Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Simple Annual Plan Grants of the Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group 2022
Related: User:Serine Ben Brahim User:هاني_يكن
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Applicant details edit
Wikimedia username(s):
- main: User:Reda Kerbouche
Related: User:Serine Ben Brahim User:هاني_يكن User:Ahlam Bolooki
Organization:
- Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did not receive a grant
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- Yes
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- Emirates Literature Foundation
Additional information edit
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- United Arab Emirates
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Local
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- Yes
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- Emirates Literature Foundation
Proposal edit
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
Our mission is to aid and encourage all citizens and residents of the UAE, regardless of their social or other status to collect, develop, create and disseminate knowledge for free through stimulating public interest in the culture of volunteering and creating and editing content.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
The first challenge of Wikimedians of the United Arab Emirates User Group is to increase the content of Wikimedia projects (the most important being Wikipedia) in Arabic and English language. To achieve this, we will hold various competitions (Article Contests, Photography Contests, Wikimarathon, Wiki camp) on the Arabic and English Wikipedia. Contests will be regional and international.
The second challenge is to increase the volunteers of Wikimedia project editors. The increase of the number of participants in Wikimedia projects, primarily in the Arabic language, is strategic for us; since the growth of the Wikimedia content and its quality depends on the number of participants. We will seek different groups and individuals, including those under-represented in our community by supporting and organizing training aimed at increasing participation in the Wikimedia movement. We are working with our community to find opportunities to increase participation and improve the climate for new comers in Wikimedia projects. This is done through outreach activities, partnerships with educational institutions, and on-wiki initiatives (such as Wikimarathons and Article contests). These activities have parallel aims of improving content and attracting more participation from the target groups. To address this challenge and to attract new volunteers and participants in the Wikimedia project in the UAE, we will carry out the following projects: 1- We conduct active training and workshops in educational institutions and for interested parties. 2- We conduct thematic competitions and wikimarathons.
The third challenge is to become an official Wikimedia chapter which will make us the first in the Arabic world. To achieve this, we will be using the Affiliation Committee guidelines.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Education and Digital literacy This program sums all the actions and activities that seek to connect the work of Wikimedians of the UAE UG and the WM Educational projects with Educational institutions and Universities in the UAE, to spread the WM philosophy on the national stage.
Community Outreach This program brings together all the actions and activities that the UAE UG displays to recruit new members and train editors and content creators and facilitate collaboration with other WM structures in the region.
Media Outreach This program considers actions and activities that aim to promote the pedagogical use of the Wikimedia philosophy and projects and also to discuss the importance of data sharing and open-source information within the media.
Research Programme The UG will allocate a research fund to conduct research in different areas to support reliable data collection. The research will focus on specific subject areas including all GLAM projects. The selected researchers will be assigned to a specific subject area such as Art, Calligraphy, History, Tourism, Science etc. The researchers will be tasked to develop and organize strong database in Arabic and English for each of the identified research areas. We will use this research as a base for our volunteers to create Wikipedia articles.
Local Identities This program refers to the actions and activities that seek to improve the quantity and quality of the content related to the United Arab Emirates and its identities and territories in Wikipedia by engaging local communities in the creation of that same content. This is an initiative that promotes the creation of visual content that represents UAE cultural and social life, as well as its natural and urban values and characteristics.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
-Bridge the content gap in Arabic language - promotion of knowledge in Arabic and aiding Arab speakers to find information easily.
- Increase Participation - cultivating sustainable communities of Arabic content creators and researchers in the UAE to preserve information in Arabic.
- Increase awareness of the importance of freely accessible and reliable data across all subject matters in the Arabic Language, as a translation of Arabic content into English and other languages for global exposure.
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
No
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- N/A
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
Name: Ahlam Bolooki (volunteer) Role: Project Coordinator / Executive Director of WM UAE UG Username: Ahlam Bolooki Responsibilities: Responsible for the programmes and strategic planning of the User Group. She leads the execution of all programs and projects.
Name: Serine Ben Brahim (paid staff) Username: Serine Ben Brahim Role: Researcher, Trainer, and Content Writer Responsibilities: In charge of all the training programs, organizing data, and volunteers work. She will be in charge of the Education and Digital literacy program. She reports to the Executive Director of WM UAE UG.
Name: Reda Kerbouche (volunteer) Username: Reda Kerbouche Role: Communities Coordinator Responsibilities: In charge of planning, executing, and evaluating the Communities and new users program. He reports to the Executive Director of WM UAE UG.
Name:Hani Yekan (paid staff) Role: Outreach Coordinator/Partnership Manager Username: هاني يكن Responsibilities: Responsible for the execution of the Group’s communication, activities, and strategies. He will be also responsible for planning, executing, and evaluating the activities in the Outreach and Media program. He reports to the Executive Director of Wikimedia UAE UG.
Vacant positions: Researchers on different topic areas (refer to q.12 on the main strategies)
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Geography, Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Open Technology, Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Geographic , Disabilities, Linguistic / Language, Age, Digital Access
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
1- This is an open proposal for diverse communities in the UAE. Whilst it is open we hope to specifically engage students, women, and grass-roots organizations working in the area.
- 1.1. Content Gender Gap: focuses on including female authors, artists and others, not only representing their work but also as participants in the workshops and editors. The proposal also seeks to include grassroots cultural and governmental organizations that represent these communities as partners.
- 1.2. Geography: will include youth as editors and also future organizers from this area.
- 1.3. Socioeconomic status: will be working on including students as editors and future organizers from diverse socioeconomic levels. We will also include expats and residents from other countries, who are living in the UAE.
- 1.4. Age: will seek to include youth as one of the main groups of contributors as well as people from all age groups.
- 2.No prior experience with WM is needed to participate: we will be providing training to all our volunteers and contributors.
- 3.we will engage participants who are already active, by forming partnerships and collaboration projects. We will reach out to them through effective local communication channels such as posters, social media, local radio networks and local organisations.
Strategies to engage and maintain new contributors:
- 1. Reaching out to local communities and organisations:
By working with these organizations and aligning their missional work with Wikimedia movement philosophy, we look into benefiting from their community engagement dynamics, such as: regular meet-ups etc....
- 2. Visibility and impact: We will give recognition to contributors' work to show the impact of their work, for instance highlighting the content views. In this way, the local authors, artists etc... can see the potential of Wikimedia in giving them not only local exposure but also global one.
- 3. We will maintain participants to stay active, both online and offline, according to each person's time, interest, and capacity as well as a communications strategy via emails and email newsletters and social media engagement.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
We have included the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy in our strategy and policy to create a supportive environment for participants. We will work on our by-laws and send it to the AffCom for review and approval.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
Yes
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
We started working with the communities of Arabic speakers across the Arab world as well as communities in the Arab Gulf where there are no WM user groups, through our Arabic Literature project “Kateb Maktub” and organizing a competition on writing articles on Arab Authors in all the Arab world. We also have shared collaboration initiatives with other Arab User groups through the Wiki Arabia Conference 2021 in Algeria that was organized virtually in October. We communicate normally with the rest of these connections through social media, Facebook groups mainly. We aim to work with the educational team of Wikimedia Foundation.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
We will be working with local collectives. such as the artists and authors collectives/unions and media collectives and entities. These are formally and informally organized grassroots organizations with a long tradition of community building in the UAE. These collectives will provide some of the equipment and physical spaces to carry out the activities, as well as help to engage existing participants of these communities with the proposal's activities by using their existing communication channels and mobilization capacities. The proposal aims to be able to benefit the collectives by expanding their range of activities and making their work more visible through Wikimedia sites and future partnerships with NGOs. the educational system, and local government.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
Most of our proposed actions in the attached Strategic Plan are self-sustainable, with the right push and initiation during the grant year, we aim for our participants and volunteers to stay engaged and active and continuously growing even after the grant year.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- n/a (GA completed this question as it may not have appeared on the application at the time this grant was approved).
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Ensure Equity in Decision-making, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge, Identify Topics for Impact, Innovate in Free Knowledge, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- Upload Strategic Plan
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation edit
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
• What makes participants more engaged and willing to continue participating? How can we create a sustainable movement of volunteers and content creators?
- What activities are more effective for generating content around various topics on each Wikimedia project?
- What are the strategies that help generate the skills needed to promote youth volunteers as organizers of future activities?
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | We hope to have 100 participants after our activities. | 100 |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | Organizers of events like the WLX and other contests and trainers | 20 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | We hope that we will have partnerships with 3 ministries and 1 library and 1 NGO that will work with us permanently | 5 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | We will send a survey to all participants of our activities to have more feedbacks | 500 |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | will have a marketing target on social media | 10000 |
| Number of activities developed | QR Code
Wikipedia Arab month Kateb Maktub project |
3 |
| Number of volunteer hours | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Establishment of university roadmap across seven Emirates 3750 min. Activity 2: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki project 960 min. Activity 3: Roundtable with teachers 1200 min. Activity 4: Partnership with archives 2900 min. Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 2400 min. Activity 2: Competitions 48 000 min. Activity 3: Arabic language month 10 000 min. Activity 4: Partnership in the Golf region 5760 min. Activity 5: Wikipedia Arabic World forum 27 000 min. Activity 6: Wiki loves X 960 min. Activity 7: Wiki Club 10 800 min. Program 3: Media Outreach Activity 1: Media gatherings 120 min. Activity 2: Engage journalist students 2400 min. Program 4: Research Programme Activity 1: Specialists Outreach 2400 min. Program 5: Local Identity projects Activity 1: WPWP 960 min. |
N/A |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Establishment of university roadmap across seven Emirates 120 participants Activity 2: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 16 participants Activity 3: Roundtable with teachers 20 participants Activity 4: Partnership with archives 15 participants Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 40 participants Activity 2: Competitions 100 participants Activity 3: Arabic language month 100 participants Activity 4: Partnership in the Golf region 20 participants Activity 5: Wiki loves X 100 participants Activity 6: Wiki Club 180 participants Program 3: Media Outreach Activity 1: Media gatherings 15 participants Activity 2: Engage journalist students 40 participants
Program 5: Local Identity projects Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 20 participants |
829 |
| Number of editors | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Establishment of university roadmap across seven Emirates 120 participants Activity 2: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 16 participants Activity 4: Partnership with archives 15 participants Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 40 participants Activity 2: Competitions 100 participants Activity 3: Arabic language month 100 participants Activity 4: Partnership in the Golf region 20 participants Activity 6: Wiki loves X 100 participants Activity 7: Wiki Club 180 participants Program 3: Media Outreach Activity 1: Media gatherings 15 participants Activity 2: Engage journalist students 40 participants
Program 5: Local Identity projects Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 30 participants |
799 |
| Number of organizers | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Establishment of university roadmap across seven Emirates 4 organizers Activity 2: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 3 organizers Activity 3: Roundtable with teachers 2 organizers Activity 4: Partnership with archives 2 organizers Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 2 organizers Activity 2: Competitions 4 organizers Activity 3: Arabic language month 9 organizers Activity 4: Partnership in the Golf region 4 organizers Activity 5: Wikipedia Arabic World forum 30 organizers Activity 6: Wiki loves X 4 organizers Activity 7: Wiki Club 4 organizers Program 3: Media Outreach Activity 1: Media gatherings 3 organizers Activity 2: Engage journalist students 2 organizers Activity 3: Press releases 1 organizer Program 4: Research Programme Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 3 organizers Activity 2: Specialists Outreach 2 organizers Program 5: Local Identity projects Activity 1: WPWP 1 organizer Activity 2: QR code 5 organizers |
85 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Establishment of university roadmap across seven Emirates 120 articles Activity 2: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 16 articles Activity 3: Partnership with archives 100 articles Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 80 articles Activity 2: Competitions 1600 articles Activity 3: Arabic language month 500 articles Activity 4: Wiki Club 180 articles Program 3: Media Outreach Activity 1: Media gatherings 10 articles Program 4: Research Programme Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 200 articles Activity 2: Specialists Outreach 80 articles |
2886 |
| Wikimedia Commons | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Partnership with archives 2000 Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Wiki loves X 2500 Program 4: Research Programme Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 3000 Activity 2: Specialists Outreach 400 Program 5: Local Identity projects Activity 1: QR code 500 organizers |
8400 |
| Wikidata | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 10000 items Activity 2: Partnership with archives 10000 items Program 2: Community Outreach Activity 1: Edit-a-thons 20 items Activity 2: Competitions 200 items Activity 3: Arabic language month 50 items Activity 7: Wiki Club 40 organizers
|
21210 |
| Wikisource | Program 1: Education and Digital Literacy
Activity 1: Training librarians on Wikisource, Wikidata, and other Wiki projects 8 books |
8 |
| Wikiversity | Program 4: Research Programme
Activity 1: Wikimedian-in-residence specialized researchers 10 courses |
10 |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
We will be using google forms, interviews, feedback surveys, informal coffee-mornings… we also are open to any support or suggestions from the Foundation. and also Quarry and Bots
Financial Proposal edit
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 394485.71 AED
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 107401.5 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message edit
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback edit
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.