Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/DCW April 2025 - September 2025 Strategic Activity Plan/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
As outlined in our related activity plan, we implemented a series of activities during this period. These include regular workshops, conversation hours, and learning sessions, focusing on the overall growth and development of the community. Our approach has followed the principle of evaluation, iteration, and adaptation, and we keep on improving our strategic directions with time. We see Heritage Lens, TaW, October editing challenge as most effective, while the DCW Conversation Hour remains one of our major initiatives that serves the global knowledge community.
Conversation Hours
During the period, we successfully hosted six editions of the DCW Conversation Hour, focusing one a wide range of impactful topics such as Advocacy, Policy and Open Knowledge, Healthy and Sustainable Wikimedia Affiliates, Exploring Wikimedia Residence Initiatives, AI, Hallucinations and Fact Checking, Community Narratives and Systemic Bias and 2030 Strategy and the Wikimedia Movement.
Our guests included Catalina Frigerio, the director for Advocacy and Public Policy at Wikimedia Chile; Suyash Dwivedi, vice-chair of the AffCom; John Cummings, a long-standing Wikimedian-in-Residence; Abbad Diraneyya, Conversational AI Designer at Uber; Shanmugapriya T, assistant professor for digital humanities at IIT Dhanbad; and Dumisani NDubane, the director of monitoring and evaluation at MMG Earth, who formerly worked with the Wikimedia Foundation.
To promote our interest in supporting the student and researcher community, we have had several students and researchers from Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia host these important conversations. We have also produced recordings of these hours for wider public benefit.
Editing and Contributing drives
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Ansari Auditorium at Jamia Millia Islamia -
Silent Conversations
Between 16 May 2026 and 31 October 2025, we organised Wiki Clicks Jamia, a photography contest on Wikimedia Commons. We received 133 valid submissions for Wiki Clicks competition, with 10 new users creating their accounts. We also conducted the third edition of the DCW-K Edit-a-thon from September 11 to 30, 2025, on the Kashmiri Wikipedia. We fell short of expected outcomes this time and only received 47 submissions. The DCW Board also announced an editing challenge in October 2025 focused on improving content on Wikidata and Wikipedia, alongside helping reduce translation administration backlog.
Heritage Lens
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Mausoleum of Mir Saadullah Shahabadi -
Achabal Gardens and the Mughal architecture -
Mausoleum of Jamaluddin Bukhari in Lisser -
Markazi Jama Masjid, Aishmuqam -
Mahmud Gami mausoleum
We conducted the 6th iteration of Heritage Lens from 24 to 30 September 2025, focusing on several iconic places in the Kashmir Valley. This iteration contributed about 563 images to Wikimedia Commons.
Workshops and other meetups
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Understanding Wikipedia Inclusivity Criterias workshop participants -
Technical event questions addressed by Jay Prakash -
Inaugural Youth Focus meetup, at Prof Swati Chawla’s residence
We organised a wide range of workshops, training sessions, and meetups during this period. These include:
| Wiki Club AMU Community Orientation Program, June 2025 - Saturday, 28 June 2025 |
| DCW Fourth Anniversary Celebration, Thursday, 31 July 2025 |
| Wiki Club Jamia COT Orientation, August 2025 - Saturday, 2 August 2025 |
| Exploring Urdu Wikiquote: What and How - Sunday, 17 August 2025 |
| Understanding Wikipedia Inclusivity Criterias - Sunday, 30 August 2025 |
| dcw:DCW Progress Prism, August 2025 - Monday, 31 August 2025 |
| Youth Focus Meetup, October 2025 - Wednesday, 15 October 2025 |
| Wikimania 2026 Orientation Call - Wednesday, 15 October 2025 |
| Train a Wikipedian - second edition of our focused residential leadership development program, 18-19 October 2025 |
| Exploring Translation Administration, October 2025 - Sunday, 26 October 2025 |
| Getting Started with WikiTech: Tools, Bots and More - Wednesday, 29 October 2025 |
| Wikidata Sprint: Delhi Edition (30 October) and Aligarh Edition (31 October) |
Train a Wikipedian
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Participants chatting and talking while tea-break -
Interactive Quiz -
TaW Participants taking notes -
Aafi presenting on notability criteria
We organised the second edition of our residential leadership development program, Train-a-Wikipedian, engaging a new cohort of more than 16 new and old contributors. This edition was conducted at Ibn Sina Academy in Aligarh for two days on 18-19 October 2025. In this edition of TaW, our participants explored diverse Wiki questions. Its sessions were structured around the motto of “Identify, Learn, Think, and Mentor”. The sessions included:
| Icebreaker activity: Knowledge Revolution and AI Models |
| Introduction to Wikimedia, Its Projects, and Getting Started on Wikipedia |
| The Reliability Discourse: Notability and Neutrality on Wikipedia |
| Cognitive Skills: Gains of being a Wikimedian |
| "I am the Best to do it" - imposter syndrome and the wiki answer |
| Scope, Licensing and Categorisation on Wikimedia Commons |
| Group activity (3 Groups): Commons, Wikipedia & Tech: This was a hands-on learning exercise where participants explored projects according to their choices. Those part of the Commons group uploaded several images on Wikimedia Commons - which are available here. |
| Reflections from the Board: Conversation Hour, Photographers Club and Beyond |
2.1. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Our 2025 activity report provides an overview of the impact we have been able to create and see throughout the year 2025.
Available recordings
| Title | Note |
|---|---|
| Advocacy, Policy and Open Knowledge | DCW Conversation Hour May 2025 |
| Healthy and Sustainable Wikimedia Affiliates | DCW Conversation Hour, June 2025 |
| Exploring Wikimedia Residence Initiatives | DCW Conversation Hour, July 2025 |
| AI, Hallucinations and Fact Checking | DCW Conversation Hour, August 2025 |
| Community Narratives and Systemic Bias | DCW Conversation Hour, September 2025 |
| 2030 Strategy and the Wikimedia Movement | DCW Conversation Hour, October 2025 |
| Wiki Club AMU Orientation Program | June 2025 |
Content, Media and Else
Our volunteers curated a wide range of content on Wikipedia (English/Urdu/Hindi/Kashmiri). Some of the major contributions are en:Nayarit Conference, en:Burhanuddin Sambhali, en:Muslim Gazette and Jang-i-Khandaq. Some of our volunteers began contributing articles on Hindi Wikipedia during our October 2025 editing drive. Articles created by them include hi:हबीबुर रहमान खैराबादी among others. This LinkedIn post by Wiki Club AMU on the notability workshop, “Building inclusivity, one edit at a time,” showcases the impact of the club's experience with the first-ever offline training workshop. We organised a wide range of workshops, training sessions, and meetups during this period. These include:
| Wiki Club AMU Community Orientation Program, June 2025 - Saturday, 28 June 2025 |
| DCW Fourth Anniversary Celebration, Thursday, 31 July 2025 |
| Wiki Club Jamia COT Orientation, August 2025 - Saturday, 2 August 2025 |
| Exploring Urdu Wikiquote: What and How - Sunday, 17 August 2025 |
| Understanding Wikipedia Inclusivity Criterias - Sunday, 30 August 2025 |
| dcw:DCW Progress Prism, August 2025 - Monday, 31 August 2025 |
| Youth Focus Meetup, October 2025 - Wednesday, 15 October 2025 |
| Wikimania 2026 Orientation Call - Wednesday, 15 October 2025 |
| Train a Wikipedian - second edition of our focused residential leadership development program, 18-19 October 2025 |
| Exploring Translation Administration, October 2025 - Sunday, 26 October 2025 |
| Getting Started with WikiTech: Tools, Bots and More - Wednesday, 29 October 2025 |
| Wikidata Sprint: Delhi Edition (30 October) and Aligarh Edition (31 October) |
Our community members uploaded a wide range of media files to Wikimedia Commons, and more than 13 users created accounts while participating in the Wiki Clicks Jamia contest.
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Clicks Jamia, winner -
Wiki Clicks Jamia, 2nd winner -
Wiki Clicks Jamia, 3rd winner -
Wiki Clicks Jamia, consolation winner
During this term, we were pleased to have our volunteers participate in the Youth Conference in Prague (2 scholars) and the GLAM-Wiki Conference in Lisbon (1 scholar), showcasing our commitment to helping shape new talent in our movement.
2.2. Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
At the second TaW, we took our participants through Tanveer Hasan’s concluding remarks for the previous TaW cohort. Additionally, Movement Strategy Recommendations such as Increase the Sustainability of our movement (#3), Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt, alongside our own strategic direction, and the learnings from our Leadership Development and Skills Infrastructure Plan have been substantially beneficial. We have used EventMetrics to record metrics and our social media channels to keep our community members aware of the latest happenings. The activities have been carried of our activity plan for April 2025 - December 2025.
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: Our learning priorities center on establishing and sustaining an effective Executive Board, ensuring fair representation of our community members in decision-making processes, and strengthening long-term support for our Wiki Clubs. We are also hoping to learn about the processes and methodology required in collaborating with governmental, semi-governmental, and GLAM institutions. We also want to explore the questions around the efforts required to establish and sustain knowledge-driven platforms (like our Wiki Clubs) in educational institutions and universities.Additionally, we seek to understand students' willingness to learn and share through open platforms like Wikipedia. Exploring these questions will help us design effective processes to enhance student and youth engagement in our activities.
Two of our volunteers explored the areas related to GLAM and curated the GLAM IIT Delhi project, though the affiliate didn't formally initiate this project. This was an individual effort supported by the Deoband Community Wikimedia (internet, food, and travel support). Learnings like this have helped us realise that supporting (such as connecting Wiki activities with academic pursuits) passionate and diligent volunteers not only helps retain efficient contributors but also facilitates the creation of meaningful initiatives. We continue to expand on these questions as a part of our November-December 2025 plan, and the recent evaluation framework.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
Towards the positive side, we are excited to host our inaugural youth focus group meetup at the residence of Prof Swati Chawla. Academicians are usually seen as people who ask students to avoid Wikipedia; however, we see this as a very promising shift. Our activities were significantly impacted by the late disbursement of the resources. While the project was actually planned to begin on 1 April, it shifted to May 16 due to programmatic delays impacting the review process, which significantly impacted the wiring of resources. We couldn't do much until July 18, the day when we received resources, making the subsequent activities very cluttered. This has helped us learn to think about plan B beforehand.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
An overview of our learnings and challenges, including those from the past, was briefly shared on Deoband Community Wikimedia/Resources, Impact and Evaluation, and the community was updated through our WhatsApp communication groups. These learnings have already been utilised for designing and curating our subsequent activity plans. Additionally, these will be shared at the first annual convening happening on 20-21 December 2025, in Aligarh.
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | 62 | This is the number of participants who took part in our activities, such as Wiki Clicks Jamia. About 19 of these are new. |
| Number of editors | 40 | 35 | 35 is an average number of our active editors, those who regularly edit. |
| Number of organizers | 15 | 16 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 200 | 288 | 1319 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 250 | 1239 | 0 |
| Wikidata | 100 | 50 | 353 |
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TA's | We hope to train volunteers from our community to contribute as translation admins on our projects | 3 | 2 | |
| Collaborations | Collaborations for our events, campaigns and other initiatives | 3 | 3 | Alonsgide our collective collaborations, our volunteers like Raydann have been successfully to create GLAM initiatives at IIT-Delhi. |
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. State the total amount spent in your Indian Rupees. (required)
407548.78
11. State the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
4633.73
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Upload the financial report
12.1. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the project? (required)
Yes
13.1. Amount of unspent funds.
10847
13.2. Explain the reason for unspent funds.
As reported on our 2025 financial overview report, an amount of INR 10,847.54 remains underspent. This has particularly happened because the resources were not wired on time, and we had to adjust our activities until 18 July 2025. The late arrival had a significant impact on our activity plan.
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14. Are you in compliance with all applicable terms, laws and regulations as outlined in the project agreement? Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)