Grants:IEG/Wikipedia to brighten Africa

status: not selected

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project:

Wikipedia to brighten Africa

project contact:

emily_mumbiymail.com

participants:

grantees: EMILY MUMBI WAKARIMA

advisors: VERONICA WANGUI

summary:

Use of wikipedia to help develop africa and enlighten individuals and encourage them to actively engage as wikimedians.

engagement target:

Wikipedia community and the people in the rural areas of Kenya with the goal of reaching out to the whole population of people in Africa.

strategic priority:

Increasing Reach,Increasing participation, increase readership, improving the quality and the quantity of the content in the wikipedia and encouraging innovation.

total amount requested:

~30,000 USD (2,545,000 Kenyan Shillings)

2014 round 1

Project idea

With all developmental minds focusing on achieving the eight millennium developmental goals, the project ‘Wikipedia to brighten Africa’ believes that Wikipedia is one of the key ingredients needed to spearhead development of Africa. Development is a multidimensional process aimed at improving the quality of life that people live. Under development in Africa has been as a result of so many factors key among them being lack of access to information and opportunities. This project aims at availing quality and necessary information to the people living in Africa and providing them with the knowledge to access the available opportunities that the world offers that can help them upgrade their living standards through Wikipedia. The project also focuses on encouraging the targeted communities in Africa to share their views and ideas to the rest of the world through Wikipedia and at the same time encourage those who edit the Wikipedia by providing them a chance to see the fruits of their noble works.

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

UNDERDEVELOPMENT- Underdevelopment in Africa cannot be solved at instance but can be solved through a holistic gradual process that involves the joint efforts of all stakeholders. This project therefore acknowledges that fact and hence the need to collaborate with the Wikimedia to help address some of the solutions to problems associated with under development key among them being: - Poverty, illiteracy, poor health care, gender inequality, environmental degradation, unemployment and poor governance.

What is your solution?

POVERTY:-Majority of the Africa population is poor with most of them living under a budget of less than two dollars a day. This project aims at the reduction of poverty.With many African states relying on agriculture as the main source of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this project will focus on teaching communities on how to use Wikipedia and get content on alternative methods of generating income such as entrepreneurship, how to show case their skills and ideas and market them as well as their products, how to save and invest. This will increase the incomes of these people and the country as a whole besides having increased the viewership, use and participation of people in the Wikipedia.
ILLITERACY: -Most of the poor African households struggle day and night to get school fees for their school going pupils and students with some of the children being sent out of school go get school fees which they aren’t sure when it will be found, others drop out of school while others lack the necessary research materials to better their performers. This project aims at educating these household on how to acquire e-learning through Wikipedia which will allow the adults who are willing to further their education do so while at the same time get ample time to generate income for their families, it will also educate them on how to access revision and research materials available in the Wikipedia and at the same time encourage them to share their knowledge to the entire Wikimedia. This will help develop the quality of human resource that comprise the labor force of African states which is needed in the development process.
GENDER IN EQUALITY:- As statistics shows, women comprise the majority of Africa’s population and those who are marginalized in terms of gender are women. With most of the societies in Africa being patriarchal in nature, communities will be taught using Wikipedia on the importance of gender equity and enlighten women on their socioeconomic and political rights as well as how to access them. This will help them air their views and mobilize resources using the Wikipedia which will help them to participate in the governing process of their societies and the country at large having in mind that the government is a key organ for implementing development policies. This will help in ensuring participation of all genders in the development process hence speeding up the development process.
POOR HEALTH CARE: - With unaffordable and inaccessible health care services to most of the African communities, the knowledge in the Wikipedia through the help of the knowledge of a qualified nurse certified by the Kenya Medical Board will be improved and used to help educate girls, ladies and women on their reproductive health which if not handled right can lead to death as well as enlighten them on the symptoms, management and prevention of infectious diseases that affect most of the rural population in Africa which will help create a healthy work force which is needed to spearhead economic growth which is a means to development.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION: - Majority of African countries rely on primary products in the international trade which are highly dependent on natural resources; Wikipedia will play an important role in educating the African communities on the need and how to preserve, conserve and ensure proper use of the environmental resources for their own benefit without compromising the health and safety of the future generations. By so doing Wikimedia will have played a great role in ensuring proper use and care of the environment and sustain the economic lively hood of these countries.
UNEMPLOYMENT: - High unemployment rate is a feature that characterizes African states caused mainly due lack of access to opportunities. Wikipedia to brighten Africa is aimed at educating the people of Africa on how to access and share employment opportunities via Wikipedia. This will help increase the incomes of these people and help in reducing the dependency rate which if high slows down the development process.
POOR GOVERNANCE: - Under development in Africa has also been caused by poor policy implementation and lack of transparency in the governing process which can be solved if people are encouraged to participate in the governing process in this case through Wikipedia. this project will do so by encouraging the citizens to air their views through the Wikipedia on during the formulation and implementation of the policies used for governing this countries.

Project goals

Reduce the dependency syndrome in Africa as individuals will be empowered to realize development at the household level and at the national level.
Raise awareness of Wikipedia to the people living in Africa.
Encourage the use of Wikipedia to bring positive change in the world.
Improve the quality of products and services offered by Wikimedia as more people will be involved.
Help Wikipedia promote and support more innovation and inventions as more people will access a platform to show case their creativity and share ideas.
To avail opportunities to people on time through Wikipedia. For example, by encouraging people share viable social, economic and political opportunities on Wikipedia and creating awareness on how to access them.
Increase the incomes of the Africa households.
Increase the literacy levels of the population in Africa.
Improve the health of the population.
Promote good governance.
Promote gender equity and empowerment of women.
To help ensure environmental preservation, conservation and sustainability.

Project plan

Scope

The project is quick, easy to implement and achieve the targeted results.

Project map

The project will be complete within six months. ‘Wikipedia to brighten Africa’ will be implemented as a school syllabus provided to the target communities with the project implementers being the guides, the community being the students and the Wikipedia being the resource center. The guides will have the role of creating awareness of the resources available in the resource center to the students and how to utilize them as well as improve them. The students will be required to implement the teachings, add value to them and the resource center by improving the quality and the quantity of the content of the resource center which is flexible to changes. The syllabus will be implemented in both English and Swahili which are the official and national languages of Kenya respectively though for proper understanding of the project to the targeted audience a common slang called Sheng language will be used during training which is mostly a combination of English and Swahili used by the youths across the country and East Africa

Activities

The activities will be in form of training sessions through which the syllabus will be implemented within a maximum of eight hours (hrs) per group and the rest will be to await the results and following up the groups to see to it they implement the teachings. That is: - 2hrs- health care lesson, 2hrs poverty and unemployment lesson,2hrs- gender equity and equality and good governance lesson, 1hr- e-learning lesson and 1hr- environment conservation and preservation. The activities will be carried out in this order:-

First month

Identification of the needed experts to implement the project.
Procurement of laptops.

Second month

Training of the students.

Third month

Training of the students.
Follow-up of the students that have been trained, evaluate the achievements by looking on the what we can improve on in order to achieve much better results.

Forth and Fifth month

Training of the students.

Sixth month

Follow-up of the students.
Conduct the final evaluation of the project by looking whether the goals of the project have been met using the measures of success of these project.

Budget

Total amount requested

2,545,000 Kenya shillings(29,354.1 USD)

Kenya shillings(Ksh) converted to US dollar as at 16th,April 2014: 1USD =86.7 Ksh

Budget breakdown

Kenyan currency converted as at 16th, April, 2014 with one Us dollar trading with 86.7 Kenya shillings

Procurement of laptops@45,000kenya shillings(517.8USD) =1,845,000 Kenya shillings (21,280.3 USD).

The electricity supporting laptops will be HP 250, 15.6" which are available in Kenya Key Features --Display: Size: 15.6",Type: LED-backlit HD anti-glare,Resolution: 1366 x 768 --OS/CPU Operating System: Windows 8 Home Premium (64-bit),Processor: Intel® Pentium® B960 with Intel HD Graphics (2 MB cache, 2 cores),CPU Speed: 2.4 GHz,Chipset: Mobile HM70 Express Chipset --Memory/Storage Hard Drive: 500GB,RAM: 4 GB,Memory Type: DDR3 --Graphics Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics --Connectivity Network Interface: Realtek Ethernet (10/100/1000),Wireless: 802.11b/g/n,Bluetooth : Yes version 4.0 --Interfaces 1 VGA,1 HDMI,1 headphone,1 microphone,3 USB 2.0,1 RJ45 --Optical Drive DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL --Audio Video Speakers: Altec Lansing Speakers,Integrated microphone,High Definition Audio support,Webcam: HP TrueVision HD Webcam with activity LED --Keyboard/Pointing Device Full-sized keyboard,Pointing Device: TouchPad with on/off button and multi-touch gesture support --Battery: Type: 6-cell Li-Ion 47 WHr Battery --Constituents of the whole package: HP 250 G1 laptop,Battery,Power Cable,Driver CD.

The solar laptops which will be ordered from the WeWi company in Canada through their retailers in Nairobi Kenya at a cost not more than 45,000 Kenya shillings (519.0USD).

The solar powered laptops have a four-panel solar-charging device built into the computer’s case and the laptop can run off the solar panels directly when exposed to sunlight, bypassing the battery. The laptop has a 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, up to 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a 1.86 GHz Intel Atom D2500 dual-core processor with GMA 3600 graphics. It runs on Ubuntu Linux.

Transportation fee of the laptops during the procurement process and the transport fee for the facilitating specialists and volunteers from their destination to the targeted communities 100,000 Kenyan shillings (1153.4USD).
Teaching aids such as the modem to connect to the internet in places where there is no WIFI connection, flash and data cables and demonstrative materials - 70,000 Kenya shillings (807.4USD).
Maintenance fee to cover the communication cost and the infrastructure needed to maintain the laptops such as laptop carriers-90,000 Kenya shillings(1038.1USD).
Wages for the hired specialist on health, education,environmentalist,the social worker and giveaways to the volunteers-400,000 Kenya shillings (4,613.6USD). Wages will be given on contract basis so that it becomes cheaper and at the same time appealing to the receivers with the health specialist who will be a qualified nurse trained and certified by the Kenya Medical Board being given 3500 Kenya shillings per session (40.4USD) the community development specialist tackling issues on poverty and unemployment given 3000 Kenya shillings (34.6USD)per session of two hours and the community social worker who will focus on gender equity,inequality and good governance 3000 Kenya shillings(34.5 USD, with the environmentalist and guider on education matters get 1500Kenya shillings (17.3) per session of 1hr though volunteers contributions will be highly appreciated of which we will offer a give away cash of 500 Kenya shillings (5.8 USD) each day they volunteer.
Emergency- 40,000 Kenya shillings(461.4USD)

Intended impact

Target audience

The women, youth and students of the rural communities in Kenya with the goal of reaching out to other communities in Africa.

Community engagement

Engagement of the rural communities.This will be done through direct involvement of the people in the communities, for example, the project will be focused on working together with established groups, institutions and organizations at the grassroots of the communities in Africa. For example, women groups, students clubs and societies, youth groups and the village elders. This way the project will be implemented to the benefit of the target groups and the impact felt in the whole of the community hence enabling the realization of the project's goals.
Engagement of specialists on health, agriculture,and community engagement such as nurses, social workers and agricultural consultants. This will help to address the issues addressed by wiki medians in a way to help realize the goals of this project.
Engagement of volunteers. This project is an inclusive one which encourages, appreciates and supports participation of every goodwill individual.

Fit with strategy

Help raise awareness of Wikipedia to the African people by enlightening them on the products and services offered by the Wikimedia.
Encourage the use of Wikipedia to bring positive change in the world by showing the wiki medians that there noble works in Wikipedia are used to impact positively the lives of many individuals.
Help improve the quality of products and services offered by Wikimedia as more people will be involved giving them a platform to air there views and share ideas.
Help Wikipedia promote and support more innovation as more people will access a platform to show case their creativity.

Sustainability

Each identified groups, institutions and organizations will be provided with one laptop to serve a group of ten. Those living in an area with no electricity will be provided with solar laptops while those that can access electricity will be provided with those that can work with electricity.The members will be trained on how to use and maintain them.
Bearing in mind the past experiences with the wiki projects implemented in Africa, this project recognizes that the main thing that led to their failure was lack of a sparkling light that can directly light their lives which should be used as an incentive to help create a linkage between the implementers of the project and the targeted people that will help deliver and achieve the targeted results. The incentive in this case is the laptop which upon issuance the beneficiaries will view it as an asset to the group that can help them increase their resources especially the financial resource. For example, they can use it to document their information, the groups will have been saved the cost of paying cash to the cyber cafes which offer computer services such as typing at a fee and may even consider starting their own cyber cafes and others may start designing cards such as inspirational cards for sale and even buy a printer that will help them to print their documents. This will therefore be a weapon used to attract the targeted audience to the project.
The members of the identified entities through the commitment form which will be signed are expected to be making monthly contributions of less than a dollar which will be saved in a savings account of the groups which will be mandatory for them to have before the issue of the laptops to help them buy recharge cards to allow them access the internet as well as save enough money that will help buy each member a cellphone that can connect to the internet and every member would be expected to be posting quality staff on the Wikipedia depending on their skills and talents as a way of marketing their culture.
After all the members have acquired internet connecting cellphones, duration will be agreed by the entity and project implementers, the laptops will be taken and given to other groups and buy a Modem to go to the project which will later be used to carry on with the project to benefit other communities.
With the aid of the Wikipedia Zero Initiative the communities will be able to access free mobile internet services offered across the country by the Orange mobile service providers.
There will be regular follow up to ensure the communities implement the teachings given to them.
The project will also use the locally available sources ranging from human capital to their cultural way of doing things such as citing examples relevant to the teachings from their own way of life which will provide a sense of them owning the project and enhance their involvement in the project.
The project targets mostly the youth in the rural areas who are unemployed who spend most of their free time idling and the women who most of them are unemployed and are left with care giving responsibilities at home and doing the household chores and hence provides them an alternative way for them to utilize their free time.

Measures of success

Need target-setting tips?

Seeing that all the members of the groups involved each is having a internet connecting mobile phones.
increase in the number of people participating in the Wikimedia during and after the project.
Visiting the community hospital and check the number of the reported home based injuries and preventable infections before,during and after the project.
The amount of Kenyan communities products advertised in the Wikipedia during and after the project with an increase showing success of the project.
Take a study on the progress in the communities during the implementation of the project on preservation, conservation and sustainability of the project by visiting the environmental research institutes and analyze the data.
Reduction of the communities' reliability to foreign aid. a

Participant(s)

WAKARIMA EMILY MUMBI

Student in Maseno University in Kenya pursuing a degree in Bachelor of Arts (Development Studies with Information Technology)
Co- founder of 'Sustainable Development Initiative (SDI) Maseno University'.
Student in the Leadership Development Program (LDP) Kenya a program that trains, educates and discipline's servant leaders.
I am active in participating in inclusive community activities aimed at serving people in community Based Organizations activities as a volunteer.
Love reading and editing inspirational and development oriented books, articles and journals
I am passionate on helping realizing the developmental goals of all developing countries by encouraging participation of every individual in the development process and help create a better world for all of us.

VERONICA WANGUI

A strategic adviser of community based organizations.
Passionate in gender equity and women and youth empowerment.

Discussion

Community Notification

Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

Meetings of the targeted people such as women groups, youth groups and schools
Facebook page 'Internet the Light Africa needs'
Wikimedia through the Meta-wiki

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Community members: add your name and rationale here.
Sustainable Development Initiative- Maseno University fully endorses this project because it considers development as a holistic process.
Patrick Kinuthia- I completely endorse the project since it aims at improving the quality of life lived by the rural communities and at the same time helps enlarge the wiki media family.
Anita Koba- I endorse the project based on the fact that it views development as a holistic process that includes everyone in its realization especially through the use of Wikipedia.
Emma Tauni- I am passionate on social media and I appreciate and endorse this project for using social media especially Wikipedia to do quality and noble works.
Gither susan- these projects serves to the best interest of the poor in Africa and hence I support it.
women inspiration and empowerment group fully support this project due to the fact that it considers the interest of all people most especially the women and the youth
women of power association expresses its interest on these project and would like to support it to help it realize its mission. Thank you we completely endorse it.
Epher Gayo, am passionate about the quality of the media and think this project serves to ensure that. I support it a hundred percent. Thank you!
Wiyumirerie youths group- since we started looking for the projects that serves the interests of all in the society that is divided by classes I believe this is the best project to support since it seeks on providing a platform for all to access opportunities which hinders many from achieving their goals. Congratulations for developing such a good idea.
Forum for Progressive Global Youth Dialogue(FPGYD) would like to express its endorsement on this program as it focuses on creating a conducive social, economic and political environment for all of us.not forgetting that it seeks on encouraging the youth to use social media to achieve quality results.

Bano Brown Harris, I believe this is what Africa needs, since the introduction of SAPs by the World Bank and the IMF didn't work well for the continent I believe this is a viable strategy to approach development in Africa and at the same time encourage the use of social media.

I hope Africa population realizes the beauty and the goodies of these project by embracing it. The project is good and realistic. Maureen Nashpael.

The highlands academy journalism club in Timau Kenya appreciates this project and would love to work towards its realization as away of helping us show case our ideas. Thanks, secretary

-- Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 09:40, 17 April 2014 (UTC)