Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Simple Annual Plan Grants of the Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group 2022

Regional Committee Recommendations edit

Dear Wikimedians of UAE User Group,

Thank you for submitting your application. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee has reviewed your application and they have the following comments:

  • Wikimedians of the UAE is a new user group that is applying for an APG to cover an impressive list of activities including and not limited to:
    • Organizing wiki meetups in the United Arab Emirates
    • Organizing article contests and thematic weeks about topics related to the United Arab Emirates
    • Organizing wiki-excursions and other events for establishments relationship between the community and cultural institutions based in the United Arab Emirates amongst other main programs and activities.
  • It’s exciting to see a group of people committed to bridging the knowledge gap in the country and the region as well.
  • We also found the collaboration with universities on the “university tour” exciting.
  • We found your application to be clear and well presented with target metrics.
  • We continue to be excited about community activations which will be great given you are a new User Group.
  • We also love that the target group are mostly young people, who if successfully drawn in, can help to activate the Usergroup. It's also good that you will be targeting women as well.

The committee also had a few questions, concerns and recommendations as follows:

  • Importantly would you explain the relationship between WM UAE UG and Emirates Literature Fest?
  • Given that your objectives are around bridging the content gap, increasing participation and creating awareness justifies the need to target new editors and contributors working in the space of the content topics you wish to bridge the gap.
    • From the application, you have indicated that there will be no in-person events or activities. The committee is curious to know what strategies are in place to meet the individual learning needs of participants and the lots of hand-holding that comes with engaging new editors to ensure they learn and contribute actively to the said events.
  • We propose reducing the number of staff and creating space for volunteers on the roles indicated for this year with the provision of a stipend to cover their necessities. This way there is an alignment of costs to the expected outcomes and required capacity and skills.
  • We recommend reducing activities indicated to allow you to understand your strengths/weaknesses in terms of community projects and where you need to grow and to also cater for the reduction of reduced staff capacity.
  • Costs related to Wikimania and international travel should be removed as there as still restrictions on the same by the Foundation.

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 the day, 2nd of December 2021. Looking forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the Regional Committee. Ptinphusmia (talk) 14:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
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Hi @Ptinphusmia: and members of the Regional Committee, we have take in consideration all your concerns and recommendations, and here are our answers:

  • Importantly How would you explain the relationship between WM UAE UG and Emirates Literature Fest?
    • The Emirates Literature Foundation is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization that supports and nurtures a love of literature in the UAE and across the region through a program of varied cultural initiatives. The Foundation governs the Emirates Literature Festival, the Middle East’s premier literary festival, which is held annually. The Foundation is currently acting as the fiscal sponsor of the WM UAE UG. Also, most of the UG staff work at the Literature Foundation in different capacities. The fiscal sponsor is beyond financial support, the Foundation will provide connections and networking support with the proposed projects however, the user group activities will be separate yet aligned with the Foundation’s activities.
  • Given that your objectives are around bridging the content gap, increasing participation, and creating awareness justifies the need to target new editors and contributors working in the space of the content topics you wish to bridge the gap.
    • From the application, you have indicated that there will be no in-person events or activities. The committee is curious to know what strategies are in place to meet the individual learning needs of participants and the lots of hand-holding that comes with engaging new editors to ensure they learn and contribute actively to the said events.
    • There has been a mistake in the application in ticking the no in-person events. Most of our activities and events proposed as a UG will be in-person events. There will be a University roadmap tour which includes physical visits to university campuses along with community meetups, edit-a-thons, and trainings in coffee shops and other venues. We have put in the budget rent, transport, catering costs etc…
  • We propose reducing the number of staff and creating space for volunteers on the roles indicated for this year with the provision of a stipend to cover their necessities. This way there is an alignment of costs to the expected outcomes and required capacity and skills.
    • The number of staff is already small, 4 people, however, we will create more space for volunteers and freelancers regarding the research program proposed. Also in the revised budget, we reduced the staff budget from 4 to 2 people.
  • We recommend reducing activities indicated to allow you to understand your strengths/weaknesses in terms of community projects and where you need to grow and to also cater for the reduction of reduced staff capacity.
    • This has been noted and acknowledged, we don’t want to get overwhelmed by the number of activities, we would like to focus our activities and events on raising awareness and participation among the young population and women. We have revised the budget accordingly with more reduced and focused activities.
  • Costs related to Wikimania and international travel should be removed as there as still restrictions on the same by the Foundation.
    • The travel costs have been removed and also we removed the costs for the proposed Wikipedia Arab World Forum which we initially intended of organizing in March 2022, however, we realized that this can be repetitive extra work since we already announced that we will organize the next Wiki Arabia conference in October 2022.

Warm regards.--Reda Kerbouche (talk) 15:33, 30 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 107,401.50USD edit

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 107,401.50 USD, with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 December 2022.

We are excited to see Wikimedia UAE embark on a path of developing and growing a community aligned to the mission of Wikimedia in the region. We look forward to seeing the change you achieve from working with the young people in different learning institutions [complying with the Friendly Space Policy youth policy], enriching existing projects such as Kateb Maktub project.

We are also keen to see your efforts to create collaborative spaces for the rest of the Wikimedia user groups in the Arabic-speaking region and to pursue partnerships in the Gulf region to support communities where we lack user groups. We additionally look forward to seeing how you collaborate with existing user groups in the region.

We look forward to learning about innovative projects such as the use of QR codes to connect to different monuments and Wikipedia articles.

We believe there will be lots of learning and we encourage you to put in place learning and sharing opportunities that can be accessed by other communities within and beyond the regions

Thank you for your work and all you do for the community and Wikimedia movement.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff Azogbonon (talk) 09:40, 16 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

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