Grants talk:PEG/Wikimedia Ghana User Group/Wikineedsgirls

Thanks and initial feedback

Hi Rberchie and Flixtey! Thanks so much for your idea to engage more female editors in Ghana. Your multi-pronged strategy for engagement and training looks really promising. I have a couple of initial questions to help think through some of the project details:

1. Phase 1 looks like a lot of travel and a lot of schools to cover (13!). Does your team need more volunteers to help with the activities, training, and follow-up? It might be easier and more effective to start with one region and then expand later.
2. For Phase 2, you might want to consider a series of training workshops, ending with an editathon. I know Flixtey just completed a similar pilot with his project Edit Ghana. What are some of the lessons you can bring from that experience here? I would encourage you to think more about how you will do outreach to attract women (perhaps partnering with women organizations, GLAM institutions, girls' schools, etc.) and a strategy for retaining women as editors who come to the training events.

Thanks again for this great idea. We look forward to working with you on it! Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Alex Wang (WMF) for your observation.You have made critical points and I think it is advisable we take them into consideration.We will start with one region and focus on engaging more women through training.Our decision to travel to other regions was informed by the fact that most activities and projects in Ghana take place in Accra the capital. So we saw this as an opportunity to give more girls in other regions the chance. But from what you are saying we will concentrate on doing more trainings in Accra to build a strong team of female enthusiasts and women volunteers and have only one trip to another region.Subsequently if we have a lot of volunteers we can deploy them to other region and have a nationwide project if the need be.Thanks once again.--Rberchie (talk) 20:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Project feasiblity

Preliminary results coming from a report I’m preparing suggests that less than 2% of Wikipedia contributors in West Africa who have made 5 edits are female, based on subscribers to Wikimedia-CI and Wikimedia-GH mailing lists who prefer to tick “he edits / she edits Wikipedia” when creating an account. If that ends up right then the global average of 10% would be far too flattering.

The project would be very useful if carried out properly because it would not only create awareness and bring us more female contributors but also, it would enable us further insight on how to engage with underrepresented groups in our effort to counter Wikipedia’s general systematic biases especially in the Ghanaian/West African context. Fortunately, we have some success patterns we can learn from Edit-Ghana as Alex Wang (WMF) rightly mentioned. However, let me add that this idea is slightly different from Flixtey’s work in that it lays complete emphasis on “females”.

Since we do not yet know how successful it would go, it is best that we trim it down; travel to the Northern Region and conduct workshops at the two girls’ schools - Saint Mary's and Accra Girls secondary schools here in Accra. I am suggesting these schools because of the sharp contrast that exists between the well to do schools in Accra and the underprivileged ones we have upcountry in the north. We might be able to learn from this difference, such as in what kind of environment was our outreach most successful, what circumstance are females more compelled to edit Wikipedia, what we need to do/abandon in subsequent programs, etc.

In addition, there are certainly many attractions along the Tamala and Gambaga road, which lack images on Commons but let us make a humble projection of 200 quality images to be uploaded at the end of the day. I believe the students at Gambaga would have a lot to write about the much talked-about Gambaga Witches Camp that is close by and expanding the local language Wikipedia.

Phase 2 should be a follow up and evaluation of our activities in these four schools on one hand, and then a training workshop for interested females along with a grand “Notable women in Ghana” Editathon in Accra possibly on the same day.

Finally, on Kiwix - how we'll go about setting up and deploying the Kiwix software would depend on the budget that can be made available towards that. In the past like I mentioned here, I had access to the local networks at my university that made it easy for me to place the XML dump file on servers. Secondary schools in Ghana have computer laboratories that might not necessarily be networked. In that case a network has to be created (including hardware components). It is also possible to install Wiki taxi on individual computers but its unlikely their hard drives would have enough storage capacity to contain the complete database. A cheaper alternative to these two is to take advantage of the presence of Wikipedia Zero in Ghana. But that also would require a connection to the internet via MTN, or a router and wireless adapters on their computers (wireless adapters are also highly unlikely in a typical secondary school laboratory). Schools that we do choose to visit need to be visited beforehand to ascertain the capability of their laboratories.→Masssly^✉ 11:22, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Great insights User:Masssly am glad you are on this team. User:Rberchiemade similar suggestions and i think its all in line with earlier suggestions from Alex Wang (WMF). Its good to see we all synchronize on these and am very delighted that User:Masssly has made a few suggestions that will compliment our activities. Having the project up north and the opportunity to compare performance of another in Accra will help us generate more feedback for future works.Flixtey (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, Inspire Campaign

This Inspire Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for the Inspire Campaign review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review begins on 6 April 2015, and grants will be announced at the end of April. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at grants(at)wikimedia.org.

Wikiclub model and choice of language

Hi Project co-ordinators,
I find that this is an excellent idea. I understand that you are planning to create groups of girls in the model of 'Wikiclubs'. While this looks like a very good model, I am worried if it is going to be sustainable. The setting up of a club, from my experience, needs sustained motivation. I am a bit unsure if the one time visit and swag distribution will spark enough motivation to make them long term editors. Perhaps you'd like to make repeated visits to the same schools to make sure that the girls are performing well? I am also curious about the language the girls are going to work on, would that be the local language or English? Thanks again for this promising idea! --Netha Hussain (talk) 00:22, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello Netha Hussain thanks for your insightful thoughts,ideally that was what we planned doing but since it is a one time thing we had to have change of plans.But nothwithstanding that we will still create the foundation so that subsequently forming such clubs will not be difficult. We may not be able to visit all the schools but what we plan doing is form a partnership and based on the level of interest of a particular school we can adopt one Girls school in that regard once in a while visit won't be a problem and we can use that as community outreach.For the language it will. be primarily. English but we will. encourage. those who can write Twi. and Ewe to help in translation on Wikidata and Wikispecies and create and create articles on ak wikipedia.--Rberchie (talk) 16:50, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Pilot suggestions

Thanks again for submitting this proposal! We're excited about activities to support the growth of female editors in Ghana. We're happy you've decided on the phased approach to the project and have a few more comments and questions regarding the plan.

1. Considering you are trying to engage a new demographic (female students), we would suggest taking a similar approach to Edit Ghana -- a series of training sessions over several months, providing online mentorship and support between sessions, and concluding with a joint editathon/celebration. By focusing this pilot on the two schools in Accra, you'll be able to target your outreach and community building efforts. I worry that initiating activities in the northern region, where there are no experienced Wikimedians who can facilitate follow-up trainings, activities, and school partnerships, is not a sustainable model. Creating longer-term partnerships with two schools would be a wonderful outcome of the shorter-term project and we encourage the team to focus your efforts there.
2. It looks like you have eight experienced Wikimedians who are able to support the training activities. Please confirm.
3. The measures of success look ambitious, in terms of content creation and development of active editors. Let's discuss this on our upcoming call.

Looking forward to talking future about this exciting project. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), updates from our last phone discussion. We have restructured the entire grant to reflect the following:

• We have reduced the number of schools per our visit in both Accra and in the Northern region - We believe this will allow us to initiate a basis for our project and allow maximum concentration to ensure the pilot phase is successful. We believe one school will afford us enough time and allow careful assessment of both schools and realize their needs and the role we have to play to ensure success.
• We still think initiating a project in the Northern Region is in the right way to create awareness about Wikipedia, divert the attention from Accra and to give us a ground to establish necessary actions and networks for future projects while tentatively gathering information on which area this project will best work. We however wish to declare that we are unable to assure sustainability as we are not entirely sure about our contact in the North. We are willing to go by whatever your advise may be Flixtey (talk) 17:22, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Wikineedsgirls

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	8.3
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	7.9
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.1
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	8.0
Additional comments from the Committee: Would like to see potential for project replication in other countries (or towns) in Africa -or Global South-. Appreciate that it introduces an underrepresented demographic group and increases diversity of content. Potential for new learning about how to organize and administer established program model effectively in different places around the world. I appreciate funding projects from the global south, especially Africa. A club needs sustained motivation. Project may not spark enough motivation to make long term editors. Perhaps limit to one school with repeated training sessions, then fund the rest in another round? Concerned about helicopter approach which has been negatively received in the past in the wikimedia movement in the global south. Vital to have strong community engagement with local people in the wikimedia movement in each city. The target community is clear. Consider contacting the local community before sending someone to schools. May be too ambitious for timeframe of the proposal. Are the schools willing or able to be involved? Does the community understand the time commitment involved to execute? Would love to see collaboration with local community managers (if there are any) and existing WikiProjects, like WikiProject Africa and WikiProject Ghana. Project might benefit from additional volunteers during the several events proposed. Solid community engagement with well thought out plans to increase and sustain it. Unclear about justification for travel and accommodation budget for 8 people. Similar programs have show that significant follow-up is necessary to sustain them. Consider working with people who have experience implementing similar plans. This is an excellent proposal that shows the organizers' experience and ability to execute their plans. The types of measures of success listed are on the right track but the expected outcomes are not realistic with the current plan. Ambitious goals! I'd recommend slightly narrowing the scope and the measures. Suggest much more follow up, targeting a few schools. I think this is a fantastic project. I'd like to see the scope narrowed slightly and I'd actually like to see the budget increased to account for the project management the proposers will need to take on if this project is funded.

Inspire funding decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project and Event Grant through the Inspire Campaign.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, 2596.17 USD

Comments regarding this decision:
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Extension for Project Duration

Hi Alex Wang (WMF),

We wish to request an extension for this project to the 15th August, 2015. It was intended to completed by the end of July but unfortunately we can not meet this deadline due to changes in venue of events and other circumstances beyond our control.

We have already completed the training session at the Accra High School. Our training session scheduled for the second high school training in the northern region has been put on hold until school resumes. Students were due for vacation so we were asked to hold till when they resume. This wait, and late updates by venue owners have delayed our activities for the two day editathon session to be held in Accra, hence our request for an extension to complete the two day editathon session. Flixtey (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Flixtey. Thanks for this update. The extension is approved. The new end date is August, 15, 2015. Your final report will be due October 14, 2015. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the approval. Flixtey (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Pleased to hear progress report

Hi Flixtey, I'm pleased to hear a progress report about your activities. Good luck with completing the upcoming sessions. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 17:23, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks and we will be glad to furnish all with the final report soon. Flixtey (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Clearly one of the hardest activities in this slot. Nice photo. Would be nice to have a herding sheep link to the attendees' contributions. Nemo 14:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)