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Grants:Project/Ammarpad & DonCamillo/Outreach in Northern Nigeria/Midpoint

< Grants:Project | Ammarpad & DonCamillo/Outreach in Northern Nigeria


Report accepted
This midpoint report for a Project Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Welcome to this project's midpoint report! This report shares progress and learning from the grantee's first 3 months.

Summary

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In a few short sentences or bullet points, give the main highlights of what happened with your project so far. Even though, there are delays and changes of schedules, so far we have been able to:

  • Secure partnership with Bayero University, Kano. In our final meeting in Kano in December 2018 after the workshop, the staff in attendance explained their readiness to collaborate with us for Wikimedia Education program and establishment of Wikimedia fan club in the university.
  • Engaged Umaru Musa Yar'adua University, Katsina. So far we had only one meeting and then universities' academic staff's strike and elections issues inhibited further discussion. We hope to finalize things during the activities for the second workshop. In our meeting with the dean of students affairs, they explained readiness to support the project.
  • Secure partnership with two organizations: Centre for Information Technology and Development, Kano and Soho Foundation, Katsina
  • Organized a preliminary Workshop in Katsina
  • Organized first main Workshop in Kano in December 2018.

Methods and activities

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Second discussion in Kano
 
Prelim session in Katsina
 
Short clip of meeting in Kano

How have you setup your project, and what work has been completed so far?

Describe how you've setup your experiment or pilot, sharing your key focuses so far and including links to any background research or past learning that has guided your decisions. List and describe the activities you've undertaken as part of your project to this point.

Partnership with universities

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In Kano

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  • Formal contact established, a scheduled meeting followed
  • We had first meeting in October 2018, where I introduced Wikipedia to them and our plans.
  • We had final meeting on Saturday 29th December after the workshop. Olushola was present, Muhammad Sulaiman from Bayero university, Aliyu Dahiru from CITAD and three other staff. We talked about Wikipedia Education program and establishing a fan club in campus. There're some challenges identified and we hope to discuss more about this and hopefully during side meeting in upcoming WikiIndaba if it hold in Nigeria.

In Katsina

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  • We opted for Katsina after seeing no progress with Kaduna (which I visited in September 2018)
  • We had first meeting 6 November 2018 where I introduced Wikipedia and our projects, in attendance were dean of students affairs and Ahmad Ibrahim, a lecturer in Hausa language. as well students-friends.
  • We hope to have another discussion were we will discuss more before the second workshop.
  • We hope to have one more discussion were we will discuss more before the second workshop, but currently no date is set until after our elections are over.
  • We will discuss establishing fan club and Wikipedia Education program during the workshop side meeting.

Partnership with organizations

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  • Formal contact established. Meetings held with each
  • Center for Information Technology and Development Kano expressed their readiness for partnership and supporting the new community in Kano. The Kano-based leader Aliyu, works at the center.
  • Soho Foundation are enthusiastic about the project and call for the first preliminary workshop on introduction to Wikipedia to be held in September 2018. They generously supported the project with venue and internet data bundle at the time. Soho will continue to support Wikimedia activities in Katsina.

Translation

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  • Translation of help and guide pages into Hausa

The translation happens in two phases and a consultation. Unfortunately until now it has not be finished but this is because I added more items than earlier earmarked by DonCamillo after our consultation where they're recommended. There are also some challenges as the initial translators are not familiar with the wiki editing interface and not willing to provide the translation in situ. So the translation had to be uploaded after they provided it as a word document. There are also hard and soft copies that are sent to new users and some portions printed in form of fliers.

The parts yet to be finished are:

Workshop I (Kano, December 2018)

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Group photo
 
Majority of the participants say they never edited Wikipedia

The first workshop took place on Saturday, 29th December at the conference hall of Chilla Luxury Suites in Kano, Kano State. More people attended than we actually envisaged, and our guest Olaniyan Olushola had flown a day earlier. During the first segment of the event, we have a very basic Introduction to Wikipedia presentation as actually almost 80% of the participants never edited Wikipedia before. DonCamillo made a presentation on How to write basic Wikipedia article remotely from Addis Ababa.

Earlier, on Friday 28th December 2018, we had a preliminary session and discussion with some select people from Kano, including User:Aliyu Dahiru Aliyu, (who's now our Kano coordinator). In the night of the same day we have media engagement on a local radio station, Guarantee FM where Olaniyan Olushola was interviewed and explained the work of Wikimedia UserGroup Nigeria, the purpose of the then-yet-be-done workshop in Kano and overall mission of Wikimedia movement. I, among other participants, were interviewed the following day and the event covered by the station too: Interview with me in Hausa language and report that was broadcasted can be heard here on Soundcloud. Unfortunately I could not upload it to Commons even after following the conversion procedure. I faced same challenges with video files.

  • Some highlights:
  1. Over 200 people indicated interest to attend: Google sheet;
  2. 57 people attended the event.
  3. 42 new accounts created, 35 signed in Outreach Dashboard
  4. Our guest, Olaniyan Olushola attended and delivered impressive presentation.
  5. DonCamillo spoke remotely from Addis Ababa.

Midpoint outcomes

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Number of articles on Hausa Wikipedia (July 2018 -February 2019)
 
Pageviews per trimester (2016-2018)

What are the results of your project or any experiments you’ve worked on so far?

Please discuss anything you have created or changed (organized, built, grown, etc) as a result of your project to date.

  • We have built a massive awareness so far, more people are aware of Wikipedia and Hausa Wikipedia
  • We conducted preliminary session in Katsina in September 2018 with generous support of Soho Foundation.
  • We conducted a workshop in Kano in December 2018.
  • We have engaged several youth and tech organizations as well as individuals who are eager to participate in the programs
  • Registered editors in Katsina prelim and at Kano Workshop.
  • We have established a community in Kano to be led by Aliyu Dahiru Aliyu (talk · contribs) a Kano resident and passionate about the project
  • Establishing Wikimedia Community User Group Northern Nigeria
  • Media campaign on local radio, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp groups.
  • We've substantially increased the number of articles on Hausa Wikipedia. It now contains more than 3,330 articles and still counting.
  • The increase made the Hausa Wikipedia to become the fifth fastest-growing Wikipedia in 2018 according to this data by Wikistats
  • Due to our awareness campaign, now more people are reading the little content on Hausa Wikipedia (See chart at the right and more evolving data at w:ha:Wikipedia:Ƙididdiga. However, the increase in readers did not result in the same rate of corresponding editing, this is due to challenges in understanding the editing environment (as I largely observe) and the general fact that there're are always more readers than editors.

Some images from the Kano Workshop

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Finances

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Please take some time to update the table in your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed all approved and actual expenditures as instructed. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided there to explain them.

Expense Approved amount Actual funds spent Difference
1. Workshops in Kano; room, internet access and feeding. $1000 USD 997 USD $3 USD
2. Outreach in Kano $250 USD $250 USD $0 USD
3. Workshops in Katsina; room, internet access and feeding. $1000 USD $1045.73 USD - $45.73 USD
4. Outreach in Kaduna/Katsina $250 USD $224. 78 USD $25.22 USD
5. Translation of help & support materials $400 USD $400 USD $0 USD
6. Travels for one user based in Katsina/Zaria; transportation, accommodation and feeding $600 USD $697.32 USD - $97.32 USD
7. Travel for one user from Wikimedia User Group Nigeria to the first Workshop $535.94 USD $477.1 USD $ 58.84 USD
8. Travel for one user from Wikimedia User Group Nigeria to the second Workshop $549.01 USD $550.3 USD - $ 1.29 USD
9. Printing and contingency $415.05 USD $359.44 USD $55.56 USD
Total $5000 USD $ 5000 USD $0 USD

Then, answer the following question here: Have you spent your funds according to plan so far? Please briefly describe any major changes to budget or expenditures that you anticipate for the second half of your project.

  • Yes, we have generally followed what was approved. Where difference exists is only in the funds allocated for DonCamillo's flight ticket and I have notified the Foundation at the time and requested for the reallocation of that for Olaniyan Olushola's flight ticket and sundry printings of roll-up banner, name-tag and pamphlet. The fund is now partly spent according to the plan outlined in the budget change request.

Learning

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The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you are taking enough risks to learn something really interesting! Please use the below sections to describe what is working and what you plan to change for the second half of your project.

What are the challenges

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What challenges or obstacles have you encountered? What will you do differently going forward? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • Institutional delay when seeking response from the universities.
  • Changes in the project event schedules making us unable to complete this project in December 2018 as earlier expected.
  • Some challenges in the initial translations process as it has to be uploaded from word document, increasing the workload.
  • Some difficulty in explaining the concept to some people. Virtually here there's no culture of donation and volunteerism (or at least donation/volunteerism to big charities/cause), so some people find it difficult to believe they'll be doing all this as volunteers. Some are seeking to know what they would benefit at the end (for instance someone ask at Kano Workshop whether if he writes an article it would be "liked" by people as they do on Facebook, because on Facebook he used to have many "likes" on his posts).
  • Depletion of resources because the funds were received in Naira account, thus N306/$1 exchange rate of Nigeria's Central Bank was used in converting the funds to Naira.
  • There are some delays on determining the exact date for the events which led them to edge of the stipulated project time. This has now been resolved.
  • It took people time longer I thought before they understand Wikipedia editing process, this is slightly challenging.
  • Lack of adequate computers affected the experience of the first event; over here a lot of people don't have access to computers and mobile editing is still quite challenging.
  • Fortunately we have overcome most of the challenges and the preliminary training and the Kano workshop enrich our experience and helped us in determining where problem may arise in the future so as to prevent it.

What is working well

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What have you found works best so far? To help spread successful strategies so that they can be of use to others in the movement, rather than writing lots of text here, we'd like you to share your finding in the form of a link to a learning pattern.

Next steps and opportunities

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What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your project? Please list these as short bullet points. If you're considering applying for a 6-month renewal of this grant at the end of your project, please also mention this here.

  • Organizing the second workshop
  • Exploring the opportunity to expand the reach to more states
  • Completing final report

Grantee reflection

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We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being an grantee has been so far. What is one thing that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed from the past 3 months?

It has been a pleasure working on this project, though sometimes a bit stressing before people understand what really one's talking about. Generally people think of Wikipedia as they do any other site — thus finding it very surprising when they're shown how to edit.

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