or an average of the dates) that your money was transferred to your account. Historic mid-rates can be found here.

Please reuse your initial request, provide initial budget for each line, indicate actual expense for each line, and finally justify significant differences.

Final Cost of Project
Proposed line item Initially budgeted Actual spend Explanations (of differences)
Venue $200 $200 N/A
Transport reimbursement for participants: $300 $300 N/A
Food and Refreshments for two events 450 450 N/A
Internet support during sessions 50 50 N/A
Coordination and Communication for facilitators & Bank rates) 50 50 N/A
Router/Laptoprent 100 100 N/A
Souvenirs for everyone 50 50 N/A

Total grant money agreed (in USD):1250

Total grant money received (in USD or local currency):1250

Exchange rate on day/s of receipt of funds:2250Tsh

Total project spent (in USD or local currency):1250

Unspent funds
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If there are remaining funds, please list the amount here. Remaining funds should be discussed with the Wiki In Africa team. Think about what you would like to do with the remaining funds to further this project. Let us know your ideas below.

Unspent amount (in USD):

Anything else

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Here you can include any information you think would be useful for the organising teams to know.