Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Afrodemics 2025 (ID: 22884528)

Endorsement from Bukky658 (talk)

I endorse this project based on the following:

Wiki Loves Afrodemics 2025 is an initiative designed to address content gaps about African academics and scientists on Wikimedia projects—an underrepresented area that has yet to be fully explored.

Building on the success of its first edition in 2023, this second iteration will focus on training editors to make these articles accessible in their local languages, bridging linguistic gaps while empowering participants to elevate stub articles to C, B, and Good Article status. The campaign prioritizes sustainability by retaining and recognizing contributors, offering special awards for gender-focused contributions and the creation of high-quality articles.

A diverse and experienced team of facilitators, trainers, and language coordinators will lead the project, ensuring effective implementation, robust community engagement, and the promotion of knowledge accessibility in local Nigerian languages. --Bukky658 (talk) 09:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Iwuala Lucy (talk)

Ensuring African representation on the digital space and on a very widely-read online encyclopedia like the Wikipedia is an endeavour that should be taken up with utmost seriousness. With a clear focused goal on closing the huge content gaps in Africa by increasing African scholars of the Afrodemics project, this project connotes intentionality towards representation and aligns with the MS Recommendation #8 Identify Topics for Impact - Implement initiatives and prioritize resources to fill content gaps on topics. It is on this note that I strongly recommend this project.

--Iwuala Lucy (talk) 05:35, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement by Reading Beans

As an experienced Wikipedia editor, I participated in the inaugural Wiki Loves Afrodemics 2023 campaign as a contributor. What stood out to me, compared to other projects I have encountered, were its robust sustainability plans and measurable impact. These two aspects, sustainability and impact, are the primary reasons I strongly support the 2025 edition of the The AfroDemics Project.

Sustainability

1. Following the 2023 campaign, the organizing team conducted extensive surveys and gathered feedback to refine their strategies for the upcoming 2025 edition. This effort led to the identification of outstanding Wikimedia editors to guide the project, ensuring continuity and expertise. 2. Unlike many initiatives that conclude once a campaign ends, Afrodemics incorporated post-campaign activities. These efforts maintained participant engagement, including my own, well beyond the campaign's official timeline. 3. The Afrodemics project is not merely campaign-driven; it is thematic and goal-oriented. Its long-term vision is to evolve into a thematic organization that will enhance the sustainability of Wikimedia projects across the board.

Impact

The first edition of the Afrodemics project achieved remarkable results, including the creation and improvement of five Wikipedia articles to Good Article status and numerous others to B and C grades. These milestones highlight the campaign's commitment to quality. Therefore, as a facilitator in the Wiki Loves Afrodemics 2025 edition, I am dedicated to building on this foundation to produce even more high-quality content across English Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other Nigerian language Wikipedias. Best, Reading Beans (talk) 08:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from FuzzyMagma

I fully support the Wiki Loves Afrodemics 2025 project and its grant application. This initiative is pivotal in addressing the underrepresentation of African academics and their contributions on Wikimedia platforms. By amplifying the visibility of scholars and their works, this project promotes equity, celebrates diverse knowledge systems, and empowers communities.

The project's focus aligns with Wikimedia's mission to provide a free and diverse knowledge base. Furthermore, its emphasis on partnerships and community involvement ensures sustainable impact. I am confident that this project will significantly enrich Wikimedia content and inspire future contributions from underrepresented groups.

I strongly encourage funding this initiative and commend the team's vision and dedication. FuzzyMagma (talk) 11:21, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Vanderwaalforces (talk)

This project, Wiki Loves Afrodemics, is very important for the African communities generally because our academics are not sufficiently represented on Wikimedia Projects, especially on Wikipedia. The main goal of this project, to cover African academics to a large extent, stems from the issues we have figured out regarding the representation of our academics. How are we going to achieve this? Intensive training sessions would be held (in-person and offline) and participants would equip themselves with everything they need to know before venturing into creating and improving articles, especially on English Wikipedia. This is important because, while we want to cover a very large extent of our academics, we also want quality articles that are carefully written and improvements that are worth it. This initiative is vital for addressing the underrepresentation of African academics on Wikimedia projects, filling a significant knowledge gap and promoting inclusivity. The strategies of community engagement, and targeted content creation are well-developed and will yield impactful results, especially with outreach to underrepresented groups like female academics as mentioned in the original proposal. The proposal also builds on past "wiki loves" initiatives, focusing on research and innovation by bringing attention to systemic bias in the academic sphere. It aligns with Wikimedia's Movement Strategy, particularly around knowledge equity and closing content gaps, and demonstrates coherence between its objectives, strategies, budget, and metrics, ensuring tangible outcomes for Wikimedia projects and the wider community.--Vanderwaalforces (talk) 11:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Bembety (talk)

Sustainability

Afrodemics project is a sustainable project. I was part of the first edition as a participant and the project's team rolled out different strategies to ensure that the participants were retained on the project. One of those strategies is picking from the previous participants to serve as the trainers of this edition. As an active Hausa Wikimedia editor, I believe documenting the thousands of African academics and scientists on the Hausa Wikipedia is a step closer to achieve knowledge equity and inclusive information to people who cannot read English language. Bembety (talk) 13:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)