Grants:Project/Rapid/Musaddam Idriss/Wikipedia Promotion in Yobe/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2021-22 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Musaddam Idriss/Wikipedia Promotion in Yobe.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Sincerely, I'm more than happy with the project. Albeit, we were not able to conduct 1 out of the 3 days’ trips we had to do where we used to visit major cities particularly tertiary institutions and secondary schools for the promotional campaign due to the insecurity issues with regards to the Boko Haram attacks in eastern part of Yobe State and we couldn't visit the area for that reason. We were able to travelled to the other two geo-political zones in the state comprising the northern and the southern parts of the Yobe States. However, it’s so interesting that my online promotional campaign helped a lot in bridging the gap as reasonable number of the participants who attended the final (4th day) workshop came from Damaturu and Geidam (which are two among the major and most populated cities situated in the eastern part of Yobe state i.e where the security issues is strictly under consideration). This therefore means, the project had the participation of people from all the angles and parts of the state and this was what delighted me the most.

Outcome

Project Metrics

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of people reached 1000+	1000+	Although, I initially thought that my original target was a bit ambitious, but later it was amazing to learned that I reached the target from day one I began the online and offline promotion campaigns to the final day of the training workshop and there are still participants who are still visiting the Wikimedia sites in quest of learning more from what we have presented to them. The success is of course associated with the distribution of the over 1000 flyers and posters printed and distributed in different places across the local governments in the state and this made us believe that our message reaches different people.
Number of campaign participants 40	Number of attended participants 50	The number of participants exceed the target but fall within the estimated number of people and this defined the success of the project.
Increase in page views for a Wikimedia project	I used Wikimedia Stats and learned that the number of page viewers has significantly increase	Many people now in Yobe State especially academics and students visit Wikipedia more often because of the promotional campaign we made. The link can be found in the section, Anything Else.

Learning

What worked well?

Actually almost everything worked according to plan because I planned the promotional campaigns in two phase; firstly, I began with online promotions where I shared flyers and posters with information about the Wikipedia Promotion in Yobe. I also created a WhatsApp Group where I added all the interested people. Inaddition to that I taught them how to used Google Meet app and through that platform I had four (4) consecutive meetings with them where I used to explain to them the Wikimedia projects and how we are going to reach out to them in our offline promotional campaigns. I also taught them how they could search for everything they want to look for in the Wikimedia projects by sharing my screen to them in Google Meet App while doing all these and they are watching and asking questions about it. Moreover, having an experience editor, Gwanki who have been organizing and leading similar projects in Kano and Katsina, has helped me a lot during our offline promotional campaigns. Together, we tour all around the visited places distributing branded Wikipedia flyers, posters and stickers; explaining to the people the aims and objectives of the Wikipedia project and that they could find everything they are looking for on Wikipedia.

What did not work so well?

The travels were a great experience of course, but in the places where we weren’t known we used to find it very difficult to convinced the administrators/the schools authorities to let us make the promotional campaign to the target audience. This has in one way or the other prevented us from reaching to some portion of individuals who are supposed to get in touch. An instance is the case with one tertiary institution in Yobe north, where we were stopped and not allowed to make the promotional campaigns untill sunset.

What would you do differently next time?

I planned to make the next awareness campaign different in the way that equality on gender can be achieved because there seemed to be a need to make more women to get involved due to the fact that on this project, the women can’t take more than one-third of the participants. Also, during this project we become acquaintances with almost all the tertiary institutions and many university lecturers including Heads of Departments and Deans/Directorate of Student Affairs who have also participated in the event and this means in the next project we wouldn’t have challenges and problems in promoting Wikipedia in any place in the parts of the state.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.’’

Training space = $254.9
Data (internet access) = $100
Laptop and Projector renting = $100
Snacks and refreshments (for participants and 5 facilitators) = $300.46
Bus tickets to/from (to reimburse 5 organizers) = $95
Banner = $92.72
Food & Beverages (Refreshment for organizers/volunteers during the 3 days’ trips for promotional campaigns X 5persons) = $90
A vehicle hired for transporting organizers, volunteers for the 3 days’ trips × 5 persons = $106
Fliers/pamphlets/Tags distributed during the trips = $46
Branded Wikipedia T shirt (two colors white and light blue x 5) = $61
Certificate distributed for the Participants = $68
Accommodations for the 2 facilitators (4 days × 2 persons) = $87
Fee for the 2 invited experience editors transport = $73
Contingency fees and Security = $122

TOTAL SPENT = $1,596.08 USD

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of 16,115.20 NGN (equivalent to US$38.80 as of 10 March 2022) were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:Project/Rapid/Musaddam_Idriss/Building_Fulfulde_Wikipedia_Community_and_Promotional_Campaigns_in_Potiskum_Metropolis.

I have 38.8 USD remaining and I would like to retain the funds while I apply for a follow-up grant. I expect to submit a new grant request within the next 30 days.

Anything else

I uploaded some pictures of exiting places and schools we visited during the campaign to Wikimedia Commons.
The event photographs can be found here on the event's landing page via this link: Wikipedia Promotion in Yobe Landing Page

References

Metrics about the page views of Hausa Wikipedia can be access here: metrics
WhatsApp group opened to continue engaging the participants Group
Metrics about the page views of English Wikipedia can be access here: [1]