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Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round 2/Wikimedia Armenia/Impact report form

< Grants:APG‎ | Proposals‎ | 2015-2016 round 2‎ | Wikimedia Armenia



Purpose of the report edit

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs edit

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

  1. Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
  3. In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Overall edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 651
2. # of new editors 327
3. # of individuals involved 1027
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 51 This is the number of audio files added to Wikipedia articles in the frames of "Spoken Wikipedia" project.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 11144 articles created on Armenian Wikipedia (number of improved ones are not known), 32,132 new entries on Armenian Wiktionary, 8750 pages proofread on Armenian Wikisource
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 91,851,098 bytes to Wikipedia, 26,983,584 bytes to Wiktionary and 22,682,034 bytes to Wikisource


Telling your program stories - all programs edit

Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.

  • We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.
  • Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.
  • We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.
  • We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.
  • You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.
Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Example Example Example Example Example

Education Program edit

Education Ecosystem of WMAM
  • WM AM has worked to increase the reach of wiki movement and educational projects in the regions of Armenia.
  • The number of schools involved in educational projects are increased from 20 to 25 by July 1.
  • 25 schools are maintained who participate in Wikimedia Armenia Education Programs by July 1.
  • 3783 were created in Armenian Wikipedia by July 1.
  • 17376 entries were created in Armenian Wiktionary by July 1.
  • Monthly 231 participants participate in Wikipedia Education program by July 1.
  • 204 participants survived 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 1 edit).
  • 139 participants editing 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 5 edits).
  • 11 participants organized local events in their communities by July 1.
  • 63 teachers participating in 2 wiki seminars.
  • 24 teachers survived 6 months after the registration.

During the reporting period Wikimedia Armenia has continued its collaboration with different schools and universities as well as initiated the new ones with various stakeholders working in the field of education like the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia and Teach For Armenia (see Partnerships section).

Memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science edit

During the first quarter Wikimedia Armenia has initiated a collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science (http://www.gov.am/en/) with the aim to increase the quality and the number of articles in Armenian Wikipedia, to support the educational-scientific events organized by WMAM. It has been decided to sign a memorandum of cooperation where parties agreeing to the following:

  • to ensure the transparency and the accessibility of free knowledge and the content in Wikimedia project,
  • to support all educational and scientific events organized by Wikimedia Armenia which are aimed at addition and improvement of the content of Wikimedia projects.
  • introduce Wiki editing in schools and universities as part of the curriculum.

We already have the first draft of the Memorandum, which will be finalized and negotiated with the Ministry of Education and Science in 2018.

Teachers’ WikiWeek edit

  • Photos from the Teacher Wikiweek.
    Photos from the Teacher Wikiweek.

In June 2017 Wikimedia Armenia has organized its fifth Teachers’ WikiWeek for the teachers in the provinces of Armenia. The call for participation in Teachers’ WikiWeek was announced on various social media platforms and shared through website and mailing list of the National Center for Educational Technologies, which includes all schools of Armenia. 87 teachers have applied to participate in Teachers’ WikiWeek and 37 teachers have been selected. At this event teachers from the previous Teachers’ WikiWeeks that have actively been editing in Wikipedia and other Wiki projects have received certificates of appreciation from Wikimedia Armenia. Certain new elements have been added to the program of the seminar. Teachers learned the basics of notetaking and deepened their knowledge of task design.

The most important change in this seminar was the establishment and introduction of the mentoring system. Since the number of teachers is much bigger than the Wikimedia Armenia training staff it was decided to split newcomers into small groups of 5 and assign them experienced wiki teachers. The aim of this change was to ensure the high quality and effectiveness of the seminar and to acknowledge the contribution and motivate the active teachers. Wikimedia staff has designed mentorship guide for the mentoring teachers with detailed instructions on which wiki editing tools and policies should be taught during each day.

Davit Sahakyan, Deputy Minister of Education and Science has been invited to talk about education in general, the modern views on education and the prospects for education development in Armenia. There were a short Question and Answer session during which teachers were given an opportunity to address their concerns to the Deputy Minister.

During the evaluation session of the WikiWeek teachers shared their impressions with us and noted that a difference in age groups didn’t create an obstacle in participation in this seminar, moreover, was even a good precondition for effective work aimed at enriching the Armenian Wikipedia.

“The Teachers’ WikiWeek made possible for the participants not only to get acquainted with the wiki technologies which will improve the teacher’s performance but gave an opportunity to exchange their teaching experiences with colleagues from different Armenian regions. The activities fostered a new way of thinking, finding new solutions, team building, self-development and self-expression. ” - said one of the participating teachers as a feedback.

Teacher seminar (November 2-6)
Participants 26
Edits 1102
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 1,049,967 (-35346)
Articles created 134
Teacher seminar (June 6-11)
Participants 37
Edits 1591
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 1,475,107 (-62557)
Articles created 174

Education Collaborative (Collab) Meeting in Yerevan edit

  • Photos from the Collab Meeting
    Photos from the Collab Meeting
Collab Meeting poster

Wikimedia Armenia has applied to host the annual Education Collaborative Meeting 2017. After the negotiations with the WMF Education team, this proposal was approved and program leaders from 10 different countries were invited to Yerevan on June 2 to 4 to discuss the trends, needs, challenges, and solutions, and develop a consolidated strategy towards the future of the global educational initiatives in Wikipedia and its sister projects.

The Ayb school has generously provided its premises for the meeting. The meeting’s agenda included a presentation of several educational success stories from the invited communities, discussions on the goals and the needs to reshape them. There was also a conversation on the Wikimedia Movement Strategy, where Collab had its own input in terms of suggestions for the Movement Strategy 2030.

One of the major achievements of this meeting was the decision to create a new user group - Wikipedia & Education User Group - on the base of the Collab. The Collab meeting was a wonderful opportunity to connect our local Wikipedia education coordinators and educators with the international leaders. Thus we have organized a successful lunch meeting with the Armenian and international education leaders at Ayb school, where Armenian and international program leads shared their experiences and impressions.

Educational Partnerships edit

Presentation of Wikimedia Armenia at the Partnerships Meeting

In order to create new partnerships Wikimedia Armenia held a roundtable discussion in May 2017 and invited potential educational partners - Teach For Armenia, AGBU, Ayb school, Luys Foundation, American University of Armenia, Birthright Armenia etc. Below are the highlights of the discussion.

Partnership with Teach for Armenia edit
Urasar school WikiClub
Students from Dilijan are learning how to edit Wikipedia

After the partnership meeting organized in May 2017 Wikimedia Armenia started a collaboration with Teach for Armenia NGO (TFA). The aim of this particular NGO is to improve education in Armenia and make it accessible to all children regardless of where they live and what socio-economic background they come from. Teach for Armenia was represented by Teny Avakian, Director of Recruitment and Selection. The following points for potential collaboration were discussed:

  • There are no after-school activities in the distant villages where Teach for Armenia works. During the meeting, TFA suggested that the WikiClubs could potentially become after-school activity where kids will learn to edit and make friends. Their teachers run various after-school clubs and they might be interested in establishing WikiClubs.
  • Teach For Armenia has a monthly meeting for its teachers in Yerevan. WMAM can present the educational program to them and find potential coordinators or leaders for the Wikipedia Education Program.
  • Teach For Armenia also has an annual meeting for the new teachers - Summer School of the Teach For Armenia. WMAM can add a training component on the Wikipedia and media literacy.

After this meeting, 13 teachers have been invited to attend the upcoming Teachers’ WikiWeek, where they were introduced to the Wikipedia Education Program and learned the ways to include the wiki activities in their teaching process. As a result three of the teachers went back and have initiated setting up WikiClubs in their respective villages - Arshaluys, Urasar, and Vardenik. In order to support their initiative, some students from these villages were later invited to WikiCamps. Another follow-up was the participation of the Teach for Armenia teachers in the WikiCamp as group leaders and advisors for the campers. One of the active editors and volunteers of WMAM - Volodya Grigoryan, who has applied to join the Teachers team of TFA took part in the Summer School and introduced wiki editing tools and wiki movement.

Partnership with Ayb school edit

Ayb was represented by Aram Pakhchanyan - the Principle of the school, who suggested to have a Wiki ambassador at AYB, who would really want to constantly support wiki activities. Mr. Pakhchanyan suggested several working models that would be the most effective. One of them emphasizes the importance of research by students who would learn first and contribute․ Students would work on large articles which might consume a lot of time but it would be a good way to make the work creative and collaborative. In its turn, the ambassador or WMAM would provide the students feedback on how useful their articles were (e.g. number of views) and how appreciated it was by the readers.

Birthright Armenia volunteer Christine and WMAM staff

After the meeting, Ayb School has nominated a Wiki Ambassador who is the Ayb School librarian, a participant of the Collab Meeting. She was also invited to take part in teachers training to learn to edit and pass on the knowledge to Ayb students. As a result, it was decided that Wikimedia Armenia would reshape its education program with Ayb in September 2017.

Partnership with Birthright Armenia edit

Birthright Armenia, also known as Depi Hayk, is a volunteer internship enhancement program that also offers travel fellowships to eligible participants to assist in the development of Armenia․ Ruzanna Sargsyan, the job placement specialist of Birthright Armenia introduced their program and suggested that their experts, professionals, and volunteers engage in various Wikimedia educational projects. Right after the meeting, we had our first volunteers from Canada and USA who got involved with WMAM.


Partnership with Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) edit

AGBU preserves and promotes the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and humanitarian programs, annually serving some 500,000 Armenians in over 30 countries.

During the meeting AGBU representatives mentioned the following areas for collaboration with WMAM:

  • Assist the institutional capacity development of Wikimedia Armenia through its Civil Society Capacity Development project - Together4Armenia (http://www.together4armenia.am/en)
  • Support Wikimedia Armenia in studying the impact of Wikimedia Armenia’s educational programs such as WikiCamps and WikiClubs on youth (especially rural and underprivileged youth).

WikiCamps edit

  • 267 students have participated in Winter 2 and Summer 3 camps.
3 Summer WikiCamps
  • 1,451 articles created or improved in Armenian, Georgian and Polish Wikipedia.
  • 8,603 entries created in Armenian Wiktionary.
  • 253 new articles in Western Armenian.
  • 1281 pages proofread in Armenian Wikisource.
  • 27,217,557 bytes added to wiki projects.
  • 0 files uploaded in Wikimedia Commons (Armenian words pronunciation).
2 Winter WikiCamps
  • 937 articles created or improved in Armenian and Georgian Wikipedia.
  • 6156 entries created in Armenian Wiktionary.
  • 0 files uploaded in Wikimedia Commons (Armenian words pronunciation).
  • 10,043,630 bytes added to wiki projects.

Wikicamp brings together teenagers, students, youngsters, youth from 9-21 years old which come to learn to edit, contribute to the open knowledge, to develop various skills, to mingle and have fun! We have organized 5 wikicamps for this reporting period during which we have hosted 267 participants from various parts of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno- Karabakh), Georgia, Lebanon, and Poland.

We have implemented several major changes in the content and the schedules of the camps: we have diversified the schedule including more games and activities and introducing the mentoring system. We have also actively promoted Wikicamps to attract more paid participants. and the new website of Wikicamps was very useful in this regard. Another major change was the implementation of the 1st Winter WikiCamp for university students which enabled us to engage more student-newcomers to the Wiki movement.

Trademarks edit

Wikimedia Armenia registered WikiCamp and WikiClub trademarks with the Intellectual Property Agency of the Republic of Armenia in 2017.

Changes in schedule, WikiTeam, mentoring system edit

Schedule changes edit
One day at Wikicamp 2017
Summer Wikicamp 2017 (I)
Wikicampers are learning to dive, Summer WikiCamp 2017
Karen Balayan at Summer Wikicamp

The Wikicamp team has also decided to change the content and the schedule of the Wikicamps adding new elements like personal development games, note taking, goal setting and body and mind fitness games.

Wikimedia Armenia has started collaborating with Girls of Armenia Leadership Soccer (GOALS). Their goal is to empower girls through soccer and develop leadership skills, build confidence and create a network of like-minded individuals that will support them in all aspects of life. GOALS has introduced their own games and trained Wikicamp leaders how to apply them during the Wikicamp. The games are aimed at the leadership, team building, human rights, and gender equality.

We had guest speakers who attended the camp and inspired children with their own stories. One of them was Karen Balayan, Ayas Nautical Club President and the Captain of Kilikia ship. Children had an opportunity to watch some of his films at the camp and were extremely excited to meet him and ask how he achieved his lifelong dream to build a ship and travel the whole world.

Another guest was Mamikon Hakobyan, a member, and trainer of “Armdiving” Divers Club who talked about the divers day to day lives and their experiences under the water. With the help of the divers, the campers were given an opportunity to test the diver's suits and their equipment in the underwater environment.

Mentoring edit
Summer Wikicamp (III) wikiteam

Taking into account the successful experience of the mentoring system established at the Teachers’ WikiWeek, it was decided to apply the same model for the Wikicamp with some modifications. Each group was assigned a mentor that helped and guided Wikicampers and ensured team building throughout the editing hours. A detailed guide was written by the Wiki team for the mentors In order to achieve the smooth running of the mentoring process.

A number of wiki games have been created and implemented to diversify the editing process and make it more fun and enjoyable. Here are some of them:

  • Article structure game is intended to build a complete article structure using the section names of the article on different topics (Biography, Geography etc).
  • Encyclopedic style game is aimed at campers to learn how to write Wikipedia style encyclopedic texts. Campers were given a paragraph from different sources and were asked to convert them to encyclopedic style using keywords and notable information.
  • Free and non-free images. Participants are being given cards with images, their descriptions, and terms of use/licenses which they have to match. After this exercise, they need to tell the mentor and the group which is the images that are or aren’t allowed to be used on the Wikipedia.
  • Statistics and views. Campers are learning how to utilize article views statistics and other stats-related tools through games.
edit

This year we have decided to widely promote the Wikicamps in order to find potential paying participants. We have advertised the camps on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. This was also introduced to different groups in Armenia such as IWAY (International Women’s Association of Yerevan), AYWA (Armenian Young Women’s Association), Repat Armenia, InterNations Yerevan and many other NGOs.

We have also designed a separate website entirely dedicated to Wikicamps (wikicamps.org). This gets updated and refreshed depending on Wikicamp dates and activities. Our website has all the information on the Wikicamp activities, organizers, locations and the dates. It also has the previous participants stories and beautiful visuals.

We are actively involved with parents through correspondence and most of them have expressed a gratitude to our team and the work we are doing in Armenia.

“Wikicamp, however, is a place where I always want to return. And there are few things in the world that you want to experience again and again.” - Anahit Ghazakhetsyan

“Wikicamp is unique because along with the sport games, hiking, different contests we also play intellectual games and, which is most important, edit Wikipedia. This develops our translation skills and makes us smarter. Wiki unites editors with the same ideas - free knowledge and free content for everyone.” - Karine Hovhannisyan

Winter WikiCamp (I)
Winter WikiCamp (II)
Georgian participants at Winter WikiCamp (I)
Number of participants Wiktionary Wikipedia Number of participants Wiktionary Wikipedia Number of participants Georgian Wikipedia
participants 64 30 4
created/improved

articles/entries

6156 652 - 233 52
edits 6430 1794 - - 2051 463
bytes (net sum)
42,218,923
 3,044,205 1,342,502
Summer WikiCamp (I)
Summer WikiCamp (II)
Summer WikiCamp (III)
Number of participants Wiktionary Wikipedia Wikisource Number of participants Wikipedia Number of participants Wiktionary Wikipedia Wikisource
participants 42 64 67
created/improved

articles/entries

4942 17 801 233 3661 262 340
edits 5724 149 1020 2051 4107 1131 1198
bytes (net sum)
2,910,418
 189,455 2,192,741 3,044,205 2,051,318 2,711,166 1,277,658
Georgian participants at Summer WikiCamp (II)
Polish participants at Summer WikiCamp (II)
Number of participants Wikipedia Number of participants Wikipedia
participants 4 4
created/improved

articles/entries

85 54
edits 892 - 299
bytes (net sum) 1,411,045 5,065,921

WikiClubs edit

  • 3 new WikiClubs (Togh, Ddmashen, Vanashen WikiClubs) were established by July 1, 2017
  • 9 WikiClubs were maintained by July 1, 2017.

The main purpose of creating the WikiClubs was to increase the outreach of Wikimedia projects in Armenia and the involvement of editors from very distant parts of the country as well. For this reporting period, three more WikiClubs have been established in Togh, Ddmashen and Vanashen villages while maintaining nine existing ones.

Apart from maintaining the smooth running of the WikiClubs our team also tries to document success stories of the WikiClubs in various sources mainly in the Educational Newsletter. This motivates the Club members and spreads the word about the WikiClubs and the Wiki in general. Please see the links to some of those stories below:

Lernapat WikiClub

The Lernapat WikiClub is one of the most active WikiClubs of Wikimedia Armenia. The WikiClub coordinator - Armenuhi Voskanyan and the clubbers share their experience and thoughts.

The Brief Story of Mrgavan WikiClub

This is the story of the establishment of a WikiClub called Mrgavan WikiClub, located in Mrgavan village, Armenia. This could not happen if a student from the Mrgavan High School - Christian Ginosyan did not propose to open a WikiClub in his village.

Stepanakert WikiClub։ “Wikipedia, because being clever is always in fashion”

The article tells about Stepanakert WikiClub of Nagorno Karabakh which was founded in 2015. The WikiClub coordinator and the clubbers tell about their experience of becoming Wikipedians.

Launching of the new donation system edit

Since the number of the clubs is growing and the types of donations and sponsorships are getting diverse, Wikimedia Armenia has the need to add another donation system that would allow to effectively and reasonably collect and distribute the donations among the Clubs. To achieve this goal Wikimedia Armenia has started working on the new donation system which would incorporate the following:

  1. One consistent mechanism which would allow all donations to be sent to one account
  2. A detailed structure that would clearly show the potential donors the steps they need to follow to support a WikiClub.
  3. Diversifying donating instruments and methods. One of the first priorities would be to develop the online donation system on the WMAM website.
  4. To create a mechanism that would allow us to allocate these donations to the clubs.
  5. Reporting mechanism to sponsors.

We have started working on the development of donation system close to the end of this reporting period and are anticipating to fully operate it in 2018.

Western Armenian program edit

Presentation at Holy Cross Harboyan High School
  • A WikiCamp was organized in Portugal on August 17-26.
  • 1 Western Armenian WikiClub was opened in Istanbul.
  • 40+ new Western Armenian students were involved in the program by July 2017.
  • 1053 new Western Armenian articles created by July 1.

The Western Armenian team promoted the project during different conferences and events in Armenia thus increasing public awareness and outreach of the project among Western Armenians living in Armenia. One of them was titled: “Western Armenian language in Armenia: Challenges, Prospects”. The conference was organized by the Youth Council of the Aleppo Compatriotic Charitable Organization with the support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. The conference aimed at finding solutions for preservation and development issues of the Western Armenian language in Armenia.

We also carried on recruiting new volunteers in the Diaspora. After the Summer WikiCamp 2016 in Portugal, Turkish-Armenian participants established a new WikiClub in Istanbul. On October 6, 2016, participants began their first workshop at Istanbul National Central College․ Club founders are always encouraging and teaching students to edit Western Armenian articles. We have also founded another WikiClub in Beirut. On November 9, 2016, Alicia Ishkhanian, a Wikipedia camp participant, presented the Western Armenian Wikipedia in the Armenian Evangelical Central High School. Encouraged by this presentation, 10 students requested to open a WikiClub in the school so that they could learn and improve furthermore the Western Armenian Wikipedia.

A WikiClub successfully operates in Armenian Catholic Patriarchate’s Holy Cross Harboyan High School in Lebanon since February 2015. On March 31, 2017, the founder Assadour Basmajian, with the aim to engage more members and wiki editors, made a presentation on WikiCamp and wiki products in the school.See more about this story on the Education Newsletter:

Two major events were proposed and o organized in July and August 2017 - Wikicamp Summer 2017, La Bourboule, Francois et Suzon, France and WikiWeek for Western Armenian teachers and professionals. The WMAM Western Armenian team put lots of efforts and energy into devising a solid plan that would make these events possible.

Read more on the Western Armenian project:

Digitization edit

Toros Toranian at WMAM office
  • 54 books Armenian books were digitized.
  • 70 active editors are maintained in Armenian Wikisource.
  • 25 books were proofread in Armenian Wikisource.

Wikimedia Armenia has continued its Digitization project scanning 54 books in total. After scanning and uploading the books in Wikimedia Commons they are given to WMAM WikiClubs whose participants proofread them. Studying other, more developed Wikisources like French and Italian, we have introduced some new tools in Armenian Wikisource. We have changed the Proofread Extension template, introduced new visual templates which helped to better proofread.

During the last 6 months, WMAM began collaborating with Western Armenian author and public speaker Toros Toranian. Toranian agreed to publish all his books in Wikimedia Commons under the free license. The scanning of his books is planned during the second half of the year.

Community Support edit

  • The reach of wikiprojects in Armenia and its regions were increased via WikiClubs.
  • There are at least 10-15 participants at Saturday workshops.
  • 5 workshops were organized in different educational and scientific institutions.
  • 5 edit-a-thons were organized for WLS participants.
  • About 75 participants gathered to celebrate the Wikipedia Day at WMAM office.

The community support is a metaprogram consisting of various small community-oriented projects and events which are aimed at diversifying, developing, engaging old and involving new community members. During this reporting period, we have worked with the community members in the community building, content generation, as well as Wikimedia movement strategy through strategic discussions, Saturday workshops organized at the WMAM office.

  • Wikimedia Armenia's events timeline for particular seasons
    Wikimedia Armenia's events timeline for particular seasons

Saturday Workshops edit

  • Mher Bekaryan is introducing the Wikimedia Armenia NGO
    Mher Bekaryan is introducing the Wikimedia Armenia NGO
  • Scouts of Armenian General Benevolent Union at WM AM office
    Scouts of Armenian General Benevolent Union at WM AM office
  • User:Ladsgroup is having a workshop on Wikidata for Armenian wiki community
    User:Ladsgroup is having a workshop on Wikidata for Armenian wiki community
  • Workshop for the students of Yerevan State University, Faculty of Physics, December 22, 2016
    Workshop for the students of Yerevan State University, Faculty of Physics, December 22, 2016

Saturday workshops have become a tradition for the community. Every Saturday Wikimedia Armenia has open doors for all those who are interested in Wiki projects and editing. On these days we not only create content but let community members interact with each other, exchange ideas as well as discuss ongoing projects with WMAM staff. We have held XXX workshops with 10-15 participants in each.

We have held several special Saturday workshops which either had a specific theme or participants like Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Scouts, Children of Armenia Foundation (COAF) Lori and Tavush regions SMART rooms’ coordinators, User:Ladsgroup’s workshop on Wikidata and many others.

Strategic discussions with WMAM members and volunteers edit


In April 2017 we have invited Wikipedians and WMAM members to attend presentations and discussions on the Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Movement strategy. The participants worked on WMAM Strategy for 2017-2020 which seeks to update and systemize WMAM goals and objectives for further promotion of Wikimedia Movement in Armenia and drastically improve and increase free knowledge and open source content in the Armenian language. After the general presentation, the participants worked in groups on the strategic plan, expressed their opinions and gave feedback. Based on these discussions WMAM shaped its final strategic plan for the next three years.

WLS Edit-a-Thons edit

  • WLS Weekend with the guests from WMF, 28-30 April
    WLS Weekend with the guests from WMF, 28-30 April

Wikimedia Armenia has very much enriched the Armenian Wikipedia on the scientific educational content through the WLS Edit-a-Thons. WLS has been also an instrument to attract new editors and involve them in the wiki community. During this reporting period, 5 WLS edit-a-thons have been organized with the average of 30 participants in each.

WLS (November 4-6, 2016) WLS (December 24-26, 2016) WLS (February 24-26, 2017) WLS (March 24-26, 2017) WLS (April 28-30, 2017) Sum
Participants 34 21 32 25 34 146
Edits 819 954 1540 735 546 4594
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 887,077 (-74,018) 859,792 (-35,592) 1,877,136 (363, 472) 913,837 (16,077) 721,409 (28,074) 5,259,251 (517,233)
Articles created 108 149 151 101 85 594


Wikipedia Day edit

  • Wikipedia Days is being celebrated in Stepanakert too
    Wikipedia Days is being celebrated in Stepanakert too
  • Wikipedia Birthday cake
    Wikipedia Birthday cake
  • Wikipedia Day at the Wikimedia Armenia office
    Wikipedia Day at the Wikimedia Armenia office


On January 15, 2017, we have celebrated the 16th anniversary of Wikipedia not only at the WMAM office but also in Stepanakert Wikiclub. It has become a good tradition for all active Armenian Wikipedians to get together on the same day. This celebration is also a great opportunity for Wikimedia Armenia to summarize all organized contests and award the winners. On this day we also presented a report on the achievements of the year and talked about the future plans.

Spoken Wikipedia edit

Announcement for speakers for the Spoken Wikipedia porject

In order to attract new volunteer speakers for the Spoken Wikipedia project, Wikimedia Armenia announced a call for the speakers via its social platforms. After careful selection we have chosen candidates with the best declamation voice, who later recorded 51 articles synopsizes.

WM AM office renovation edit

We have started renovating our new office premises in 2017. The construction is still going on and we are planning to complete the renovation works by the end of 2017.Enlarged and multifunctional space will create more opportunities to engage more contributors, to host groups from various organizations and organize different types of events as for the community members and also for newcomers.

  • New space is still under reconstruction
    New space is still under reconstruction

Microgrants edit

Microgrants program was canceled due to subgrantees not being able to present a proper working plan. The budget for this project was reallocated because of some financial changes in Wikimedia Armenia upon the prior approval of WMF.

International involvement edit

  • 34 Armenian editors participated in Norwegian-Armenian cooperation.
  • 1 winner from each country.
  • 1 participant at Wikimania 2017.
  • 3 participants at WM CON 2017.

WM CEE Meeting 2016 edit

Group photo of the WM CEE Meeting 2016

Last year Wikimedia Armenia’s efforts were mainly concentrated on the organization of the WM CEE Meeting 2016. The idea of organizing the conference in Armenia was approved at the WM CEE Meeting 2015 in Voore, Estonia. The preparations for the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 began long before the conference. At the beginning of 2016 Wikimedia Armenia has reached an agreement with UWC Dilijan College to host the WM CEE Meeting 2016 there. The conference took place on 27-29 August 2016 and hosted 102 participants from Central and Eastern European Wikimedians community. Among these participants, there were also many local Armenian community members. The conference was the fifth annual meeting of Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe who discussed the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and similar projects) in the countries of the region.

Wikimedia CEE Meeting featured presentations and workshops on Wikimedia projects, GLAM, Wikicamps/Wikiclubs, CEE Spring, Education Extension, best practices for editing workshops and social media/PR/Media, Wikidata, Content Translation, conflict management, communication, surveys, WMF grant system and changes, WikiMed and gender gap, free knowledge and free content, and the social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.

One of the priorities of Wikimedia Armenia, when organizing the CEE Meeting, was the dialogue and integration of Armenian wiki-community members into the global one. The engagement of Armenian community members into this event was a great opportunity for them to feel the global wiki-movement, to be part of it, to learn about the projects and activities run by other affiliates which increased their participation in different international wiki projects.

You can find more information about the WM CEE Meeting 2016 here:


Norwegian-Armenian collaboration edit

  • Armenian winner of Norway-Armenian collaboration
    Armenian winner of Norway-Armenian collaboration

In November and December 2016, Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Norway (Norge) held parallel editing contests in their home countries. The initiative encouraged Armenian editors to write about Norway and Norwegian editors to write about Armenia in their respective language Wikipedias. The reward for the winners was to visit the country they wrote about.

There were 34 participants from Armenia who created and edited more than 765 articles on Armenian Wikipedia. The winning participant from Armenia Vahagn Pilipossyan traveled to Norway and got exposed to Norway’s culture, people, monuments, and traditions. The winner from Norway Erik Trym was hosted by the Armenian side and was highly impressed by the Armenian hospitality and its history.

A blog post on the blog and a learning pattern have been written about this collaboration.

As a follow up of this collaboration Wikimedia Norge and The National Archive in Oslo have applied for a grant of Arts Council Norway to transcribe descriptions of Bodil Biørn’s photos taken in 1905-1920 and digitized by The National Archive in Oslo. These photos are essential documentation of Armenia and Armenian History as they demonstrate the life, culture, and customs of Armenian people during the Ottoman Empire. Wikimedia Armenia supported this initiative through contacting and finding a potential partner and supporter in Armenia - The Armenian Genocide Museum-institute, which also expressed its interest in working with these documentations.

Moreover, WMAM planned another contest with the Wikimedia Norge for the next year.

Other contests edit

During the reporting period in collaboration with chapters and user groups from other countries, Wikimedia Armenia organized other writing contests - Castles challenge, Wikimedia CEE Spring 2017, Europeana WWI and "Hungarian Revolution of 1956" month with impressive outcomes.

International conferences edit

Wikipedia for Peace 2017, Vienna
  • Participants from WMAM at Wikipedia for Peace 2017. Kick off
    Participants from WMAM at Wikipedia for Peace 2017. Kick off

Wikipedia for Peace was a project that brought together peace activism with Wikipedia. It was also supported by Wikimedia Armenia and had representatives from the chapter staff and volunteers. In Vienna, the participants got introduced to the way Wikipedians and other editors try to use Wikipedia editing and reading as a peacebuilding tool for the community. Armenian participants had prepared a presentation on WMAM education program and WikiCamps.

Visiting Wikimedia and Wikimedia Conference 2017
Davit Saroyan with the Wikimedia Conference Team

A WMAM staff member Davit Saroyan was chosen to be the Visiting Wikimedian 2017 of Wikimedia Deutschland. This is a project of Wikimedia Deutschland to share experiences and learnings from WMDE with other Wikimedia movement affiliates. Through this program, Davit helped to plan the 2017 Wikimedia Conference, held in April, in Berlin. You can read more about his experience and learnings on the Wikimedia blog and Wikimedia Conference 2017 report.

Wikimedia Armenia had 3 participants in this conference where they actively participated in some sessions as panelists sharing their experiences with the international community.

Wikimania
Shahen Araboghlian is presenting WMAM's Wikicamp project at Wikimania 2017

Unfortunately, no participants from Armenia could attend Wikimania 2017 organized in Canada due to visa issues. Only Shahen Araboghlian, a Western Armenian program participant from Lebanon was able to attend the conference having a presentation on Western Armenian program, Western Armenian WikiCamps and their positive impact on the Western Armenian editors’ community.

Changes in the governance edit

Artur Khalatyan was appointed by the Wikimedia Armenia Board to be the Executive Director of Wikimedia Armenia.

On April 22, the General Assembly was held at Wikimedia Armenia, where members elected the Board for 2017-2019. The new Board consists of 7 members and an Honorable Board member. The Board underwent some governance changes and formed 4 committees - Governance, Financial and Risk Management, and Education Committees.

Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal. Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Wikicamp payable participants AMD - 450,000.00 450,000.00 - 918
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation USD 29,925.50 29,925.50 29,925.50 29,925.50 89,776.50
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation USD 980.00 980.00 980.00 980.00 2,940.00
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation USD 22,784.50 22,784.50 22,784.50 22,784.50 45,569.00
Wikimedia Foundation USD 41,362.44 41,362.44 41,362.44 41,362.44 124,087.32
Wikimedia Foundation (WM CEE Meeting PEG) USD 49,135.50 49,135.50 49,135.50 49,135.50 98,271.00
Wikimedia Foundation USD 104,978.50 104,978.50 104,978.50 104,978.50 209,957.00
Wikimedia Foundation (WMF Reimbursement for the Collab meeting) USD 545.58 545.58 545.58 545.58 1,636.74
Wikimedia Germany (WMDE costs for the Visiting Wikimedian) AMD 2,234,597.00 2,234,597.00 2,234,597.00 2,234,597.00 4558.57788

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Operations AMD 11,090,200.0 5,594,987.0 3,191,908.0 1,951,763.0 3,195,208.0 13,933,866.0 22,624.0 28,425.1 125.6
Staff expences AMD 13,812,864.0 6,472,764.0 6,776,832.0 4,187,500.0 13,651,668.0 31,088,764.0 49,329.0 63,421.1 128.6
Education program AMD 6,553,000.0 4,100,000.0 0.0 0.0 2,794,800.0 6,894,800.0 13,368.1 14,065.4 105.2
WikiCamps AMD 40,244,500.0 5,441,330.0 5,821,480.0 7,769,900.0 18,303,089.0 37,335,799.0 82,098.8 76,165.0 92.8
Wikiclubs AMD 440,000.0 40,449.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 40,449.0 898.0 82.5 9.2
Western Armenian AMD 28,847,686.0 6,548,771.0 1,424,134.0 2,010,153.0 6,122,993.0 16,106,051.0 58,849.3 32,856.3 55.8
Digitization AMD 200,000.0 143,210.0 3,000.0 0.0 0.0 146,210.0 408.0 298.3 73.1
Community support AMD 15,654,000.0 2,749,864.0 755,373.0 1,698,948.0 8,991,146.0 14,195,331.0 31,934.2 28,958.5 90.7
Microgrants AMD 900,000.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1,836.0 0.0 0.0
International involvement AMD 6,090,000.0 0.0 0.0 3,996,225.0 2,355,720.0 6,351,945.0 12,424.0 12,958.0 104.3
TOTAL AMD 123,832,250.0 31,091,375.0 17,972,727.0 21,614,489.0 55,414,624.0 126,093,215.0 273,769.4 257,230.2 104.3 N/A

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Compliance edit

Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement? edit

As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

  • The budget was reallocated due to the hiring of the executive director. This new budget was discussed and approved by WMF.

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Signature edit

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Resources edit

Resources to plan for measurement edit

Resources for storytelling edit

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