Grants:Project/AfroCuration/Timeline

This project is funded by a Project Grant

Timeline for AfroCuration

Timeline	Date
Pre-implementation activities	June 2021
AfroCuration event implementation	Feb 2022
M&E and follow-up activities	April 2021

Monthly updates

Please prepare a brief project update each month, in a format of your choice, to share progress and learnings with the community along the way. Submit the link below as you complete each update.

April

We bagan 6 week project roadmap process with Felix and Rudolph from WMF. This process is new, and required a weekly call to discuss sections of the document we completed.
Started initial partnerships conversations and trying to shape Partnership Agreement doc template.
Administrative details covered with Grants team.

May

Continued project Roadmap process. Main discussions involved:
- WIR hiring
- Community organising and involvement
- Covid protocols
- Online event planning

June

Developed job specification and advertisement for Wikimedian-in-Residence. This was advertised on the African Wikimedians Telegram group and on Wikipedia mailing lists. Applications closed on 21 June and the team selected shortlisted applicants for interviews.

Planning is underway for the first AfroCuration event with Ethale Publishing in Mozambique, which will be held online. The team is collaborating with a local university and will be creating content in the Macua language, which does not yet have a Wikipedia. The WikiAfrica Education team has started up conversations with partners in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Morocco about the other AfroCuration events.

July

Tochi has been hired and onboarded as the Wikipedian-in-Residence. Tochi has been assisting with development of communications materials for AfroCuration events and engaging with Wikipedia community. Dates for first AfroCuration event in Mozambique have been confirmed for 1st and 2nd September. Inspirational speakers confirmed for the event. It will all be online and we are currently seeking support from Portuguese-speaking Wikipedians to assist in translations during the event. Meta page for AfroCuration has been updated. Discussions are underway with second and third event partners.

August

The team has been working with our partner Ethale Publishing to ensure everything is ready for the first AfroCuration event, which has now been scheduled for the weekend of 4 and 5 September to ensure maximum participation.'The team has publicised the event through our own media channels and shared with WMF groups in Africa. The Macua (Emakhuwa) Wikipedia interface has been translated and it is now in the incubator. We have received confirmation from three more partners and planning will begin in September.

September

The first AfroCuration took place virtually on the 4th and 5th of September via Zoom in Partnership with Ethale Publishing and Makhuwa participants in Mozambique. We had over 70 participants who joined the event from Mozambique and the support of experienced Wikipedians from different parts of Africa including: Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Wikimedia Portugal. At the end of the 2-day event, the participants were able to add 40 articles in the Makhuwa Wikipedia which is the first digital footprint of the language with over 7 million speakers. Throughout September, the participants have been able to add 172. We monitored AfroCuration Mozambique

Tochi had a discussion with Dumisani to get information on starting a Wikimedia User Group in Mozambique as non-existant there.

Also, we confirmed the date for the second AfroCuration event in South Africa in Partnership with Constitution Hill Trust with the support of Wikimedia South Africa. It would take place on the 26th and 27th of October.

October

In October, we made preparations for the second AfroCuration event in Partnership with Constitution Hill Trust and supported by Wikimedia South Africa which was supposed to take place on the 26th and 27th of October. Recruitment was done through the Harambee platform where we got over 100 sign ups. The event was later postponed to 2nd and 3rd of November due to other engagements by Constitution Hill.

November

The second AfroCuration took place virtually on the 2nd and 3rd of November via Zoom. This time, as stated previously, it was in partnership with Constitution Hill Trust with Harambee as the recruitment platform and the introduction of a third partner who managed the event and also post social media branding (MAMA Agency - a branding and events management company based in South Africa.) We had 55 participants who joined the event from South Africa and the support of 6 experienced Wikipedians. At the end of the 2-day event, the new editors were able to add 24 new articles and edit 60 existing articles. We monitored South Africa

After the event, we continued planning with National Gallery of Zimbabwe to host the third AfroCuration. It was scheduled for the week of 9th and 10th of December.

December

For the third AfroCuration with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe we agreed to have a pre-activation event and this is scheduled for 26th & 27th of January with AfroCuration was postponed to 2nd and 3rd of February due to other engagements by NGZ. We used this time to continue the call for participation, keep the prospective participants engaged and also plan better and reconnect on the 5th of January. We went on a Christmas break on the 23rd of December 2021.

January 2022

We reconnected on the 5th of January with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to cross out our checklist and know what's left for the pre-event on the 26th and 27th of January and the main event for 2nd and 3rd of February. Also, we've touched base with the African Leadership Academy in preparation for the fourth AfroCuration event in March 2022.

February 2022

The AfroCuration event with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe took place on the 2nd and 3rd of February. We had a total of 26 participants in attendance with 49 participants registered on the dashboard. We ended the event with 21 articles produced in Shona and Ndebele but as at today the 11th of February, we have 32 articles created and 45 edited with total edits of 120 made this is due to the continuous edits made by the participants. The dashboard can be found here AfroCuration Event, Zimbabwe We're now currently in preparations for the AfroCuration event with African Leadership Academy. The first phase of the pre-event training has been carried out with the students.

March 2022

March 2022 was the peak of the AfroCuration events with two events in one weekend. On on hand, we tested the toolkit with the African Leadership Academy and on the other event, we tested a collaboration between African wiki communities and a cultural partner to produce one AfroCuration. The both events were successful. The African Leadership Academy event produced 73 articles with 18 participants registered on the dashboard here while the AfroCuration Politecnico brought the Politecnico di Milano, Twi Wikipedia User Group and Wikimedia Tanzania together as collaborators with Politecnico di Milano being the major curatorial partner. There was a total of 67 participants with 586 articles produced. The articles were in: Arabic, Swahili, Twi, Chinese, Italian. The dashboards from the events can be found here: dashboard 1 and dashboard 2 For the month of April, we're planning a second AfroCuration with the Mozambique community. This is to recruit new editors, improve the skills of the existing ones and also work towards getting the Makhuwa Wikipedia out of the incubator.

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