Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Scaling Communities: Expansion of Wiki Networks through Partnerships, Infrastructure, and Outreach

Dear MiCT Team,

Thank you for submitting your application for the Wikimedia Alliances Fund. We overall recommend funding support for this project with the following comments and questions and to be taken into consideration in the final funding decision;

• We are keen on learning more about the mechanisms you have put in place to ensure that the approach of working with local communities and partners is decolonized. We would like to understand your approach as an international organization in engaging local partners and teams in the development, leadership and implementation of projects.
• We are interested in learning more about the specific User Groups or Wikimedia Communities you will be working with. Which specific User Groups are you referring to in your proposal? Have you already made contact with them and is there an agreement on your collaboration and partnership?
• You mention working with universities and we are interested in learning about the specific arm of the university you will be working with. Additionally, how will you ensure that you do not overlap the work of the existing Wikimedia communities with those same universities?
• We request more details on the various events indicated in the proposal and budget.
• We recommend that you take into account existing materials developed by Wikimedia communities that fit the project's objectives and context to avoid replication.
• We are interested in learning more about the future of this initiative taking into consideration a movement sustainability lens.
• Importantly we would like to know how you intend to navigate risks involved with the project. How do you intend to ensure the safety of the Wikimedian community and of the MiCT team that will be part of the project in both Ghana and Iraq?
• Taking into account the context of where the projects will take place and the subject matter, we are interested to learn how you will ensure the projects maintain neutrality.
• What is your outreach plan to get Wikimedian volunteers to be part of the project?

Thank you once again for your application and we wish you the very best!

On behalf of the MEA Region Committee --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 13:52, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

1) tackling the present difficulties of institutionalized colonialism begins at the level of project design. As an international organization, the diversity of our core staff is not enough to ensure cognitive and strategic decoupling from the colonial structures that underpin much of development work. First and foremost, this recognition of our own power in relation to fund-recipient persons or organizations translates into co-design of projects; recognition of the legitimacy of financial needs disentangled from cumbersome "output" expectations that do not directly lead to impact, but only complicate or compound administrative processes; and the agreement with partners on theories of change, desirable outcomes, and evaluation methods that take the extra step in deriving action points for project improvement and skill transfer. Within this project, MiCT was able to submit the proposal with full consensus on activities from the Ghana team, which at three different intervals (including initial activity suggestions) wrote and edited the proposal. On the Iraq side where communication was more difficult, all activities were requested Sarmad Said--central organizer of an Arab Language Wiki Group. Activities planned with the Kurdish group, also requested by Sarmad, were not developed and included because direct contact could not be established. Direct contact and direct involvement with partners coupled with rules of consensus on issues of design and implementation are standard for MiCT, and this has a direct impact on decolonizing our projects, which in itself leads to more impact and productive partnerships.

2) As mentioned, we have made direct contact and all activities were made upon the suggestion of Sarmad Said (Yaseen) who is the representative of the Wiki Group active in Iraq. Further discussions have been led with the founder of the Iraqi user group, and MiCT is connected movement leaders in order to run the project successfully. In Ghana, MiCT’s relationship with both the LGBTQ+ Ghana organization as well as the Ghana User Group (represented in this project by Justice Okai-Allotey) has underpinned the design of the project and communication has been regular since the summer 2021.

3) Within Tikrit and Anbar Universities, MiCT has been working with the Media Departments on issues of Media Literacy and Misinformation. These departments are a key stakeholder in developing sustainable media practices, and therefore integrating open source topics and opportunities for direct involvement should be facilitated in this context. After discussion with Sarmad, it was indicated that the User Group’s connections with universities is desired but lacking, and both the university partners that MiCT mentioned were not involved with Wiki projects to the best of Sarmad’s knowledge, nor was the Media department of Thi Qar University with which MiCT is currently developing a formal partnership through another project. In order to confirm this and understand how best to work with universities, MiCT suggested an extensive PAR activity plan that aims to collect and share information on what was called by Sarmad a very disconnected network of editors and projects. We dually hope to find universities to partner with that are located close to active Wikimedians, which initially pointed us toward cities like Erbil and Baghdad. MiCT is aware of previous Wiki projects that were small scale, yet also focused on training and awareness campaigns alongside university collaboration. We hope through the PAR to learn more about these projects from group members, along with any other ongoing initiatives with which we should coordinate and to which we can lend support. As much of our activities are about organizational development and public relations, existing structures and projects should be seen as key points for learning on how best to direct our expertise toward the organic needs of the community.

4) For the listed Ghana activities, the events are priced on the inclusion of roughly 10 participants to partake in a 2-day event, which dependent upon the suggestions from Justice Okai-Allotey (Wiki Group Leader) will possibly include in-person training, feedback rounds on the online training curriculum developed and used prior to the events, and Hackathon activities. The specifics of these activities will not affect the budget line quoted, but will be responsive to the course of the project, the needs of the participants, and the suggestion of Wiki volunteers. The location of the events have already been chosen, and are known to the organizers for proving a safe location to carry out activities. In Iraq, the Network leadership events will be run for a maximum 8 Wiki volunteers who are consistently driving the movement in Iraq. These events were budgeted along the same understanding that the outcome of the events are specified by project participants. For example, the first Network Development Event will aim to establish the availability of volunteers to support the project, defining outcome goals related to the campaign as well as specific engagement/training strategies for Wiki Volunteers (highly dependent on determining time availability), and outlining the necessary online training curriculum needed to onboard new editors to existing projects and Wiki activities generally. It will be the task of MiCT management and campaign consultants to draft and submit a partnership activity plan (i.e. which Universities will be targeted and engaged for the subsequent university events, and how) and the campaign activity plan, which will delineate how the campaign will engage volunteers and support the movement in Iraq. These plans must be accepted by the Wiki group, meaning at least the founder and ideally a group of volunteers identified at the first Network Meeting will provide approval. The university partnership events have been budgeted to support up to 20 traveling participants and will ideally be open to students on the University campuses. While we expect these events to primarily handle training and hackathon activities, this is dependent upon the wishes of the volunteers and how they envision university partnerships to develop. For instance, they may want to focus exclusively on Hackathon activities to support existing projects with university campuses providing space for the event and publicity to the student body. Or, as was suggested my MiCT however not confirmed by the user group, the campaign could be used to target students to attend the event as an opportunity to have basic training activities to create face-to-face connection with new potential editors, which may prove to increase the retention rate of new Wikimeidans. However as indicated, the specific activities run in these events will be confirmed through project planning with the Wiki group at the Network Development events and formalized in the activity plans agreed upon with the user group. The final Network Development event closing out the project will be an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned, distribute any training material emanating from the campaign skilling program, assess the failures and successes of project activities or logics, and provide an opportunity for the user group to plan for future activities, projects, goals. The budget lines were created to leave flexibility in activity selection as a principle of responsive project design and management.

5) As mentioned in the third response, existing materials, structures, projects, will be key sources of inspiration the team as well as help identify areas for organizational development. For instance in the Ghana activity set, Justice (Ghana User Group Rep) has reached out to other SSA Chapters, including an LGBTQ West Africa group, for support in project development, curriculum design, security management, among others topics. In Iraq, existing materials on training have been created and MiCT is aware that the Iraqi user group had difficulty in trainee retention. Improving materials, which is usually a matter not of information but of workshop format and ease of training platform (if online), is a preliminary goal from the proposal development stage. Additionally, the design of a PAR approach to working with local wikimedians was designed with the recognition that MiCT has a lot to learn, does not have all the answers. This is a stable principle of MiCT’s engagement.

6) The most sustainable aspect of the project is that the resultant training materials will be hosted free of cost on MiCT’s online training portal in perpetuity with no fee or costs to the participants or the Wiki group across both the Iraq and Ghana programs. This is central to promoting the goals of the Wiki community long-term and also treating the Wiki community as leaders, not as an “implementing partners.” MiCT supports the goals of WikiMedia and this support does not stop at project end. Additionally, MiCT will seek to maximize the impact of knowledge transfer on campaigning to the Iraqi user group. The proper strategy or this transfer of knowledge is highly dependent on structural realities of the group members, meaning until the PAR activities are underway it is imprudent to promise specific activities. For example, Sarmad indicated that the greatest resource deficiency of the group is time, meaning one-on-one training programs and targeting of key volunteers for skilling is only possible given the availability of members. An alternative to cooperative campaigning is a more selective engagement strategy for campaign elements (such as content creation, campaign branding, etc.), alongside the creation of step-by-step manuals on how to manage the technical side of online campaigns (an activity that may be necessary regardless). Throughout the PAR implementation, sustainability will be a central determinant of the campaign strategy. Regarding the facilitating of partnerships, sustainable collaboration between groups has already been observed in so far as the Ghana partners dialogue has continued over the interim period from proposal submission to now, and we expect this dialogue to strengthen and continue throughout the project—here, networking organizations that independently support the same goals and have institutional longevity ensures better sustainability going forward, and MiCT is confident that its choice of partners in the Ghanaian context has ben prudent. Within Iraq, incorporating Wiki access points for students into the institutional frameworks of media departments is where we see the greatest chance for sustainable partnerships in Iraq.

7) The activities in Ghana pose the greatest security concern due to the political situation toward Queer individuals. The choice of LGBTQ+ Ghana was driven in part by their aligned mission to Wikimedia (factual information and support for Queer perspectives), their independence as an organization from project financing (they have an active volunteer community that drives activity as well as other external funding), and their success in implementing cyber-activism activities with highly minimized security risk. MiCT has extensive experience working with groups whose security is not guaranteed by state authorities, and cooperation with Wiki Group representative Justice Okai-Allotey on event planning and execution will be integral to ensuring safety of participants. The Ghana side of the project will not implement any public relations activities out of concern for the security of the participants. In Iraq, the security situation will be much easier to handle due to the selective relevant of security concerns changing with the location of activities. For instance, operating in Erbil, certain parts of Baghdad, among other University towns is generally safe, meaning that standard security measures of MiCT’s projects will apply. Regarding content (campaign/PR material), sensitivity to the local context will be collectively monitored by MiCT staff and Wiki Volunteers to ensure that no sensitive information is released that may jeopardize participant security.

8) Neutrality is perhaps only a concern within the Ghana project, due to the inherent political nature of the subject matter of the training and eventual Wiki content. Here, Justice Okai- Allotey will be key in ensuring that all Wiki content developed conforms to WMF guidelines of neutrality and all information is up to Wiki standards. While content on Queer life is inherently political due to the nature of discrimination, MiCT does not believe that factual information on Queer life—however the participants choose to engage on the topics—is inherently bias although it is politically sensitive. The Wiki group member supporting and leading the activities has been active in Queer related projects and is connected with other Queer Wiki projects in Africa, indicating that he is prepared to uphold content neutrality despite the sensitive nature of the project.

9) In Ghana, the participants will be selected internally by the LGBTQ+ Ghana group because public outreach could trigger security issues. This is also an advantage, because those selected by the group will be those known to be active and supportive of the project goals. In Iraq, outreach plans will be created with the user group and agreed upon within the campaign activity plan. MiCT sees its task as one of balancing the absolute number of new editors and ensuring diversity of new editors. Part of the campaign design is to craft messages relevant to population subgroups, which is why we include a Wiki volunteer survey to get a better understanding of what motivates people to join. Using this, we can segment target groups based on key characteristics and develop messaging tailored to those most likely to support the Wiki movement as well as underrepresented populations. MiCT will not hold up any quotas, as this can provide disincentives for movement growth if, for instance, new editors come from a single, specific group and management has to redirect resources to fulfill the remaining quotas. While we understand that quotas are common among development projects, we at MiCT believe that these are more often than not superficial and do not necessarily reflect thoughtful engagement with systemic inequalities. Rather than instituting quotas for new female editors for example, MiCT will segment this population in our campaign for tailored messaging and engagement and highlight the actual participation of women within the movement—for example, the founder of the user group is female is will play a key role in outreach to women. Outreach plans should therefore identity populations likely to engage as well as groups whose representation should be strengthened, leveraging the actual participation of existing Wiki Volunteers from these groups as movement diplomats (i.e. through attending events or supporting content creation for the campaign). 94.135.160.206 17:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Mitchell for your detailed responses to the questions and comments raised on the sustained engagement of Wikimedian communities, their security and issues of ensuring neutrality especially on matters that may have political influences. We are pleased to learn on the progress made in forming partnerships with Wikimedian communities and relevant partners involved in this project. Thank you and we look forward to learning about the unfolding impact of the project. VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 07:56, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Alliances Fund Programme Funding approved in the amount 99,299.9 USD

Dear Mitchell, 

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 99,299.9 USD with a grant term starting 1st April  - 30th September 2022. 

We are pleased and excited at the opportunity of MiCT collaborating with Wikimedian communities in Iraq and Ghana to support the growth and engagement of Wikimedian communities and promote knowledge equity. It was great learning about your initiated engagement with the different groups seeking to understand the most useful path of collaboration while taking into consideration barriers and risks that may influence the implementation of the project.  We are additionally pleased with the opportunity of developing and strengthening the capacity of Wikimedians in public campaigning as a means to promote awareness and grow communities. 

We look forward to learning about the outcomes of the project including the impact on Wikimedian communities in Iraq and Ghana.

Thank you and we wish you the very best! On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff--VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)