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Grants:Project/Rapid/Islahaddow/WLA 2019 Pre-Contest Communications

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statusFunded
Islahaddow/WLA 2019 Pre-Contest Communications
Wiki Loves Africa is an annual, themed contest driven across Africa. There is as yet no funding for the event in 2019, which will take place in February 2019. This individual application is to create and disseminate the pre-contest communications materials needed for focus countries to host events, and encourage participants to take part in the contest.
targetCommons
start date1st November
end date31st January
budget (local currency)ZAR29,000.00
budget (USD)USD1995.00
grant typeindividual
grantee• Islahaddow
contact(s)• islahaddow(_AT_)gmail.com
website (if applicable)• www.wikiinafrica.org


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Project Goal

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Briefly explain what are you trying to accomplish with this project, or what do you expect will change as a result of this grant. Example goals include, "recruit new editors", "add high quality content", or "train existing editors on a specific skill".

Wiki Loves Africa is an annual, themed contest that visually celebrates the myriad cultures and contemporary realities of Africa. It's aim is to provide a simple way for people to contribute high quality images to Commons about Africa. Due to the lack of funding for this contest this year, and to ensure that the contest goes ahead.
This grant application is submitted in order to develop and provide the communications elements and materials for the 2019 contest to ensure maximum entries and at the participation events held by focus countries across Africa.
Wiki Loves Africa is an annual competition that crowdsources photographs, videos and recordings of Africa to form an open licenced archive of materials that tells the story of Africa on Wikipedia through the eyes of its people. Since 2014, Wiki Loves Africa has encouraged people from across Africa to submit images and media that illustrate a universal theme representing local heritage and contemporary culture. Local knowledge about the competition is driven by events held by local Wikimedia volunteers in focus African countries.
The competition is designed to:
  • be an easy and fun way for people to contribute their experiences and cultures to Wikipedia,
  • inspire people to share their pride of local knowledge and cultures on global platforms like Wikipedia,
  • add to the visual representations of Africa's peoples and cultures on Wikipedia,
  • provide alternative perspectives of universal subjects by including visuals from Africa in their articles,
  • bolster the visibility and membership of local volunteer groups,
  • provide opportunities for volunteer groups to build capacity and project management skills.
Since its inauguration in 2014, the themes have covered Cuisine, Cultural fashion and adornment, Music and Dance and People at Work. The 2019 competition theme is Play!.
Over the course of the last four years there have been several achievements of which we are proud.
  • Images entered into Wiki Loves Africa are viewed over 13 million times on Wikipedia, every month.
  • Over 5,000 people have contributed images.
  • Over 40,000 images have been entered.
  • 14 African countries have hosted participation events organised by local volunteer teams.
  • Around 175 participation and training events have been held.
  • The competition attracts high levels of new contributors (between 80% and 88%) each year.
  • A Wiki Loves Africa prize-winning image was included in the Journeys Through Our Fragile Heritage exhibition at the United Nations, Paris (organised by John Cummings, WIR at UNESCO).
  • Wiki Loves Africa 2019 is shortlisted as a pilot project for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons to adopt the new structured, linked open data technology from early 2019.

Project Plan

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Activities

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Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? The pre-contest communications activities plan includes the development of all marketing materials (posters, flyers, event poster templates, banners, stickers and gifts), the contest's video, and the implementation of communication elements across online platforms (website, wikipages, social media, etc.).

Specific elements that need to be developed and the process managed:

  • website text and updating
  • design oversight
  • call leaflet and poster text
  • video creation and dissemination
  • launch press release creation
  • press release template
  • dissemination of all materials across all digital platforms
  • share all elements with all local volunteer teams
  • launch press release dissemination and liaison with WM community blogs

Elements that requires a designer to develop:

  • 2019 call leaflet
  • 2019 call posters
  • event templates
  • social media branding

Communications materials from previous years can be found here:

How will you let others in your community know about your project (please provide links to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions)? Why are you targeting a specific audience?

The Wiki Loves Africa contest that is supported by Wikimedia Communities across Africa. This grant develops the communication elements that will better assist them in their communication strategies around the contest in their countries. The materials are intended to assist all local efforts. This grant application will be shared with all local organisers and other Wikimedia groups that might be interested in hosting Wiki Loves Africa in their countries on African Wikipedians ML and Wiki Loves Africa organisers Facebook group.

What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

Provided all pre-contest communications materials that are required for participants to host participatory events, or know about the context via social media or other digital platforms. All elements will be made available on Commons and via a shared dropbox (to allow for design formats not supported on Commons).

Note:

  1. this grant is linked to Grants:Project/Rapid/Anthere/Wiki Loves Africa 2019

Impact

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The project will have been successful if the following elements are delivered to Commons and a shared dropbox:
  • a call leaflet
  • a poster
  • a contest video
  • theme press release
  • press release template
  • pre-contest social media headers/cover images
  • branded merchandise (t-shirt, caps, etc.)

Resources

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What resources do you have? Include information on who is the organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

The Wiki Loves Africa contest is well supported by volunteer teams across Africa, however ironically these teams need this initial communications support in order to do what they need to do well.

You can view previous contests here:

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:

  • Communications development, copywriting and editing, design brief and liaison, website update and creation, materials dissemination: R12,000.00 (USD825.00)
  • Video script, image selection and video creation and editing : R10,000.00 (USD690.00)
  • Design of all elements : R7,000.00 (USD480.00)

Total amount requested: R29,000 / USD1995

Endorsements

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  • This is a great project for gathering visual contents on Africa. I stand with WLA 2019 AminouT (talk) 10:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support This is a wonderful contest in Africa. Chabota (talk) 18:25, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support Mounir Touzri (talk) 22:37, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support Bonne Continuité for WLA 2019 Mohammed Bachounda (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support This contest has been quite impactful over the years. Another edition is welcome from me.--Jamie Tubers (talk) 13:29, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
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