Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/African & Proud General Support.

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Dear User:B.Korlah and User:Edriiic,

Thank you for your application and your request for general support funding to support your work. To support us in the next phase of our review process, please see our comments and questions below for your response:

• We are excited to see your idea of developing an open-source LMS (Learning Management System) and are also keen on how you plan to make this available to other communities in the movement for use
• We find it valuable to have the creation of a video of digitized learning resources and the development of an open-source LMS website (under African & Proud) where training materials on how to edit Wikimedia projects can be found. This will be done to further help new learners to know how to edit Wikipedia and its sister projects. We are keen to know what might be different from other existing tutorials.
• We also find it innovative to use the approach of promoting the use of and contribution to cookbooks on Wikibooks, which is a generally underused project in Nigeria and through training videos that will be uploaded to the LMS as a free resource that anyone can access to learn how to edit on Wikibooks.
• You say in the problems mentioned that the biggest gap on Wikipedia is concerning sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the information is obsolete, missing, wrong, and often incomplete entries. Could you tell us concretely how you intend to fill these gaps?
• You say you are organizing a 5-day BootCamp called AfroYanga 1.0, complete training on Wikimedia projects. Can we know which Wikimedia projects these participants will be trained on?
• You say in response to question number 8 that your proposal aims to close the gender gap in content knowledge. Could you be more explicit about this?
• In response to question number 20 concerning metrics, you say that there will be 500 writers retained and hired after the activities. Is this not an overestimation of the numbers? Have you weighed the profile of the numbers you are putting forward?
• In the additional basic measures, you say that there will be 1500 articles created on English Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, and Hausa Wikipedia. We would like to have a little more precision on the articles to be created. Are these new topics of articles that you plan to introduce into the encyclopedia or are they translations of existing articles in other languages that you are going to make in the above-mentioned languages?
• We find a misalignment between the impact suggested and the resources requested and especially given your experience and capacity to implement the projects. In line with that, can you share with us the rationale and basis for the staff costs, especially for the two (2) co-founders, who are the main leads on the project?
• Would you share with us your experience with and plan to nurture robust financial management, transparency, and accountability in the implementation of this project? Who would the staff be reporting and getting support from?
• Would you share more on how you intend to collaborate with Wikimedian communities in Nigeria?
• Lastly, we encourage you to review the metrics section to also align with the learning questions you have indicated. What metrics can you use to help you capture what you need to support your learning?

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Responses

Thank you very much for your reviews and question, we have made some update and review on Fluxx, we will now answer all questions below:

• We are excited to see your idea of developing an open-source LMS (Learning Management System) and are also keen on how you plan to make this available to other communities in the movement for use

The learning resources will be accessed from an extension link generated from our website (www.africanandproud.com/learn), the learning materials will be on an open-source digital learning platform that can be accessed by everyone and from anywhere, provided the user has the link which will be shared across the board. The learning materials will be categorized into sections based on different Wikimedia projects (i.e. Wikipedia, Wikibook, Wikivoyage, and Wikicommons). The LMS would be used to track our training efforts and participants' learning efforts. It will also manage user information for personalized delivery including their user profile.

• We find it valuable to have the creation of a video of digitized learning resources and the development of an open-source LMS website (under African & Proud) where training materials on how to edit Wikimedia projects can be found. This will be done to help further new learners to know how to edit Wikipedia and its sister projects. We are keen to know what might be different from other existing tutorials.

Easy to understand: We aim to make our learning materials easy to consume in as little time as possible. Putting our audience first we are going to make the experience easy and fast as many people don't complete courses because they just don't have the time. A&P learning platform will be unique by making it easy for them to complete in tiny bites. For example, no video will be longer than 3 minutes and no worksheet will take longer than 5 or 10 minutes to complete.

Flexible: the LMS will be seen as a platform easy to use and users will see the platform as the natural choice because we will ensure we are giving a wide variety of options to fit different needs. Each Wikimedia project will be available as a whole package but will also be broken down into bits whereby people that need to learn a certain part will have the option to just access those parts and not undertake the whole package. (e.g 'Adding References on Wikipedia' would be a separate module from creating a new article on Wikipedia)

Convenient: The learning materials will be available to download to enable offline activity. For the first release, the material will be downloaded directly on the user's device, but in the future, a modification can be done to develop a mobile application that will support offline learning on the platform.

• You say in the problems mentioned that the biggest gap on Wikipedia is concerning sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the information is obsolete, missing, wrong, and often incomplete entries. Could you tell us concretely how you intend to fill these gaps?

The gaps will be filled with projects such as the Afrocuisine and Afrofestival where content relating to sub-Saharan Africa will be generated in activities that will involve creating new articles, article improvements, and translations to other languages such as Igbo and Yoruba. More breakdown on the details of AfroFestival and Afrocusine below; AfroFestival - A 2-month-long Editathon centered around creating and improving and translating Festival-related content on English Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, and Yoruba Wikipedia. AfroCuisine - Documentation of Nigerian Cuisines and to further show the cuisines, We intend to partner with Cuisine-related bodies in Nigeria. We will use the ISA tools to run an ISA campaign co-run by WIA (Wiki In Africa) and African & Proud on the theme of cuisine. Link here: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/08/22/tackling-wikipedias-africa-gap-climate-change-edit-thon/#:~:text=Africa%20has%20the%20fewest%20Wikipedia,edits%20on%20a%20monthly%20basis. The link shows that African content has one the biggest gap and different individuals and bodies have been working closely to close the gap and as African & Proud, we are committed to joining in bridging this gap by identifying some of the content gap and joining in bridging them.

• You say you are organizing a 5-day BootCamp called AfroYanga 1.0, complete training on Wikimedia projects. Can we know which Wikimedia projects these participants will be trained on?

Participants would be trained on how to create, edit and use Wikipedia and Wikibooks’Cookbooks. The common ground of this training will be training the participants on how to navigate and use these platforms, they would not only be thought how to contribute but will also be shown and taught how these platforms can be incorporated into their day-to-day activities and how beneficial it is to them as a learning resource.

The unique aspect of the training will be objective based on the platform. For example;

The Wikipedia Training would start from basics such as creating an account, wikilink, fixing typos, editing summaries, adding references to creating a stub.

The Wikibooks’Cookbooks training would also start from the basics of the platform, how to navigate to creating and adding cookbook

• You say in response to question number 8 that your proposal aims to close the gender gap in content knowledge. Could you be more explicit about this?

We intended to focus our WikiAcademics event on creating content around Nigerian Female Academics and VCs which will cover the gender gap in the academic sector, so this was why our initial proposal aims to close the gender gap but considering our scope and we wanting to start on a little smaller scale, that has been shifted to a latter project.

• In response to question number 20 concerning metrics, you say that there will be 500 writers retained and hired after the activities. Is this not an overestimation of the numbers? Have you really weighed the profile of the numbers you are putting forward?

As updated on the Fluxx page, the scope of the proposal is now been reduced (after careful consideration) and we have correctly assigned metrics;

Number of Participants:

Afroyanga - 30 participants

WikiClassroom - 50 participants per school = 50 * 5 = 250 participants

AfroCuisine - at least 70 participants

AfroFestival - at least 70 participants

Other (social media reach) - at least 100 participants

Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities: At least 25% of participants would be retained after activities. They will be inducted into the mentorship program.

• In the additional basic measures, you say that there will be 1500 articles created on English Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, and Hausa Wikipedia. We would like to have a little more precision on the articles to be created. Are these new topics of articles that you plan to introduce into the encyclopedia or are they translations of existing articles in other languages that you are going to make in the above-mentioned languages?

After the revision of the project scope;

Wikipedia (English Wikipedia) Number of articles created/improved - At least 350

(Igbo Wikipedia) Number of articles created/translated/improved - At least 300

(Yoruba Wikipedia) Number of articles created/translated/improved - At least 350

• We find a misalignment between the impact suggested and the resources requested and especially given your experience and capacity to implement the projects. In line with that, can you share with us the rationale and basis for the staff costs, especially for the two (2) co-founders, who are the main leads on the project?

We believe we have both proved our capacity in implementing projects and exceeding our goals in every project we have implemented. Kola was the ex-president of the Lagos State University Fan Club and under his leadership, numerous edit-a-thon was organized/implemented, and there was also significant growth in participants and club members, Richard was also the event coordinator and was thoroughly involved in the organizing and implementation of projects that happened during his leadership. Projects implemented during our leadership at the Lagos State University Fan Club include; WIKIPEDIA ART FEMINISM IN NIGERIA, Wiki Loves Africa 2021, WikiFestival Nigeria)

After graduating, we continued to contribute and organized projects outside of the school campus that continued to attract and recruit new editors. We have also developed and implemented new exciting projects such as Wikifestival, Nigeria Transportation and Recreation Expedition, Nigerian Cuisine, and our latest project Wikiclassroom.

Some Links to outreach dashboards are below:

https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Edriiic/Nigerian_Cuisine

https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Edriiic/Nigeria_Transportation_and_Recreation_Expedition_(December_-_January)

https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Lagos_state_University/WIKIFESTIVAL_NIGERIA

https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Kolawole_Oyewole/Promotion_of_Wikimedia_Projects_to_Edo_State_NYSC_Corp_members

These projects have participants from diverse backgrounds and I believe it shows our experience in successfully implementing projects, handling and managing training sessions (both physical and online), and physical events. We also pride ourselves in the implementation of a unique project that covered the content gap on Wikimedia projects, all these projects are unique in their aspect and also allowed introducing other Wikimedia sister projects that are underused/ not too popular to the Nigerian Community such as the Wikibooks: Cookbook during the Nigeria Cuisine project which was a huge success (Over 500 new articles were created, over 1,000 articles edited, 873 photos used to improved cuisine related article on both English Wikipedia and Wikibook uploaded to Wikicommons, and over 12,000,000 article views) see the full metrics here; And Wikivoyage during the Nigeria Transportation and Recreation Expedition (Over 350 new articles created, 687 articles edited, 575 Wikicommons upload and 12,200,000 article views) see full metrics here.

All the projects we have done and implemented were done from a place of making a meaningful impact, and from our track record, we have been successful at doing that with the project we have implemented and will continue to make such impacts with our future projects as We continue to deliver on our projects and we are excited to see new opportunities and success this new phase of a long partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation will bring.

Rationale and basis for the staff costs

The calculation was done on the basics of $1500/month for full-time at 0.5 Full-time Equivalent (FTE) / $750 monthly /

The remuneration is based on the duties, experience, and projected working hours. Staff will work for 20hrs per week at the rate of $9.375/hr (20hrs x $9.375) with 4 weeks each month (i.e. 4 weeks at $187.5 per week is $750 per month for 12 months).

Staff Hiring

The Staff hiring will be contracted to a recruitment consultant agency, which will oversee the drafting of the agreements and staff contract.

• Would you share with us your experience with and plan to nurture robust financial management, transparency, and accountability in the implementation of this project? Who would the staff be reporting and getting support from?

For this first year, we are making use of a fiscal sponsor which will allow us to learn from them and also from our mistakes. During the first year, we will learn and acquire knowledge on how to handle our finances. The staff would be reporting to the two co-founders, and also getting support from the cofounders, while the co-founder will continue to keep in touch with the foundation for any support needed and for the annual reporting of the outcome of our projects.

• Would you share more on how you intend to collaborate with Wikimedian communities in Nigeria?

All of our activities for this fiscal year are happening in Nigeria and we are going to collaborate with Wikimedian communities in Nigeria. During the AfroFestival contest, we will collaborate with the Igbo, and Yoruba Wikimedia communities since new articles would be created or translated into the language. We intend to bring in facilitators from the Igbo and Yoruba communities to train participants on how to use this language Wikimedia project. All of our activities would be shared across the Wikimedia communities in Nigeria and interested participants are always welcome from the Nigeria community, where active members are welcome to collaborate and bond with new participants.

• Lastly, we encourage you to review the metrics section to also align with the learning questions you have indicated. What metrics can you use to help you capture what you need to support your learning?

Thank you, we have reviewed and updated the metrics.

Edriiic (talk) 22:42, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 22,200 USD

Hello Africa & Proud ,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 20,000 USD plus 2,200 USD Fiscal Sponsorship Fees, with a grant term starting January 2023-December 2023.

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended funding in the amount $20,000 for the period of January 2023 - December 2023 .

We see the value of your proposed ideas to the movement ; we encourage you to review your proposal and identify 1-2 of the proposed programs that you would like to focus on. While we recognize the ambition we are aware of the mandate, effort that the programs need to be implemented successfully. We also request that you have a pragmatic plan to collaborate with existing groups in the Nigeria community , beyond the intention. This we believe will support your project and ensure success. It will also contribute to the current efforts of the community in being coordinated and collaborative for amplified and sustained impact. We see the community as an asset for you. We also need you to include a volunteers engagement element to your project. We hope that with the pilot opportunity, you will be able to develop foundational skills needed to further grow the programs.

We wish you the very best in your project and look forward to learning about the impact of you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:06, 1 December 2022 (UTC)