Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020 round 1/Wikimedia Argentina/Staff proposal assessment

Staff assessment summary

Wikimedia Argentina Wikimedia Argentina has been a model of organizational development in the past three to four years, slowly but surely becoming one of the most thoughtful and strategic organizations in our movement. Their work is especially interesting in that it involves a crystal clear understanding of their own context, a unique way of taking advantage of it, despite political and financial instability in their region and often difficult conditions to do the work they are trying to do to advance the Wikimedia mission. Wikimedia Argentina is a leader in the Latin America region, has acted as a mentor to other affiliates and communities across the continent and has been extremely active throughout the movement on strategy matters, working to make certain that unheard voices would be heard.

Strategy and programs

Wikimedia Argentina's work is organized around three main programs. Their education program has been extended lately to include a human rights component, a focus dear to Latin America and which goes well with the Wikimedia Mission. Through their Education and human rights program, WMAR is working hard to promote knowledge equity. Some of their flagship activities include work with more than 30 institutions across the country, highschools and universities, whose educators they support in using Wikipedia in their teaching through online courses. On top of the regular courses, WMAR has been working with high profile institutions such as UNICEF, OHCHR, Amnistia Argentina, as well as with underrepresented communities on the subject of Human Rights, to ensure that Wikimedia projects are used to advance equity. in 2020, WMAR is looking at continuing successful activities such as Wikipuentes (MOOC), Wikipedia in the University and training sessions in highschools. WMAR will continue its mentoring role by instituting the LATAM Fellowship program, allowing communities across LATAM to develop together with WMAR as a mentor programs and develop skills.

WMAR's program 'Culture and Open Knowledge has been more about ensuring the presence of Argentinian knowledge in the WIkimedia projects. As Spanish is a language shared by many countries, Wikimedia projects in Spanish are often lacking content from regions with less access to internet or less time to work on Wikipedian, resulting in definite content gaps and content bias. WMAR works with institutions to make available Argentinian content through digitization and has positioned itself as a major actor in Open Data projects, supporting and partnering with institutions wanting to open their collections and make them available to the general public. Their partnerships span a broad scope of actors in the GLAM sector and have allowed Wikimedia Argentina to keep a strategic approach to those partnerships, often pushing towards thematic focus around gender or science, for example. 2020 will also see the development of projects and training around misinformation, for example, as well as work around endangered heritage.

WMAR's program "Diverse communities" has been generated around thematic communities, which have proven to be a good way to foster newcomer integration and made outreach easier and more successful.WMAR has an equal commitment to support a welcoming environment for newcomers and to take care of historic communities. Some of the work in this program revolves around training and workshops to present Wikimedia projects as allies to enhance the work other organizations or communities are already doing to advance social justice, be it gender work, or work with underrepresented communities at a local level. in 2020 WMAR will develop new activities to identify and train new leaders at the regional and local level with their New Voices Fellowship while it will also support their existing thematic communities (Litoral, Gender, Photographers…)

Wikimedia Argentina has had good results throughout the years and we are looking forward to see them establish their leadership in LATAM and empowering communities around the region, while continuing with their successful and impactful national activities, which serve as examples of innovative programmatic activities for the Wikimedia movement in general.

Budget & grant request

Wikimedia Argentina is asking for a grant of 279,766 USD, which is at the same level as last year. Despite a very volatile economic environment, WMAR has managed to continue running its programs, by keeping a close tab on political and economical evolutions in the country. We want to commend Wikimedia Argentina's resilience in this difficult context.

Recommendation: We recommend granting Wikimedia Argentina its full request of 279,766 USD USD - Request granted Delphine (WMF) (talk) 13:29, 5 December 2019 (UTC)