Fon Wikimedians Community/projects/vector

Making local languages key drivers of free knowledge in Bénin

Context

Language is tied to our culture and defines us. No culture can thrive without it. Language helps us communicate, share, learn, play and live together.

In Bénin, there are more than 25 local languages as per latest government mapping. Among them, Fon language is one the most spoken: About 4 million speakers in Bénin, Nigeria and from some parts of Togo.

Like in many countries in Africa, most people can’t read nor write international languages (French, English …) so they are excluded from accessing knowledge, preventing them from learning and growing.

3 years ago, we thought this should be fixed and we work to make it happen: In 2018, with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation, we launched a new version of Wikipedia in Fon language. Since then a community of Fon editors contribute to it in the Wikimedia incubator. Through regular workshops we meet, translate articles to Fon, edit new ones and train newcomers.

But our actions are not as regular as expected: most of the workshops happen in some of our partners' offices where we could use their internet connectivity and computers materials.

Once the workshop ends, there is no continuity in the contribution work because none of those Fon editors has a computer to continue the work at home. This situation has been accentuated with the rise of COVID-19 stopping all our activities to be done physically.

This is now something we want to fix.

Objectives

Making knowledge more accessible by increasing the number of articles created in the Fon Wikipedia project providing contributors with necessary materials and training.

Specific goals of this project:

➢ Train the trainers and create a core of Fon Wikipedia trainer

➢ Triple the number of articles created in the Fon wikipedia project.

➢ Setting up a solid core of Fon editors

➢ Recruit and train new Fon speakers to contribute to the project.

➢ Be ready to launch officially the Fon Wikipedia

When

From now to December 2021, we would like to make 10 personal computers accessible for the community members to borrow so that they can edit from home.

Beneficiaries

Direct beneficiaries are the current Fon Wikipedia projects editors. Indirect ones are the Fon speaking community members in Bénin who will have access to free knowledge. This is also a way to promote our language, culture and history on internet.

Methodology

Setting partnerships with potential partners: Companies, NGO & Foundations … that can support of fund (toal or partial) this project.

Budget (Provisional)

The estimated total cost of this project is about 6000 US dollars.

Item	Quantity	Unit cost ($)	Total cost (CFA)	Total cost ($)	Total cost (€)
Laptops (12/15" Core i5 2,3 GHz - SSD 120 Go - 8 Go - French Keyboard)	5	600	1 663 107	3000	2535
3 days training the trainers workshop	2	800 (Include, travel expenses for trainer and trainees, Catering for participants, etc ...	886990	1600	1352
Create wikipedia video tutos in Fon about how to contribute to the Fon wikipedia(Mostly screen recording)	1 - Probably 2 days work	470	262259	470	400
Total			2450341	4420	3735