Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda Support Grant 2022/2023

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Hello Ndahiro derrick, Mrbobax, RebeccaRwanda and Username:Cnyirahabihirwe123,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your proposal. We are pleased to have reviewed it and have the following comments and questions;

• We recognize that your proposal contributes to knowledge equity and aims at a wider community engagement including bringing on board newcomers, especially those from outside Kigali. We also recognize that it is keen on working with persons living with disabilities through partnerships. Finally, it mentions the desire to promote their growth and retention though we experience a challenge in understanding the strategies developed to achieve this particular goal.

• We also recognize that while you have experience and capacity to implement the projects, the scope and volume of the programs proposed may be a stretch to the capacity you hold and would recommend reducing the work to fit your capacity.

• While we understand the importance of decolonizing knowledge, would you share more of what this means for the proposal and its context. You have indicated this and the fact that there is historically excluded knowledge that you hope to address with the support of this proposal, but it is unclear what strategies ‘ the how’ and activities will enable you to achieve this goal.

• We are keen to learn more from you on your capacity assessment to be able to achieve this proposal in the time frame provided plus team capacity and especially given that this will be your first annual grant and programming. We also want to recognize that the user group is an emerging community and transitioning from working with rapid funds to support current projects.

• Could you share with us a more detailed activity plan that would allow us to better understand the details on the periodicity and content of each activity to be organized?

• In the budget, we notice that you intend to allocate more than 49,000 USD to staff salaries. Would you share with us the rationale / basis / what informed the amounts indicated for each role?

• Would you share with us how you have managed resources before. What financial systems structures and skills have been useful in the past that will be handy in managing this proposed grant?

• We also notice in the budget that funds are allocated to the Accounting, Finance and Management Consultancy: does this mean that you will hire a specialized firm to manage the budget?

• Furthermore, we notice funds allocated to equipment including the camera, the purchase of a computer, and a projector: will the camera and the projector be rented or purchased? What are the structures you have put in place to ensure that other members of the community can access the equipment?

• In the budget you say you want to create a website. Would you share with us the basis for this, the importance for you and the community and the basis of the costs?

• What strategies have been developed to encourage the growth and retention of new contributors especially seeing that you hope to include those in areas outside Kigali?

Questions from staff;

We see a significant portion of your resources is on staff and while we understand the purpose of the request we have a few questions to support us in understanding the measures you have put in place to support this transition from volunteer-led to hiring staff to manage projects;

• Have you taken time to review the labour laws and regulations and what policies have you put in place to be complaint
• Employees' experience in organizations is enabled by organizational culture and in thinking about the experience you hope the proposed staff would have, might you have thought about the organization’s culture and other organizational elements associated with hiring staff.
• Additionally, who would the staff be reporting to and getting support from?
• Seeing that there will be a compensation element, it would be financially appropriate that the payment is made from a legally recognized organization. Having mentioned that are you legally registered and if not, what is your intended plan of action.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee--VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 13:55, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Responses to the Grants review team

Hello VThamaini (WMF)

We also recognize that while you have the experience and capacity to implement the projects, the scope and volume of the programs proposed may be a stretch to the capacity you hold and would recommend reducing the work to fit your capacity.

Response:Thanks for the timely and insightful feedback, however, we wish to bring to your notice that the existing capacity is willing and is capable to implement the mentioned proposed programs, This assurance is because the number of mentioned programs has only increased by three(3) new programs(The Wiki4Highschool writing contest 2022 & The Wiki Loves sports 2022, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia Destubathon 2022), which means that the rest of the programs have been implementing annually since 2020.

While we understand the importance of decolonizing knowledge, would you share more of what this means for the proposal and its context. You have indicated this and the fact that there is historically excluded knowledge that you hope to address with the support of this proposal, but it is unclear what strategies ‘ the how’ and activities will enable you to achieve this goal.

Response:Decolonising the internet: In order to achieve equity in knowledge, it is necessary to work on incorporating knowledge that has historically been excluded and knowledge that is generated in non-hegemonic and usually underrepresented spaces. This came as questions like Whose stories are told and who is telling these stories on the internet? And how do Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Bots shape our view of the world and inequalities? This is where this proposal by the community User Group Rwanda sees its core. We intend to train more local people through Wikipedia edit-a-athons to allow more editors on different topics, and we hope that these will reduce the online content gap about Rwanda that lacks the local perceptions.

We are keen to learn more from you on your capacity assessment to be able to achieve this proposal in the time frame provided plus team capacity and especially given that this will be your first annual grant and programming. We also want to recognize that the user group is an emerging community and transitioning from working with rapid funds to support current projects.

Response: Yes, this will be our first annual grant. However, only three projects out of twelve projects will be new which, means that the nine projects are the already existing projects that we have been implementing successfully since three years ago. We have got a team of 5 people working on a daily basis to implement the projects along with a number of volunteers that will be involved in various activities. In addition to this, in order to implement all these projects will require soft & hard assets which we possess. We have got qualified people who have led various Wikimedia projects and are involved in regional projects, thus we have got connections in private and public institutions which will help us to nurture partnerships and enable us a smooth project implementation.

Could you share with us a more detailed activity plan that would allow us to better understand the details on the periodicity and content of each activity to be organised?

Response :Here is a detailed activity plan, PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITIONS We intend to re-organise various photographic contests, These will help us recruit more people who contribute to the User group’s mission

Since 2020, Despite the global pandemic due to COVID-19, we managed to organise, train and carry out 8 photographic contests in which 2027 photos were added by 200 contributors.WLA 2020 , wla 2021,Wle 2020,Wle 2021,Wlm 2020, wlm 2021 & WLF 2021. In 2022-23, we would like to organise similar contests and use learned lessons from the previous plans and implementation to increase the participation, and contribution and promote usage of uploaded photos. We will prepare pre-competition training sessions, and define roles for volunteers to understand the Wikimedia community, and basic usage of Wikimedia projects, before the official start of photographic competitions. We intend to work with one of the previous volunteers to take a leading or assistance role so that they can lead such projects in the future. We will document project activities, and keep in touch with international photographic contest organisers, and the Wikimedia community through available public channels. Wiki Loves Earth 2022 Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 Wiki Loves Africa 2023 Wiki loves Folklore 2023

Diversity and content Creation This will focus on identifying and filling content gaps that exist within online content. Throughout the annual events with specific themes. These programs will increase content on Wikimedia projects eg. Wikipedia(Eng. Kiny,fr), wiki data and Wiki Commons. By identifying existing editors, we will recruit them into the community and focus on the needs of these editors and how to improve their future edits for community sustainability purposes. The following projects will be implemented : Wiki In Africa Challenge 2022 This contest will be organised for the second time in Rwanda, following the 2021 edition which focused on the curation of content on Landmarks in Africa and resulted in the creation of 68 articles and 114 edited by 36 editors. This year’s edition will be focused on the curation of content on Africa’s culture on Wikipedia (en,kiny, and fr). It will run from 15th July -30th August.2022

WPWPW(WIKIPEDIA PAGES WANTING PHOTOS) campaign 2022 This will be the 3rd edition in Rwanda, following the 1st and 2nd editions of an annual campaign where Wikipedia editors across the world, Wikipedia language projects and communities add photos to Wikipedia articles lacking photos. This is to promote the use of digital media files collected from various Wikimedia photography contests, photowalks organised by the Wikimedia community, on Wikipedia article pages. The 1st & 2nd editions resulted in: 4244 revisions,2965 pages,46 users on 6 projects with the majority of contributions made on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia This project will run from 1st August 31st October 2021.

Afrocine 2022 This is an annual writing contest that will invite Wikimedians in Rwanda to contribute content about African cinema, theatre and arts to Wikimedia projects (specifically Wikipedia). Articles to be created will include African films, film industries, filmmakers, actors, stage performers, and so on. This will run from 1st-October -30th November 2022

Wiki Loves sports 2022 In 2022, based on the learning points from the wiki loves sports organising team, the focus will be to closely work with the 2 sports associations in Rwanda, and a small number of volunteers from the pilot project for engagement, training, and content generation; utilising the existing Wikiprojects on (association) on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikicommons within a period of 1-3months. This will be our first edition in Rwanda which will encourage the participation and curation of content about The Sports of a Football game: players, associations, teams and leagues in Rwanda on Wikimedia projects with a major emphasis on Wikipedia and Wikicommons. This follows, a minor pilot project held in 2021, where the core team created content about the game of cricket on English Wikipedia in partnership with the Rwanda Cricket Association. The results influenced the need to plan Wiki loves sports in Rwanda and themes will vary each year based on the sports with the most gaps. This will run from 1st November-1st December 2022

5. Kinyarwanda wikipedia Destubathon 2022 For purposes of being Innovate in Free Knowledge sharing, This project comes out of a realisation that Kinyarwanda Wikipedia (rw.wikipedia.org) has lots of stubs and articles which despite being stubs also lack a clear meaning in Kinyarwanda due to direct google translations, This Project will aim at general stub elimination, Participants will be encouraged to expand existing stubs on Kinyarwanda Wikipedia(rw.Wikipedia.Org) to producing Good Articles which are verifiable and adequately sourced to reliable sources, with the expected Wikipedia: Citations are drawn up.

This project will run: 15th December 2022- 15 February 2023 6.Wiki4 High School writing contest 2022 This project aims at engaging high school students (hence preparing future editors)and academics in Rwanda to improve Wikipedia, This shall entail training students from target schools on how to contribute to Wikimedia projects with a major focus on Wikipedia and wiki commons. And there will be a Wikipedia editing contest among all trained schools and the top contributors will be awarded. This will run from 1st November-1st December 2022

7. WIKIGAP 2023 This will be the 3rd edition, following the 1st(held in 2018), 2nd(2021) editions, It will be a public writing competition to create and improve articles to strengthen Wikipedia's coverage of Rwandan women and related topics to Kinyarwanda, French & English Wikipedia, The Challenge is organised as part of the global WikiGap campaign 2023. Kinyarwanda, English & French Wikipedia.

8.WikiForHumanRights 2023 This will be the 2nd edition of #WikiForHumanRights in Rwanda which will be aimed at writing about human rights, environmental health and diverse communities impacted by environmental issues around the world. This will run from 1st march-30 May 2023

9. Wikipedia @22 celebrations This celebration will bring together active editors of Wikipedia in Rwanda, to recognize their contributions to improving Wikipedia, Identify gaps and award the top/active contributors. This will run from 15th January 2023

.In the budget, we notice that you intend to allocate more than 49,000 USD to staff salaries. Would you share with us the rationale / basis / what informed the amounts indicated for each role?

Response:The amount allocated to each staff member was informed by the following: The workload which each staff member will be required to perform during the project period The number of hours, Each staff member will spend working in a week hence the total number of hours spent working in a month. The standards of living in Kigali: Kigali city has not been spared from the current global prices increases that resulted from the pandemic and fuel prices increase,therefore this affected the cost of living, accommodation, transportation, communications,education costs Performance reviews, each staff member’s performance reviews for the previous projects.

Would you share with us how you have managed resources before? What financial systems structures and skills have been useful in the past that will be handy in managing this proposed grant?

ResponseFrom 2020-up to date, The team has received rapid grant funds worth more than $40,895, These funds were effectively utilised as shown by reports that were approved by the rapids grants team, and the unspent amounts were indicated in reports. Through teamwork, good planning and accountability we were able to manage the mentioned funds, One of the strategies included; using a system in which the person in charge of finances was the only person to allow expenses after a clear a requisition letter which indicated the proposed expenditure, purpose to the project, amount and quantity, not forgetting requesting receipts for easy funds management and transparency. These have helped us to effectively manage the received funds and from the learned lessons, we hope to be able to manage the proposed funds in this proposal.

We also notice in the budget that funds are allocated to the Accounting, Finance and Management Consultancy: does this mean that you will hire a specialised firm to manage the budget?

Response We shall hire an accounting & finance consultant (an individual)who will be providing financial consultancy services per semester (3 times in a year).

Furthermore, we notice funds allocated to equipment including the camera, the purchase of a computer, and a projector: will the camera and the projector be rented or purchased? What are the structures you have put in place to ensure that other members of the community can access the equipment?

ResponseThe mentioned equipment will be purchased since these types of equipment will belong to the community therefore, they will be safely kept at the office, where volunteers can come and have access to them easily for Wikimedia movement-related purposes, whereas those who will be in need to borrow them will be applying to the project coordinator through the internee or the Community outreach and partnerships director and after an in-depth observation, they will be given the borrowed for a limited period of time to allow others to use these types of equipment since we have a bigger number of volunteers who don't have access.

In the budget, you say you want to create a website. Would you share with us the basis for this, the importance for you and the community and the basis of the costs?

Response:Having a website is really important to showcase our work and be able to engage with external audiences as well. Also, the website will enable us to explore various options to communicate our work beyond the meta-pages that we usually have. Here it is important we precise that this cost houses 2 costs (Media outreach & Website). On communication, we have an estimated $1,177 (~$98/month) this amount will be used to run talk shows in media (radios, TVs, online media etc) and for the website, the cost includes the domain name and hosting purchase plus the web development that all these were estimated at $500.

What strategies have been developed to encourage the growth and retention of new contributors especially seeing that you hope to include those in areas outside Kigali?

Response:We have two team members who will be responsible for the volunteer recruitment and retention, The community outreach director and the internee will be doing regular community outreaches aimed at orienting new editors, understanding their needs, expertise, expectations and recommendations for improvement purposes and making sure that we move beyond seeing contributions during competitions only but throughout the year. We intend to organise events (pieces of training and edit-a-thons) in places outside Kigali such as Musanze, Huye, Nyagatare to mention a few )

Questions from staff; We see a significant portion of your resources is on staff and while we understand the purpose of the request we have a few questions to support us in understanding the measures you have put in place to support this transition from volunteer-led to hiring staff to manage projects; Have you taken time to review the labour laws and regulations and what policies have you put in place to be compliant? Employees' experience in organisations is enabled by organisational culture and in thinking about the experience you hope the proposed staff would have, might you have thought about the organisation’s culture and other organisational elements associated with hiring staff.

Response Yes, This has been thought of, because we believe organisation culture is a common denominator among all successful organisations and companies, all hired members will sign to abide by the values and beliefs based on: Teamwork, Transparency, Accountability, performance, Flexibility and alignment.

Additionally, who would the staff be reporting to and getting support from?

Response:The staff members will reporting respectively as follows ; The internee will be directly reporting to the community outreach and partnerships director, The hired accounting & Finance consultant will be reporting directly to the General Secretary who is also in charge of finances. The General secretary and finance &The community outreach and partnerships directors will be reporting to the deputy project coordinator will be compiling these reports and report to the Project Coordinator who will in the end report to the Community resources team

Seeing that there will be a compensation element, it would be financially appropriate that the payment is made from a legally recognized organisation. Having mentioned that, are you legally registered and if not, what is your intended plan of action?

Response: We are not yet legally registered but are in the process to fulfil the requirements for the registration of non-profits organisations locally, and we hope by august it will have been successfully accomplished, Therefore our intended plan of action will entail; temporary registration for the personal income tax payments to avoid fines as we undergo the permanent registration which is meant to be accomplished in August 2022. However, we are open to suggestions and advice. BEST REGARDS WE LOOK FORWARDS TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON. Ndahiro derrick (talk)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of $30,000USD

Hello Ndahiro derrick, Mrboba), RebeccaRwanda and Username:Cnyirahabihirwe123,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of $30,000USD, with a grant term starting 1 July 2022 and ending 30th June 2023.

We are excited to see Wikimedia Rwanda Community User Group applying for long term funding to support their goals for continued development of their programs and communities. The proposal presents an opportunity to grow Kinyarwanda Wikipedia and while at it grow the community of contributors. The strategies indicated , photographic competions and diversity and content creation will support the group in creating awareness on Wikimedia projects and space for participants to contribute. Overall, the project will be useful in creating Wikimedia presence in the country and surrounding communities and we find them as useful strategies especially for an emerging community.

We recognize the ambition and enthusiasm to grow in both programming and operational aspects of the project and we see this in the proposed activities . We reviewed and discussed the user group capacity and see the possibilities of the organizing team and community being stretched and recommend the user group reviews and reduces the scope of their programs. We share this recommendation based on the the knowledge of the current operational structures, grant history and more information shared through their responses to the questions by the commitee. We recommend that you work with a consultant to support you in developing structures that support organizational and operational growth ; you may also work with a stipend and allowance approaches as you work on developing established organizational structures including those that support the user groups governance.

We recommend that you reach out to the regional program officer to support you in learning more on the recommended adjustments to your proposed budget and programs.

Overall we are excited to see Wikimedia Rwanda Community User Group develop as a emerging new community and are keen to support that success. Thank you for your work and all you do for the community and Wikimedia movement.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --Aristidek5maya (talk) 17:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)