Grants:Project/MSIG/Free Knowledge Africa Movement Strategy

statusfunded

Free Knowledge Africa Skill and Leadership Development Plan

To conduct research, encourage community participation and document the implementation plan. This would help to understand the needs and challenges of Wikimedia student communities in Sub Saharan Africa.

targetplease add a target wiki

start dateJanuary 1st

start year2022

end dateJuly 31st

end year2022

budget (USD)$2000

grant typeplease specify whether this grant is for an individual, group, or organization

grantee• Timmylegend

contact(s)• isaacoloruntimilehin@gmail.com

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Applications are not required to be in English. Please complete the application in your preferred language.

Project Goal

What will be the outputs of your project and how will those outputs contribute to advancing a specific Movement Strategy Initiative?

What specific Movement Strategy Initiative does your project focus on and why? Please select one of the initiatives described here

31. Global approach for local skill development - gathering data, matching peers, mentorship, recognition.

The majority of our Community members are students from different Higher institutions in different parts of the country, we operate as a virtual community. In our previous community discussions and meetings, we observed that a lot of members do not have the appropriate skills and knowledge to effectively contribute to Wikimedia Projects.

These movement strategy implementation discussion will enable existing Wikimedia and Open knowledge student communities in Sub Saharan Africa to determine the skills needed and what training and development programs will help in closing the missing skills gap among their community members. There are some existing Wikimedia student communities in different universities across Nigeria and Ghana. These will also assist other Wikimedia communities that might emerge in higher institutions across Sub Saharan Africa.

At the conclusion of the needs assessment process, we would review the original objectives with the final results and recommendations. Doing this will highlight what steps are needed to achieve the goals and a workplan would be developed that outlines key approaches and strategies.

Project Background

When do you intend to begin this project and when will it be completed?

Start date: January 1st 2022

End date: July 1st 2022

Where will your project activities be happening?

The project will take place online:

Research plans and materials will be created on Google Docs/Sheets.
Research will be conducted using Google forms/Surveymonkey for surveys and Zoom for face-to-face interviews
Analysis will be conducted through Google Sheets
Reporting will be written and shared on Meta

What specific challenge will your project be aiming to solve? And what opportunities do you plan to take advantage of to solve the problem?

The challenges that this project aims to address:

Lack of information about capacity needs: This would help our community to carry out a needs assessment and to determine the skills that are critically needed to effectively contribute to Wikimedia projects as well as what pertains to various subgroups within the community.

The opportunities that this project aspires to seize:

Community growth: The size of our community has been growing in the past one year and this means there are more people available to learn new skills and use them to progress our work. It also provides an opportunity to increase the scope of the work that our community does.

'Does this project aim to apply one of the examples shared in the call for grants and if so which one?

Yes, Needs Assessment for Skills Development

Project Activities

What specific activities will be carried out during this project? Please describe the specific activities that will be carried out during this project.

We will carry out the skills assessment with the following steps:

Facilitated discussions - We plan to organize general discussions on the movement strategy, bring the community up to date on the current movement charter discussions and share all other relevant information with them.
Designing a survey of community skills - We will agree on the exact group of volunteers who we want to target, then we will design a survey based on the Community Capacity Map. The survey will be both a needs assessment, to define what are the skills that the community lacks, and a skill survey, to also define what are the skills that the community has.
Focus group discussions- Divide the participants into different groups where discussion on how to improve capacity of the community members will be discussed, we will also discuss what support will be needed for the community in achieving the organizational development goals. We would discuss Mentorship and leadership development in the community.
Interviews - We would have an assessment exercise within the community, this will help us know the specific training for capacity building for a section of the community or Individual needs. We will also carry out enquiries on other areas of Skill Development, Communications, Community Management and Project Management and any other area that might be identified during the focus group discussions. The data obtained from the interviews and surveys would be used in making informed decisions for the next steps of the project.
Prioritizing - Once the needs have been identified, we will conduct a general meeting with the community and a follow-up discussion to agree on the priorities. The priorities will be added to our final report, and we hope to use them to request a future grant in “track 3: create and deliver”.
Sharing - Our final needs and priorities will be not only shared on a local level, but also within a broader “global mapping” to help represent our region’s specific needs among the rest of the Wikimedia communities.

How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project? Please add the names or usernames of these individuals responsible for updating the community Grant request: Timmylegend will be responsible for updating the grant request.

We will announce the grant request to our community in its planning as well as the approval decision, if we receive it. Call for participation:
The call for participation will be openly shared in the community channel, including: village pump, and the mailing list.
Target outreach to certain groups might be conducted through social media or others.
Community meetings will be conducted to gather as many people as possible. Sharing the results:
The final report of the research project will be shared through the same channels: village pump, discussion pages and the mailing list.
A meeting will be organized to present the final results and share our plans for the next grant to develop the needed skills in the community.
The results will be shared in the global skill development needs assessment and surveying to help represent our communities specific context.

Who will be responsible for delivering on this project and what are their roles and responsibilities?

The project will be led by a group of volunteers from the Free Knowledge Africa community. Roles will include:

Outreach: Announcing the project, distributing surveys and sharing the results.
Facilitating: Facilitating the verbal 1:1 interviews and the community meetings.
Logistics: Handing the survey and reports for translation and hiring a freelance analyst to process the data.
Survey design: Carefully designing the questionnaires to collect the relevant data. This step could require the collaboration of the data analyst.
Writing reports: Apart from the data report, a volunteer will be responsible for writing a report about the project’s execution and finance.

Additional information

If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive? Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions.

There are experienced facilitators in the community who can help provide the needed support.
Wikimedia's Foundation friendly space policy

If your activities include in-person events or activities, you will need to complete the steps outlined in the Risk Assessment protocol. Please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool.

N/A

If your activities include the use of paid online tools, please describe what tools these are and how you intend to use them.

Zoom for virtual meetings
Surveymonkey for surveys

Do your activities include the translation of materials, and if so, in what languages will the translation be done? Please include details of those responsible for making the translations.

Yes, there would be a translation into French and the primary language of our local community.

A freelancer would be hired to carry out the translation.

Are there any other details you would like to share? Consider providing rationale, research or community discussion outputs, and any other similar information, that will give more context on your proposed project.

This project would help strengthen the student communities to implement the Wikimedia movement 2030 strategy and ensure the sustainability of the movement in years to come on the African continent.
We would like to organise a skills and training retreat for all our core team members and we intend on using the contracted researchers to help us do some research in putting together a good plan for this skills training as well.

Outcomes

After your activities are complete, we would like to understand the draft implementation plan for your community. You will be required to prepare a document detailing this plan around a movement strategy initiative. This report can be prepared through Meta-wiki using the Share your results button on this page. The report can be prepared in your language, and is not required to be written in English.

In this report, you will be asked to:

Provide a link to the draft implementation plan document or Wikimedia page
Describe what activities supported the development of the plan
Describe how and where you have communicated your plan to relevant communities.
Report on how your funding was spent

Your draft implementation plan document should address the following questions clearly:

What movement strategy initiative or goal are you addressing?
What activities will you be doing to address that initiative?
What do you expect will happen as a result of your activities? How do those outcomes address the movement strategy initiative?
How will you measure or evaluate your activities? What tools or methods will you use to evaluate your activities?

To create a draft implementation plan, we recommend the use of a logic model, which will help you and your team think about goals, activities, outcomes, and other factors in an organized way. Please refer the following resources to develop a logic model:

Overview of logic models on Meta-wiki
Example logic models for reference for other movement activities (such as partnerships and edit-a-thons)
Blank logic model template on Google Drive

Please confirm below that you will be able to prepare a draft implementation plan document by the end of your grant:

Yes

Optionally, you are welcome to include other information you'd like to share around participation and representation in your activities. Please include any additional outcomes you would like to report on below:

Budget

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

Research (time needed to review, perform analysis, or investigate any information needed to support implementation ideas or planning): $500
Facilitation (facilitation time including facilitator preparation, meeting facilitation time, and debriefing): $500
Documentation (document preparation time, time spent documenting of discussion, post-meeting work): $200
Translation (translation costs for briefs and global materials): $200
Coordination (coordinator work to manage or support multiple workflows to prepare for meeting): $200
Online tools or services (subscription services for online meeting platforms, social media promotion): $100
Data (internet or mobile costs for organizers or participants to access or participate in activities): $200
Venue or space for meeting (costs of renting a physical meeting space):
Transportation costs (costs of supporting organizers or participants to attend the meeting):
Meals (costs related to refreshments, lunches, or other meals during in-person activities):
Other: (Miscellaneous): $100

TOTAL: $2000

Completing your application

Once you have completed the application, please do the following:

Change the application status from status=draft to status=proposed in the {{Probox}} template.
Contact strategy2030 wikimedia.org to confirm your submission, as well as to request any support around your application.

Endorsements

An endorsement from community members (especially from outside your community) will be part of the considerations when reviewing your application. Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

Strong support This is indeed a leap in the right direction. This has my full support! B.Korlah (talk) 18:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Strong support The need for training and upgrading of the skill level of Wikimedians in the Nigerian community cannot be overstated. I am in support of this.Godstime Elijah (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Strong support This project is a good idea and I also believe the project lead is capable. This project has my full support. Prithee P (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Strong supportInformation gathered during this project will be really useful while planning future projects in the community. Bilijin (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Strong support This project is necessary to increase the active participation and engagements of editors in Nigeria in Wikimedia projects and Campaigns. Bukky658 (talk) 03:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC) 4:18, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
Strong support This project will help to harness the potential of students for the sustainability of Wikimedia movement in Africa.Haylad (talk) 12:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
Support I support this project. Shahadusadik (talk) 10:19, 11 December 2021 (UTC)