Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedians of UAE User Group General Support 2023

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

Dear User:Reda Kerbouche, User:Serine Ben Brahim, User:Iyhab1994, User:هاني يكن and User:دانية دروبي|User:دانية دروبي]],

Thank you for submitting your annual funding request. It was great reviewing your mid-point report and learning about the progress you have made so far and how this proposal seeks to advance the impact being realized. We found the goals and strategies to achieve the desired impact to be well aligned, making the proposal clear and coherent; your proposal clearly has a focus on including underrepresented groups, and efforts have been dedicated to not only reaching out to these groups but to providing training and ensuring a smooth onboarding of the new volunteers from these groups.

We continue to recognize that you are a young user group and are inspired by the efforts you make to include individuals from the UAE and beyond and especially from the MENA region. We continue to be excited about the QR project and look forward to learning more about it in your final report on your current grant.

Please find specific comments and questions, where would like your input on to support us in the next phase of the review process;

• Some of the projects of the previous year such as QR code haven't started, however, it has been added to the budget for 2023. In addition to the above, the numbers gathered from the midpoint report indicate that not even half of the target for each metric has been reached. Yet these same activities have been listed in the plan for 2023. Would you comment on your assessment of capacity to implement the remaining part of the project and what your learnings so far can influence the projects focusing on 2023? We are curious to learn the reasons for the delay in the start of some projects and what strategies are in place to ensure that they meet more than half of the target.
• We recognize that the community is still developing and emerging and are curious to learn more about the rationale behind the requested $8000 for a conference. We are not sure if there is a big enough community yet in the UAE for the conference. Would you share more?
• We are keen on learning more about the research program, noting the dedicated budget of $22,500. Would you share more about the program, who are these researchers, and what are the various expenses related to the research program? Additionally, are there any learnings from your current annual grant that also had a research component that you will be including in this version of implementation?
• Would you share a breakdown of the staff costs and a staff plan to support us in understanding the roles that will support the implementation of the proposal?
• Considering that there’s been difficulty in establishing partnerships with the various Universities, we recommend and suggest focusing on working with a few or one University at a time. What are your thoughts?
• We also see an opportunity to review your initial strategy and gear it toward building the community. We recommend organizing edit-a-thons and campaigns as a way of building community. What are your thoughts?

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff--VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

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Hi @VThamaini (WMF): and members of the Regional Committee, here are our answers:

Question1: Some of the projects of the previous year such as QR code haven't started, however, it has been added to the budget for 2023. In addition to the above, the numbers gathered from the midpoint report indicate that not even half of the target for each metric has been reached. Yet these same activities have been listed in the plan for 2023. Would you comment on your assessment of capacity to implement the remaining part of the project and what your learnings so far can influence the projects focusing on 2023? We are curious to learn the reasons for the delay in the start of some projects and what strategies are in place to ensure that they meet more than half of the target.
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Answer 1: The midpoint report sent earlier does not accurately reflect our activities that have been done until now. This is because of the following reasons:
● We were eager to meet our goals since we were in the final year of the Kateb Maktub initiative. And in the first three months of the year (January-March), we focused on meeting our goal and reaching out to universities to recruit more volunteers and newcomers for the initiative.
● We organized the WikiArabia Conference 2022, the largest gathering of the Arabic Wikimedia Community. During the first months, we began developing a conference strategy and plan, including the formation of program and scholarship committees, as well as partnerships with various organizations to support the conference. As a result, our timeline for implementing the User Group's activities has been impacted.
● Although some major activities are not included in the mid-point report, the majority of the activities take place in November and December. For example, we've held four edit-a-thons. We conducted three library trainings, held a Kateb Maktub English competition, and will hold a second competition in December. We are currently working on creating multiple QR codes and establishing them before the end of this year for monuments and organizations in Dubai, such as Al Shindagha Museums that were part of the WikiArabia social events. After the conference, we have built some strong relationships with GLAM institutions which helped us conduct some major activities of the UAE User Group.

Since we began to establish a community of Wikimedians in the UAE, this year has been a learning experience for us. Currently, we are working to establish as many relationships as we can and promote our User Group to some powerful local organizations. As a User Group, we are committed to carrying out all of our activities. If we are unable to do so, we make sure that the budget is allocated to two more activities or that a different strategy is developed in light of our lessons learned. For instance, we will provide training to the librarians from Abu Dhabi's National Library and Archives organization in November as per their request, as well as to the public library librarians.
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Question 2: We recognize that the community is still developing and emerging and are curious to learn more about the rationale behind the requested $8000 for a conference. We are not sure if there is a big enough community yet in the UAE for the conference. Would you share more?

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Answer 2: During the WikiArabia Conference, we decided to add a pre-conference day dedicated to Youth in the UAE including University and high school students. We have reached out to all our universities’ databases, and we had around 100 students attending more than 10 sessions. The local conference that was proposed in the report will be a mini WikiArabia conference that would include some important admins and contributors from Wikimedia projects and get all interested organizations in the UAE to participate.

Since we started our UG activities, we have met multiple Wikimedians that are UAE-based in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Dubai. We are keen to collaborate all together into becoming one big country community.

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Question 3: We are keen on learning more about the research program, noting the dedicated budget of $22,500. Would you share more about the program, who are these researchers, and what are the various expenses related to the research program? Additionally, are there any learnings from your current annual grant that also had a research component that you will be including in this version of implementation?

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Answer 3: We have proposed one part-time researcher and two freelance researchers as part of the proposed strategy for 2022.
We do have one full-time researcher, Iyhab Barakat, and one part-time researcher, Duaa Khidir. We also have one volunteer, Akbar Ali, a Wikimedian from the UAE, who assists with adding all of the databases to Wikidata.

As a User Group, it’s critical that we understand what we should concentrate on and identify current content gaps in Arabic Wikimedia projects. Our UG focuses on specific areas each year and has different aims and KPIs and this is where research is important. It is vital that we have a database of the content that we want to create since we are growing a community of editors in the UAE, and practically that all of them are newcomers. From research, we can develop a strategy to collaborate with organizations that provide us with data and contribute to making our activities (such as competitions) successful.

The researchers also focus on evaluating the training sessions and activities. For instance, based on research and surveys conducted after the training sessions and edit-a-thons, we believe that in addition to providing our volunteers with training sessions, we should also assign some practice sessions for them using the various editing tools used in various Wikimedia projects. Moreover, we think that during edit-a-thons, concentrating on creating one comprehensive article rather than many works best. In other words, we should focus on quality rather than quantity. In summary, the success of the User Group will always be largely dependent on research.

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Question 4: Would you share a breakdown of the staff costs and a staff plan to support us in understanding the roles that will support the implementation of the proposal?

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Answer 4: Staff cost breakdown from (Jan 2022 - Dec 2022) is as follows:

1. Name: Ahlam Bolooki (unpaid staff)
Username: Ahlam Bolooki
Role: Project Coordinator / Executive Director of WM UAE UG
Responsibilities: Responsible for the programs and strategic planning of the User Group. She leads the execution of all programs and projects.

2. Name: Dania Droubi (unpaid staff)
Username: دانية دروبي
Role: Head of Education and UG Activities
Responsibilities: in charge of planning programs and strategic planning related to education such as reaching out Universities and educational programs.

3. Name: Serine Ben Brahim (paid staff)
Username: Serine Ben Brahim
Role: Researcher, Trainer, and Content Writer
Salary: USD 2050 in local currency
Responsibilities: In charge of all the training programs, organizing data, and volunteer work. She will be in charge of the Education and Digital literacy program. She reports to the Executive Director of WM UAE UG and The Head of Education and Activities.

4. Name: Reda Kerbouche (unpaid staff)
Username: Reda Kerbouche
Role: Communities Coordinator
Responsibilities: In charge of planning, executing, and evaluating the Communities and new users’ program. He reports to the Executive Director of WM UAE UG.

5. Name: Hani Yakan (paid staff)
Role: Outreach Coordinator/Partnership Manager
Username: هاني يكن
Salary: USD 2050 in local currency
Responsibilities: Responsible for the execution of the Group’s communication, activities, and strategies. He will be also responsible for planning, executing, and evaluating the activities in the Outreach and Media program. He reports to the Executive Director of Wikimedia UAE UG.

Kindly note that we intend to hire two more paid employees, and that the roles of the employees may change depending on their personal circumstances.

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Question 5: Considering that there’s been difficulty in establishing partnerships with the various Universities, we recommend and suggest focusing on working with a few or one University at a time. What are your thoughts?

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Answer 5: We completely agree! As we learned from this years’ strategy, we believe that forming collaborations with universities will take longer than expected. Therefore, focusing on forming collaborations with two to three universities, training professors and their students, forming Wiki Clubs, organizing one-day competitions, and edit-a-thons would be the most effective and manageable approach. However, we are still eager to complete our map road trip across the Emirates in order to introduce our User Group to at least one university in each Emirate.

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Question 6: We also see an opportunity to review your initial strategy and gear it toward building the community. We recommend organizing edit-a-thons and campaigns as a way of building community. What are your thoughts?

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Answer 6: Since we organized 4 edit-a-thons and more than 5 workshops in different universities until now, we believe that edit-a-thons are the most successful activity we have done. From edit-a-thons, we had newcomers and were able to meet some experienced editors that live in the UAE. In order to grow the Wikimedian community in the UAE, we will be organizing more edit-a-thons and gatherings. Our aim is to mainly focus on quality rather than quantity.

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Warm regards Reda Kerbouche (talk) 13:56, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 87,000 USD

Hello Wikimedians of UAE User Group,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 87,000 USD, with a grant term starting January 2023-December 2023.

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended funding in the amount $87,000 for the period of January 2023 - December 2023 .

We continue to see the value of your work and especially as a young user group working towards developing a community of volunteers in the UAE and in support emerging communities in the Arab region as well. We hope with this second annual grant, you will be able to advance and grow this work towards achieving your desired impact.

After a through review of your proposal and against last years work, we recommend the review of the research program which we found challenging to see how the program enables your other work. With that we reduced the budget and suggest, finding opportunities of involving volunteers and providing stipend to support that aspect of the project. Additionally, we found inconsistencies in the amount dedicated to personnel costs in the proposal vs the responses on the talk page. Please take time to review and let us know if we missed anything. These two areas are the main points of budget reduction in addition to reduced PR and social media costs. We hope the reduction in budget will not jeopardize the implementation of the projects and advice making any necessary changes to your proposal for better alignment. We also would encourage you to the extent possible to grow and develop partnerships that may contribute to the achievement of your goals.

Please know, that we continue to value you as a community and partner in the movement and remain committed to ensuring you are supported in your work.

We wish you the very best and look forward to learning more about the impact you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)