Wikimedia Ghana User Group Annual Report 2019

Introduction

2019 has been a year of us changing structures and putting in requests for a chaptership. Our activities, challenges, aspirations and lessons have been captured below.

Some key user group activities

Dates	Activity	Description
January - September 2019	New Readers Radio Campaign	This was continued from last year, group representative Sandister Tei continues her brief radio segment named Wikipedia's List of Anniversaries from Mondays – Thursdays on Citi FM's Citi Breakfast Show each week. Each mention starts with the relevant Wikipedia Historical Anniversaries for that day. The sharing of facts and dates from Wikipedia with a continuous mention of Wikipedia is an effort to encourage the audience to visit Wikipedia for facts. It's a segment that the radio audience have positive feedback on.
January - September 2019	Drafting Groups Bylaws	As efforts to attain non-profit status still underway work on our bylaws is still outstanding so we are working on them.
March - June 2019	Wikimedia Ghana User Group 2019 Programs workshops	The user group organized 7 events across 4 regions in Ghana this year. We made use of the global Arts and Feminism campaign in this. We recruited 63 new editors, 72 participants and 148 articles created. This model allowed us to empower individual editors to lead programs in their respective regions. A detailed report can be found here [here].
July 2019	Wikimedia 2030 Strategy Salon	The Wikimedia Ghana User Group joined the global Wikimedia movement in organizing a strategy salon were 12 members of our user group came together to deliberate on issues regarding the Wikimedia 2030 movement strategy. This allowed the user group to state our position on the way forward for Wikimedia 2030. Find our video report here [Ghana Strategy Salon].
September 2019	Software Freedom Day 2019 - Bolgatanga	During Software Freedom Day 2019 celebrations in Bolgatanga, Enock volunteered to represent the user group by presenting on Wikipedia and Wikimedia, also leading a session on OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia.

Others

Partnerships

The User Group partnering with Developer's In Vogue, a group of women in technology for one of our events during Arts and Feminism. This is a women-only event to encourage the participation of women in Wikimedia.

Challenges

This year has been challenging because our user group is in a process of transitioning to a chapter and hence has taken a lot of our time and efforts. Another challenge for us has been the new rapid grant process was a major setback to us because we had to cancel a planned event because of the delay of the grants team in communicating the new grant regulations.

Looking Forward

Moving on we are looking forward to completing our chaptership request in the next coming year. We are still getting our bylaws reviewed. We are also attempting our first annual grant.