Grants:Project/Rapid/Wiki Hour/Wiki4Climate Edit-a-thon in Ghana/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 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/Wiki Hour/Wiki4Climate Edit-a-thon in Ghana.
• 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.

Image of an encroached hill in Ghana's taken by a participant

Image of Climate Centre in Ghana's Logo by a participant

Goals

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

Yes we actually exceeded our expectations since we had newbies and activists which comprised of about 30 newbies and 4 existing wikipedians from the various sustainable advocacy groups such as Renewable Energy Association of Ghana, Joy Aid Foundation,Youth Opportunities Ghana,Strategic Youth Network for Development.

All projects listed this; Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Translate wiki (Hausa and Twi) had great contributions from participants. The outcome of the edit-a-thon and contest saw one of the collaborating institution Citi Fm[[1]] who captured the ceremony and gave us the space to educate its listening audiences to become advocates for Climate literature on Wikimedia .

That not withstanding, despite the busy festive period in which the training and contest was held, we were astound on how participants stayed long hours on the training and engagement hour sessions to be trained. The campaign was crowned with over 137 articles being improved and about 47 items and articles created on both English Wikipedia and WikiData through translations in Hausa and Twi respectively. Also, 21 images were uploaded on commons which had about 17 used in other articles and the other 17 also used in other language articles.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Organise 3 events thus (training, online edit -a-thon & contest)	Two online Training Three online edit-a thon 14 days writing contest	There were two online training for the introductory session via google meet (this was done to meet the needs of the workers). Three online edit a thons and a Virtual check-ins with different meeting times was organised in order to meet participants who had different backgrounds and per their availability. It also included 3 consecutive days of engagement hours purposely to assist those who needed more training. A writing contest was launched for a 14 days challenge to encourage the creation and improvement of articles on Wikidata, wikicommons,Tw wikipedia and Hausa respectively.
Recruit 25 participants	Recruited 34	The target was exceeded, it was great to have many of these climate and environmental activists participating in this project despite the short period assigned.
15 new editors	30 new editors	There were about 30 new editors with about 17 actively participating and consistent in the contest period. Four other participants were old and experienced Wikipedians.
50 articles created or improved	137 articles were created and improved	However, in total 47 new articles were created on both Wikipedia and WikiData.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?

It was exciting to have collaborative institutions support this initiative by encouraging environmental/climate change activists to participate. This saw an increase in content and images of various institutions and structures which needed coverage on Wikimedia projects. This paved a way for a connection with other green focused groups who were interested to participate in our next call. Aside our intended program outline, there where phone call trainings and hourly schedules for some individuals who were keen to contribute with both content and images. This proved that there was still room for improvement in terms of climate literature gap. The entire team is therefore glad to have embarked on this initiative to support Wikimedia and glad to share that these network of participants have had an eureka ffect to still contribute even after the contes ended in December.

News Publication on the campaign and awardees mentioned here

• What did not work so well?

- The campaign period was a festive preparations period which made it hard for some to participate.

- Lack of resources such as laptop for some participants, although some used their phones to edit and since they are new it was a challenge to meet their needs.

• What would you do differently next time?

- The best remedy to our encounter will be to hold at least one physical event to meet the needs of those who are willing to contribute but have fewer time to go through videos and tutorials independently.

- Also, it is most likely we include other language Wikipedia since participants from Northern Ghana requested for it in the survey that was - conducted.

- Timeline for the campaign was limiting hence the ned to increase participatory gap for newbies who later heard about the campaign.

Also, an inclusion of a photowalk to climate facilities and degraded sites which needed to be documented.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

• Data scholarship -[Data support for participants who took part in all the online meetings and training also transportation cost to purchase some call cards.- (USD300)
• Communication & design - [Promotional materials, Engagement time and design] - USD150
• Jury - [For cost of gift and internet expense to the (4)Jury team] - USD200
• Administrative expense - [This supported the team for their internet/gift voucher] - USD250
• Awards - [Gifts hampers,Certificates and Call cards/Vouchers for top 5 high contributors] - USD300
• Space rental and food- [Working space and feeding for team] - USD200
• Bank charges - [Transfers and Reimbursement charges plus Introductory letter charges]- USD20

Total grant expense = $1420

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No funds remaining

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Dashboard metrics (Writing Contest) - [2]

It was observed that there is indeed great power in using social media to reach out and engage more individuals and institutions to support the wikimedia movement. As shared in our project survey after the event, it will be great to hold varies editions of the campaign to ensure continuous bridge of climate literature to support Wikimedia projects during international week celebrations.