Grants:Project/Rapid/Kochi ArtAndFeminism 2021/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Kochi ArtAndFeminism 2021.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? We are happy with the progress made with this year's Art+Fem Project although it was abruptly cut short due to the surge in Covid cases and subsequent lockdown. Of the 4 in-person events that we had planned to organise, we managed to hold 3 in the short window of opportunity before the second wave of the pandemic hit.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
4	5	Total of 5 Events of which 2 were in-person, 1 hybrid and 2 via zoom. The 2 film screenings: 1) The first screening held as a part of A+F was a short film, "Daughters of Scheherazade", by film-maker Ranjini Krishnan. The film was the outcome of her research work in which she had conducted interviews of women in the time leading up to their wedding dates. It deals with both contemporary and traditional attitudes towards the major life-changing event called marriage and the expectations and fears that surround it. The event began with a short introduction to art and feminism and the importance of women's contributions to the arts and social sciences. The filmmaker and her crew made up part of a team of 10 organisers including those from our museum. The screening was followed by a lively discussion and questions put to the filmmaker by the students. 2) The second film screened as a part of the art and feminism programs was a film by a woman filmmaker about a dying traditional art form of puppetry which is performed only by women. At the film screening, we felicitated the last remaining practitioner of the art form. She also performed a short piece of her art-form "Nokkuvidya" for the audience. After the film, the art and feminism movement was introduced. In the discussion that followed two eminent personalities in the film, space spoke about the importance of women's voices in the archive. The hybrid event: This was an EDIT-A-THON held at the Museum campus facilitated by the Wikimedians of Kerala trainer Ranjith Siji. Virtual Events: In addition to the above, 2 online edit-a-thons were also held.
40 to 50 total participants	107	The first film screening was attended by 6 adults and 36 young adults between the ages of 16 and 21 from a vocational program for tribal students. We had 35 attendees at the second film screening, on the organising side the filmmaker and her crew along with our Museum staff made up 6 people. At the hybrid Editathon, training for editing and understanding workflow was given to 4 participants in-person and 6 participants online. Online edit-a-thons saw a participation of 12 in the first and 8 in the second.
At least 30 new editors	5	Although 22 people showed interest in learning how to edit on Wikipedia, only 12 people showed up for the first online editing training session. Finally, only 6 joined us to edit.
30 articles created or improved	40 articles were created, 1.79 K articles were edited	With the participation of the Wikimedians of Kerala User Group and facilitators, we were able to create and track the articles of existing editors and therefore achieved this target. Due to the problems encountered with the A+F Dashboard of our event during the timeframe of the event as well as the developments relating to the pandemic, we were not able to achieve article-creation by the new editors.
Minimum of 50 wishlist articles to be added to our existing list	17 articles were added to a wishlist	To fill the gap in information regarding Malayali (Keralan) women, it was decided that we would focus on creating a wishlist that is specific to Kerala. To kickstart the process, we added names to the list that would come under the category of living biography. There are few known sources for information on women and their achievements in the past 50 years. This wishlist is being tracked at Wikimedians of Kerala Event page for A+F 2021
Minimum of 10 repeat participants	8	8 online Editathon participants joined us for two sessions in a row, 5 learned to create their user pages as well as making minor edits, 1 inactive user started editing again.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

What worked well: 1) We created a WhatsApp and Telegram group for people who had signed up. This helped in sharing resources and material, as well as instructions leading up to the edit-a-thon. This way we avoided the mistakes of last year where new editors had to wait before they could begin editing. 2) The Group chats allowed us to clarify questions after the first online session and leading up to the next one. 3) We also taught editors how to use the Wikimedia commons app on the phone and this helped to make early edits. 4) The online sessions allowed participants to join from all over India and not just from Kerala or for that matter locally from Kochi city. 5) The film screenings were attended by public personalities (Malayalam film top-actresses Rima Kallingal and Sajitha Madathil) and our A+F event received wide exposure on social media due to their posts.

What did not work so well?

What did not work so well: 1) The dearth of information on women and women stories makes it very difficult for new editors to plunge into editing. 2) There are very few 2 instances of primary research being done by women and writing by women authors. Searching for authentic sources of material cannot form a part of the edit-a-thon activity due to the paucity of time. 3) The pandemic situation brought an abrupt halt to our plans for the culmination of the art and feminism campaign for 2021. Unfortunately, by April, as many of our participants were either caregivers to infected persons or affected by covid we could not garner enough participation for even a last session of the Editathon via zoom. 4) we had planned to with other groups working with women's rights and gender issues. Due to the uncertainty around the pandemic coordinating dates for events with other organisations became difficult. 5) We faced a lot of issues with our Kochi A+F 2021 event dashboard. It was constantly down. This meant that we couldn't demonstrate how edits and articles are tracked to our new editors.

What would you do differently next time?

What would we do differently next time? 1) Year-round publicity for art and feminism is essential for enough momentum leading up to the event. 2) We plan to add members to the WhatsApp/Telegram and Signal groups over the year and keep revisiting our article wishlist. 3) The Wikimedians of Kerala created an events page where source material for articles and article wishlist will be tracked through the year. 4) Material for articles must be collected prior to the event.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on. Total grant money spent on A+F over 2021 March and April was (INR) Rs.77,517 or (USD) $1,067.28 It was spent on approved expenses: Posters and Standees, Laptops, Internet, Travel to and from Museum, Child care, Post event cleaning charges and A+F Merchandise for the in-person events. Both Film Screenings warranted expenditures on the sound systems and projectors in addition to the aforementioned expenses. For the virtual events, our only expense was on the Zoom license.

Budgeted and realized budget

Item	Budgeted (INR)	Spent (INR)
Food and Beverage	20,000	2493
Laptop Rental	21,600	5200
Video Conferencing x 2 months	5500	13,505
Childcare	4000	4000
Branded Merchandise Cups	6000	5306
Branded Merchandise Tote Bags	6000	0
Certificates for volunteers & Wiki regional language facilitators	500	0
Transportation for facilitators and organisers	20,000	14,129
Graphic Designer Charges	5000	7500 (Standee, Posters, Social Media, Cup design)
Banner Standee Printing cost	4000	1884
Contingency	10000	0
Sound system and projector hire x 2 events	0	10000 (4500 Audio for Film1+3000 Audio for Film2+ Projector 2500)
A/V technician x 2 events	0	5000
Cleaning Charges x 2 events	0	4000
Internet for hybrid editathon at Museum	0	4500
Total	102600	77517

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds? The budgeted amount of grant funds for Kochi A+F Wiki Editathon 2021 was INR Rs. 1,02,600 or in USD $1409.1. We have an unspent amount of Rs.25,083 or $ 345.5. At the moment, due to the unpredictability caused by the pandemic situation, we would be cautious about making new project plans where we cannot guarantee what we can deliver. We would be keen to conduct more edit-a-thons on the theme of "Women in the Arts" as a continuation of A+F so that we can keep training the same group until they achieve a level of proficiency and are able to edit frequently on their own. These would be virtual and the key expenditure would be on the Video Conferencing facility.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project? The unpredictability of the pandemic situation made it almost impossible to plan anything. Any plans made had to be modified or postponed or cancelled entirely. As the organiser of the event here at the Kerala Museum for the third year in a row, we have seen that participation in A+F parallel events is consistently good. The main hurdle we face each year is access to good sources of information and this is not something that can happen in March every year, but rather needs to happen all through the year. This year we extended our project time from one month to two months to give new editors time to clarify doubts and get a few edits under their belts. However, we believe that to consistently edit, new editors must be a part of a community. We are hoping that the Groups on the various chat apps are a good way for this small community to share their editing journeys. Getting together as a group both virtually and in-person led to very interesting discussions about ways in which our Museum could potentially participate/hold other Wiki events and we look forward to exploring these further.