Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Igbo Wikimedians User Group Simple Annual Grant 2022

Regional Committee Recommendations

Dear Igbo Wikimedians User Group, thank you for submitting this grant application. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee has reviewed your application and they have some follow-up questions and requests. We kindly request to respond to these questions by 2 December 2021:

Dear CaliBen Thank you for taking your time to go through our application. Kindly find the responses below each question.

• Could you please provide more information about the challenges you are trying to solve with your grant proposal and your solution?

Igbo language has recently been rated by the UNESCO as one of the indigenous languages that could go extinct if care isn't taken. This is a serious threat to an integral part of people's culture, tradition and lifestyle. This is why we are looking at partnering like like-minded entities like Igbo Language and Culture Institute to increase materials about Igbo language on different wiki platforms, as such material have been proven to attract readers both from Nigeria and the diaspora. Our GendarGap projects were inspired by the absolute need to have equal representation of men and women on Wikipedia. For instance, the WIkiQuote has need to increase quotes from notable women so as they are visible on Wikipedia, hence our partnership with PEA.

Furthermore, the Igbo Wikimedians User Group, continues to grow in number and capacity with five hubs now and one Wiki club, there is need to strategically plan our activities towards achieving our objectives as an affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation Movement. Therefore, we need to set annual goals that are SMART to evaluate and monitor our progress as a group continually and in our projects, as well as be accountable to our stakeholders. Also, we need to build more capacity, manage our human resources to thrive in adding more educational knowledge about the Igbos and their culture in Wikimedia Projects while also spreading our wings to accommodate more projects just as we expanded in the first APG.

• In addition, what are the risks that your user group is currently facing and how do you plan to mitigate those risks?

Currently, the risks we face are having too many Hubs beyond the control of the main team. To mitigate this, we appoint a volunteer co-ordinator for every hub/fan club we form across the Igbo states.

• On a similar note, how do you plan to manage the risk of overlapping between the activities and metrics with Wikimedia Nigeria?

We don’t see this as a risk. The Igbo Wikimedians User Group is focused on improving and increasing the quantity and quality of articles across various Igbo Language platforms and we’re happy to work together with everyone looking/intending to help us in achieving this aim. There would be no overlapping as we won’t be creating the same articles. Also, we always work collaboratively with Wikimedia Nigeria.

• The requested budget is about a 109% increase from your previous Simple APG budget. It will be nice to understand the impact of this increase on this year's metrics especially while comparing to last year’s metrics.

This year, we experienced growth, both in the number of new contributors and in the number of new hubs spread across various locations in Igbo land. This year too, our Ig Wikidata Hub won community project of the year award during the Wikidata Conference hence the increase in our budget to accommodate projects from these hubs. Secondly, based on discussions from the grants team, our User Group will be responsible for granting micro-grants to individuals who would be running individual projects whose goals/objectives align with that of the group.

• We are interested in learning more about the non-Wikimedia partners that your user group plans to work with.

a. Population Explosion Awareness Initiative: a non for profit dedicated to advocacy for non-coercive population control in Nigeria for better climate & quality of life. b. WikiWomen in Red: an initiative to increase the representation of women online. c. Igbo Language Institute: an institute which promotes Igbo Language and culture. For A & C, they would be focused on participant recruitment while we would be carrying out trainings and improving articles related to their focus areas.

• Since you plan to produce materials to upload to Wikimedia Commons, could you update the core metrics and include the targeted number of uploaded files?

I'll do that

• How do you plan to address knowledge equity?

We always encourage knowledge equity. We’re a welcoming User Group with a culture of hospitality where contributing is rewarding. We support and will continue to support anyone who wants to contribute in good faith. One of the ways we’ve done this is through our ‘Adopt a User Mentorship program’. We also practice respectful collaboration and will welcome people into our movement from a wide variety of backgrounds, across language, geography, ethnicity, income, education, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age, and more. (We have non-Igbo speakers in our User Group and we guide them to contribute to other non-language specific platforms like Wikidata, Commons.)

• How have you engaged the community in developing your annual plan and this grant application?

We're a community centered User Group. We have a WhatsApp group were we have communicated this and some of our community members who have objective aligned projects came forward with their submissions which helped us plan our budget too.

• Please provide a more detailed breakdown of the costs. For instance, a further breakdown of the budget's salaries component might be helpful in clarifying equitable distribution and volunteering capacities appreciation.

This is done in the spreadsheet.

• What strategies will you implement to have new members and participants who can benefit from your activities and learning process and remain active?

Our major strategy is the mentorship program where we guide new users to develop their wiki skills and also existing participants to improve and acquire new skills while also assigning them responsibilities. This has helped them remain active and also get into various positions across the Wiki Ecosystem. For example, members from our User Group serve as Wikipedian in Residence, work with Wiki in Africa, WMF etc. We don't just groom them to become Igbo contributors but to be of benefit to the general wiki ecosystem.

• What is the plan coordinating with other user groups in the country to avoid overlap in the work while identifying spaces for collaboration?

We have a Nigeria Community Wikimedia WhatsApp group where we all work collaboratively across language specific projects. As previously stated, the Wikimedia Nigeria for example can not edit on Igbo Wikipedia without collaborating with us to monitor the quality of inputs and also to get the community involved.

• Please reach to the MEA regional program officer to support you in making the needed changes to your proposal which are due by the end of day , 2nd of December 2021.

Looking forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the Regional Committee. CaliBen (talk) 07:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you --Tochiprecious (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 67,560 USD

Dear Tochiprecious and Igbo Wikimedians User Group, Thanks again for submitting your Wikimedia Community Fund proposal and for responding to our questions. We are glad to inform you that the Middle East and Africa Regional Committee has approved your proposal for full funding in the amount of 67,560 USD with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 December 2022.

We acknowledge Igbo Wikimedians' great work and progress throughout the previous years and appreciate your work on the current annual plan. We recognize the need for the budget growth due to the new programs and activities. We are glad to support this increase with a hope to see broader impact and successful pilot projects for the current year.

Nevertheless, we recommend for the User Group to work on a detailed staffing plan which will be linked to the group's main page on Meta and be publicly accessible. We request that for their future grant applications, Igbo Wikimedians provides a more detailed and comprehensive staffing plan. Similarly, we request that for the upcoming grant applications, the User Group shares a more detailed budget that includes all details of projected expenses.

We wish you good luck and look forward to working with you.

On behalf of the Regional Committee and Community Resources. All the best, --Aristidek5maya (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Dear Aristidek5maya Thank you so much for this great news. This means a lot to our community and growth. We sincerely appreciate your support, the regional committee and the Community Resources Team. All your suggestions have been taken note of and we'll implement it.

Thank you and best regards --Tochiprecious (talk) 08:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)