Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group/2021

Comments from DSaroyan (WMF)

Hello Zakaria Mimouni and colleagues at Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group, thank you again for submitting your first sAPG application. We’d like to welcome you in the sAPG program and wish you good luck for your planned activities. I’ve completed the initial review of the grant proposal and have some questions for you to respond to:

• Since this is your first Wikimedia Foundation grant, we would like to better understand your experience and capacity in managing funds. Do you or any User Group leader have any experience in funds/financial management? What are the financial/reporting practices you will inherit to ensure the transparent usage of funds?

Our group has several members who have experience in fund management. Our group Adviser Reda Kerbouche, is a veteran in the wikipedia project, he has worked with grant wikimedia foundation, especially during the WLX competitions since 2013, and at the moment he and a member of the Algerians group are going to organize the Wikiarabia conference.

Ahlam Bolooki, The leader of the User group, has worked with the greats of other foundations, she is the manager of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature at UAE.

Hani Yakan, partnership manager of the group, also worked with several grants in the foundation who is our fiscal Fiscal Sponsor.

So we have at least 2 members and one leader who has experience in funds/financial management?

To ensure transparency We do prepare the accounting according to the international accounting standards and our accounts get audited every year by an independent audit firm to ensure the transparent usage of the funds.--Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for providing your Strategic Plan for 2021. Do you plan to work on a longer term Strategic Plan in the future? How will you make sure to align it with the Movement Strategy recommendations?

We plan to work on a 3 year strategic plan in the future.

In our annual community meetings and team meetings we will discuss the most important points To align the movement Strategy recommendations. This kind of strategy always takes a long time to implement. because we must first identify our priorities and the rest will have to adapt it to our internal rules--Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• In the Community Support, Development & Promoting Wikimedia program, how do you plan to support the promotion and development of Wikimedia? Will this be done only through community events?

Apart from the community events, we are in the process of setting up a whole system of education to apply to other user groups who have this experience such as Egypt or Algeria. Furthermore , we are in the process of making a strategic partnership with Google in the MENA region and ‘’ISNI’’ which could give their experience and their base to transfer them to Wikidata and to the entire Wikimedia community. --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• For the same program, could you please provide the program metrics and timeline, as you’ve done for the first two programs?

Yes, I will put a table under the program --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• As requested, could you also complete the Metrics worksheet for your current 6-months plan?

Done --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• How did you engage your community in the development of the Annual Plan and grant proposal?

To develop the plan we went through we had to engage the community of Emirates during our workshops and meetings. to be able to know what we lack and to know what are the priorities of the community now.

Then during the preparation of the Kateb Maktub competition (where we did a consultation for the whole Arab community, from where we had the information and the needs for the competitions) --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• We’d also like to learn more about the partnership activities you plan to carry out within the upcoming 6 months. Aside from organizing workshops at educational institutions, do you plan to participate in any collaborative and partnership opportunities?

Apart from partnerships with universities. We are in discussion with Google of the MENA region which is established in the UAE to be our partner in our activities. For the Kateb Maktub contest, Google provides us with the key words to be able to create the articles which are searched on the search engines.

ISNI is also providing a basis for when to complete the list of Arabic authors on Wikipedia in Arabic and English.

I invite you to watch our video where we present our partnerships that are in progress Announcement --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Since you don’t have any dedicated paid staff members, could you please provide more details on who will manage and implement the proposed activities? How many active members do you have, who will be leading the activities, and who they are?

The members who will manage all the projects are (Serine Ben Brahim, who manages the projects with education, and workshops, Hani Yakan he manages the partners and online there is Reda Kerbouche who manages them) the editing competition is managed by the three, in addition to 6 panels from several other user groups.

The same group has been doing this work for several months with success

See this link: https://docs.elfdubai.org/external/1YLnpGRiW8V-KDLr2 --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Additionally, given that you are planning to run activities outside of the United Arab Emirates — in other Arab countries — do you have team members there?

For activities in other Arab countries, there is no member on site. but we do it by following them online as for the online workshop with the cairo university. and about the Kateb Maktuk contest (we do meetings with several countries every week). --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• What is the current governance structure of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group?

We have a board : the Leader of the user group is Ahlam Bolooki, Partnership Manager is Hani Yakan and the volontaires manager Serine Ben Brahim, all the others are members. --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• In general, how do you ensure healthy and transparent governance processes in the affiliate?

We have installed an internal voting system for members, we have no issues at this time. We changed the board in April without any incident. I myself was the leader of the user group before the last vote, now we have a new leader un board, and we all still work together. --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• In the application you mentioned that would like to run capacity building activities for the community members. Do you plan to run other capacity building activities for other entities, members, and stakeholders, such as governing bodies and partners?

We haven't thought about that yet but it's possible for the next plan period. --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Finally, we’d like to request you to provide a more detailed budget breakdown for the planned programmatic events. For instance, for the Wiki Loves Earth 2021 in UAE, you mentioned that you’d like to spend 1,000 USD on “Awards for Photo contest, souvenirs, Calendars for participants and certificates”. Would you please split off similar expenses, so that it is clear how much funds you will spend on awards, souvenirs, printing materials, and certificates individually? Please make these changes in the proposed budget document.

We will be spending individually on rewards $ 800 (1st place $ 200; 2nd $ 150; 3d $ 100 from 4th to the 10th place $ 50), souvenirs $ 100 ($ 10 for each winner), printing materials and certificates ($ 100). Details are on the table.

If you are confused by the small budget of the event, this is due to the fact that we are participating for the first time in this competition. and we are worried that there will be no good photos. The next edition will have more visibility, and we can ask for more for this event.--Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again for putting together this grant application. I’ll look forward to your responses in order to move forward with the review process. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 11:21, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the questions, I put the answers directly under your questions to keep a logic --Zakaria Mimouni (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Simple APG Committee Recommendation

We recommend that Wikimedians of the United Arab Emirates User Group start by applying for other non-annual grants in Wikimedia Foundation, such as Rapid Grants and Project Grants. We recognize that WM UAE has not had experience in grant funding from the Foundation before and also that the proposed projects are better suited to be funded under Rapid or Project Grants and not yet in the Simple Annual Plan Grants program.

We would also encourage you to meet with a program officer before making the application to review your proposal in detail before the final submission.

For the committee, --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 17 June 2021 (UTC)