Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Kouman 2022-2024

Regional Committee Recommendations

Dear Modjou and the Wiki Kouman Project team,

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

What’s exciting about this project is :

• the collaboration with multiple user groups and working on Wiktionary which has low activity in those languages.
• the target is Wiktionary and that it will be implemented in four different countries.
• Also, the preservation of minority languages is helped out by this project.
• This will be the fourth iteration of this project. This project aims to plant the seed and to let user groups “graduate” from it and start their own programs, per the proposal.

We have a few concerns and questions:

• We observe that there is a lot of hiring. Are the 9 paid staff members required for the project to be implemented? Is there an opportunity to reduce the number of staff with no detrimental consequences to the project?
• We are curious to learn how the proposed four countries were selected for this phase of the project. Kindly share the rationale used.
• How have you ensured financial health and accountability of past project funding and how do you intend to strengthen those measures for this proposal funding?

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) 14:38, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Answer Regional Committee

Hello Ptinphusmia and the committee! Thank you for contacting us so here are our answers:

• We observe that there is a lot of hiring. Are the 9 paid staff members required for the project to be implemented? Is there an opportunity to reduce the number of staff with no detrimental consequences to the project?

  Preliminary work is being carried out with partner user groups to ensure that they are working with the smallest number of paid people while carrying out the project in their country with the support of volunteers.

  In the majority of our activities, we try to ask for the minimum resources that we need to carry out the activities, both financial and human. The tasks are distributed strategically between two people for each country and a ninth person, the international coordinator, ensures that the project achieves its objectives in all the target countries. Here, since a minimum number has already been retained, removing a person would amount to removing a country from the project and removing a country would mean losing the possibility that the language of that country would be saved via the Wiktionary.

• We are curious to learn how the proposed four countries were selected for this phase of the project. Kindly share the rationale used.

  First, we did some research to find all French speaking countries that have active user groups. Then we did some research to find out if there were any local languages ​​spoken in those countries. We have chosen from this selection the countries represented in this grant application. We then researched what Wiki activities they had been doing so far. We went to their User Groups page and also read their activity report to learn about all the actions they have taken so far before contacting them and having discussions through Google meet.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_User_Groups_and_Local_chapters_speaking_French https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Cameroon_User_Group#Reports https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wikimedia_User_Group_Ha%C3%AFti#Activit%C3%A9s_r%C3%A9alis%C3%A9es https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Guinea_Conakry#Activity_reports_2

• How have you ensured financial health and accountability of past project funding and how do you intend to strengthen those measures for this proposal funding?

  Since the start of the project in 2018, we have always kept our financial reports up to date with supporting documents.

  Until now, we have never had financial management problems, both in our activities, with the payments planned for the activities, as in the transfers with the other country. Also in our relationship with the Foundation, we have never had any difficulty in presenting the transfer receipts received to justify our reports.

  Since the Foundation informed us of the new financial report documentation process, we have nevertheless continued to archive our supporting documents internally to maintain rigor in our work and ensure the financial health of the project.

  The current checking account is an account for wiki activities, this facilitates our financial documentation.

  We intend to continue using this method as it has worked well so far. However, we remain open to other suggestions.

we hope we were able to answer your questions. Best Modjou (talk) 22:05, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approuvé pour un montant de 135 000 USD

Félicitations ! Votre subvention est approuvée d’un montant de 135 000$, avec une durée de subvention commençant le 1er janvier 2022 et se terminant le 31 décembre 2023 pour deux ans. C’est une subvention pluriannuelle qui sera distribuée au cours des deux prochaines années à 67 500 $ par année.

Nous sommes ravis de voir Wiki Kouman se développer et évoluer pour inclure les communautés Wikimedia d’autres pays et créer un espace pour les idées - partenariat et collaboration afin d’atteindre l'objectif du projet. Il s’agira de la quatrième phase de mise en œuvre et évolution du projet.

Nous trouvons le projet instrumental dans l’activation et l’enrichissement de l’engagement dans des groupes d’utilisateurs tels que dans le passé dans Wikimedia Tchad et dans les communautés proposées de Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroun, Guinée Conakry et Haïti.

Nous sommes particulièrement intéressés par l’utilisation de projets Wiki tels que le Wiktionnaire, comme un chemin de travail sur la préservation des langues minoritaires, et aussi par l’introduction de Wikimedia et de ses projets frères aux nouveaux arrivants. Nous espérons apprendre de vous ce qu’il faut pour soutenir et développer les collaborations transnationales entre les communautés Wiki et comment le projet continue de s’engager avec les communautés activées au-delà du projet grâce à un soutien soutenu.

Nous encourageons Wiki Kouman à adopter la documentation à travers le projet dans le cadre du partage des connaissances et des meilleures pratiques avec d’autres membres de la communauté qui souhaitent se lancer dans des projets similaires. Nous serons intéressés à apprendre et à voir une analyse d’impact du projet dès sa création.

Merci pour votre travail et tout ce que vous faites pour la communauté et le mouvement Wikimédia.

Meilleures salutations du Comité régional et du personnel de MEA, Kaizenify (talk) 21:34, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Merci au Comité Régional et au staff MEA.Modjou (talk) 16:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)