Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Expand Wikimedia movement's reach in South Asian low-resourced languages

statusUnder review

Wikimedia Community Fund

Expand Wikimedia movement's reach in South Asian low-resourced languages

Fluxx IDR-GS-2502-18088

start date2025-06-15

end date2026-03-31

budget (local currency)33529.12 CAD

amount requested (USD)24038.03 USD

grant typeIndividual

funding regionSA

decision fiscal year2024-25

funding program roundRound 2

applicant and people related to proposalPsubhashish

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This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the web service of Wikimedia Foundation Funds where the user has submitted their application. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.

Applicant information

Organization name or Wikimedia Username for individuals. (required)

Psubhashish

Do you have any approved General Support Fund requests? (required)

No, it is my first time applying for a General Support Fund

You are applying as a(n). (required)

Individual

Are your group or organization legally registered in your country? (required)

N/A

Do you have a fiscal sponsor?

Yes

Fiscal organization name.

Kiwix

Please provide links to the following documents if they are available

These documentation can be provided in your local language(s), no translations required.

• Organizational website
• Detailed financial reporting and/or audits
• Documentation of the governance structure, board list, governance processes
• Documentation of the general assembly decision on your plan

Main proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required)

Expand Wikimedia movement's reach in South Asian low-resourced languages

2. Do you want to apply for the multi-year base funding for 3 years? (required) (only for returning applicants)

N/A

2.1. Provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan? (required)

N/A

3. Proposed start date. (required)

2025-06-15

4. Proposed end date. (required)

2026-03-31

5. Does your organization or group have an Affiliate or Organizational Annual Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required)

Yes

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kciJ5JNBHVbi0855A0RJRljRG9u_eFcFXsaPznDCYTw/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.rh5hrf2f6ad8

6. Does your affiliate, organization or group have a Strategic Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required)

No

7. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)

Regional (more than one country in the same continent or region)

The project focuses on over ten languages spoken across India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

8. What are your programs, approaches, and strategies? What are the challenges that you are trying to address and how will your strategies support you in addressing these challenges? (required)

Our programs

In the past, we have created ten Creative Commons-licensed documentaries, including three awarded by the National Geographic Society, documenting 20+ low-resourced languages with speakers and activists. These documentaries are acquired by the Library of Congress (and distribute among their partners—noted U.S. university libraries) and Language Archive Cologne through GLAM collaborations.

1. OpenSpeaks (founded in 2017 on Wikiversity): Set of Open Educational Resources (OER) to help language archivists document Indigenous, endangered, and low-resourced languages in multimedia.

Won a National Geographic Society award and received support from Creative Commons, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Online News Association, and the Interledger Foundation.

1. OpenSpeaks Archives (first pilot supported by a Rapid Grant, July 2024): A digital language archive documenting Indigenous, endangered, and low-resourced languages.

The pilot validated our theory of change while building a language documentation working model and a resource wishlist. Helped five community archivists bring oral knowledge in their respective languages in multimedia, enriching Wikimedia projects in over 20 languages. Identified the need for simple, cross-platform, offline tools for archivists.

1. Wiki Loves Language (WLL): A 2025 Wikipedia edit-a-thon about languages and speaker communities, encouraging Wikimedia communities to expand low-resourced language topics.

Approaches

a. Theory of Change: Wikimedia and open knowledge projects can serve lesser-resourced language communities if: Such projects embed nuanced community knowledge in their languages. These projects act as tools for communities for their language assertion locally. Communities have the right tools and resources to disseminate their knowledge. b. High-quality, accessible language media in Wikimedia projects: Rather than mass-uploading multimedia files, we will carefully edit and publish accessible, translatable content. c. GLAM collaboration and citations: By partnering with notable GLAM institutions, we will increase citability of the published oral history recordings, keeping them useful in multiple Wikimedia projects, and not merely as representational content. d. Tools, workflows and OER: By identifying currently missing tools and other resources, we will create, in collaboration with the Wikimedia technical community, and avail them to language archivists under open access. e. Community & capacity building: By collaborating with Wikimedia communities, external organizations and participating in conferences, we will provide resources to language archivists and train them about methodologies and tools for language documentation.

Strategies

• High-quality, accessible language media creation:

Relevant language documentation media (primarily unpublished oral history recordings and descriptive videos from our film archive) from ten select languages will be selected, edited, subtitled, and published. Each language will have multiple media files and each file will be independent with a particular topic description.

• The subtitles will be multilingual: in at least one regional dominant language and in English, providing insight on language content spoken in media and ensuring accessibility for both Wikimedia project readers and people with disabilities.

• Tools, workflows and OER creation:

We will create open source technical resources, that are required but are missing now, for language documentation and publication of documented media. We will create documentations to help other language archivists.

• Community & Capacity Building:

Collaborating with like-minded organizations to facilitate training and capacity-building for language archivists. Hosting an in-person workshop at Wiki Conference India and a remote workshop at Celtic Knot Conference to train archivists on creating Wikimedia-ready language media.

• Co-leading Wiki Loves Languages campaign to encourage Wikimedia communities to create and expand language and speaker community-related entries/content on Wikimedia projects.

• GLAM collaboration and citations:

We will partner with notable GLAM institutions so language media can reach beyond Wikimedia projects. We will use their online catalogues to enhance citations on Wikimedia projects, increasing the use of oral history to expand Wikimedia content in less-covered, important topics about communities and languages

Challenges/barriers

a. Severe content gaps in Wikimedia projects:

Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects were built to be diverse, multilingual, and participatory, yet they lack content on languages from the global majority and their speaker communities.

Example: Wikipedia has detailed articles on fictional languages from movies, but many real languages from the global majority and their speakers are poorly covered or entirely missing.

b. Limited access to archival tools:

The OpenSpeaks Archives pilot confirmed that many essential tools for language documentation do not exist or are proprietary and expensive.

There is an urgent need for simple, cross-platform, offline tools that community archivists require but cannot access.

c. Oppressive citation practices in Wikimedia projects:

Current citation policies reinforce post-colonial biases, making it difficult for oral histories and Indigenous knowledge to be citable and widely used. While efforts to challenge and reform these practices are ongoing, change is slow, complex, and met with resistance.

How our strategies help lift barriers

Our strategies directly address abovementioned key barriers. First, we aim to collectively establish a new paradigm where historically marginalized knowledge from global majority will be equally placed with the dominant forms of knowledge. Second, by elucidating a process for citing oral history, we will enable Wikimedians who have previously uploaded oral history recordings cite the recordings rather than using merely as representational media. Third, by creating missing vital language documentation tools, we will enable citizen language document more languages. Fourth, by creating open educational resources for archivists, we will ensure that archivists can learn and build their own strategy even beyond this project. We will also build capacity of some archivists, including Wikimedians who are already language archivists or are keen to become one bring citable oral history in less-represented languages to Wikimedia projects. We will ensure that our efforts are sustainable and not an one-off content donation. Fifth, by co-leading a campaign like Wiki Loves Languages, we will encourage Wikimedians to expand knowledge and increase awareness about low-resourced languages and speaker communities. Sixth, instead of reinventing the wheel, we have studied oral history contributed by others and our own in the past to identify what is missing and needed. By focusing on addressing vital gaps such as lack of accessible media or use of international open standards in subtitles, we will create an open workflow for others to keep high-quality, accessible oral history recordings. Lastly, we will reduce resources significantly by editing content from private archives that is already created with significant resources and collective labor but but are unused due to lack of resources.

9. What categories are your main programs and related activities under? Please select all that apply. (required)

Category	Yes/No
Education	No
Culture, heritage or GLAM	Yes
Gender and diversity	No
Community support and engagement	No
Participation in campaigns and contests	No
Public policy advocacy	No
Other	No

Culture, heritage or GLAM

9.2. Select all your programs and activities for Culture, heritage or GLAM. (required)

Documenting or incubating languages on Wikimedia projects, Introducing new approaches to underrepresented culture and heritage, e.g. decolonising or reparative work; oral and visual knowledge; outreach to communities of origin, indigenous and first nations self-determination, Partnering with institutions, professional associations, and allied organizations to raise awareness of open culture, ethical sharing, and related issues

Other programs and activities if any: N/A

10. Please include a link to or upload a timeline (operational calendar) for your programs and activities. (required)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zha1qQ2jDOz1VaA6L__WwWEeEZAoiEHV8VdShwZyf_4/edit?usp=sharing

11. Describe your team. (required)

Language and translation experts:

• Opino Gomango (Jurai, Sora, Gutob, Odia)
• Gobardhan Panda (Bonda, Desia)
• Sanjib Chaudhary (Tharu, Nepali)
• Uday Raj Aaley (Magar, Kusunda, Nepali)
• Surendra Singh (Saukiya Khun — extinct language)
• K. S. Bharwal (Rangpo — threatened language)
• Arun Gaur (Jaunpuri, Garhwali, Hindi)
• Deepak Joshi (Jaunsari, Garhwali, Hindi)
• Jayprakash Chauhan (Bangani, Garhwali, Hindi)
• Nenavath Mohan (Lambadi)
• Subhashish Panigrahi (lead)

Tech and community (whether paid or volunteer role TBD):

• Jnanaranjan Sahu
• Chinmayee Mishra

Wikimedians (collaborators):

• User:Ssgapu22
• User:Aliva_Sahoo

Advisors:

• Positions to be filled

12. Will you be working with any internal (Wikimedia) or external partners? Describe the characteristics of these partnerships and bring a few examples of the most significant partnerships. (required)

Internal partners:

• Odia Wikimedians User Group (I am a co-founder; admin and co-revived the Odia Wikipedia; co-created Wiki Loves Languages campaign)
• Santali Wikimedians User Group (have been involved in creating fonts and input tools before incubation and contributed during Incubator stage, and have mentored and assisted fellow Wikimedians)

External GLAM partners:

• Library of Congress (video acquisition, online catalogues)
• Language Archive Cologne (video acquisition, online catalogues)
• Indiancine.ma (video acquisition, online catalogues)

13. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select all that apply. (required)

Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge, Identify Topics for Impact, Innovate in Free Knowledge

Metrics

Wikimedia Metrics

14. Please select and fill out Wikimedia Metrics for your proposal. (recommended)

14.1. Number of participants, editors, and organizers.

All metrics provided are optional, please fill them out if they are aligned with your programs and activities.

Participants, editors, and organizers

Metrics name	Target	Description
Number of all participants	100	N/A
Number of all editors	50	N/A
Number of new editors	N/A
Number of retained editors	N/A
Number of all organizers	10	N/A
Number of new organizers	N/A

14.2. Number of new content contributions to Wikimedia projects. (recommended)

Contributions to Wikimedia projects

Wikimedia project	Created	Edited or improved
Wikipedia	15	25
Wikimedia Commons	150
Wikidata	50	50
Wiktionary		10
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions / Abstract Wikipedia

Description for Wikimedia projects contributions metrics. (optional)

Other Metrics

15. Do you have other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required)

No

Other Metrics	Description	Target
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A

Budget

16. Will you have any other revenue sources when implementing this proposal (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required)

Yes

16.1. List other revenue sources. (required)

We plan to bring in-kind donation of up to US$2,000

16.2. Approximately how much revenue will you have from other sources in your local currency? (required)

2880

17. Your local currency. (required)

CAD

18. What is the total requested amount in your local currency? (required)

33529.12 CAD

Multi-year funding request summary

Year	Amount (local currency)
Year 1	N/A CAD
Year 2	N/A CAD
Year 3	N/A CAD

Requested amount in USD

24038.03 USD

Multi-year funding request summary in USD

Year	Amount USD
Year 1	N/A USD
Year 2	N/A USD
Year 3	N/A USD

19. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required)

Yes

19.1. How many paid staff members do you plan to have? (required)

Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms.

While we would not have any staffer or consultant, there would be 10 service providers (individual/group/organization) as mentioned in the budget. These are for professional service that are outside of volunteer Wikimedia contribution.

19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)

Include the total FTE of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include their FTEs with the terms separately.

As mentioned in 19.1 and budget, we do not have any staffers but capped pay-per-hour services (a total of 394 hours) mentioned in Budget. This is due to the lack of financial and HR infrastructure, resources (including professional finance/HR human support), which can significantly increase overall expenses. The detailed number of hours for each service and the kind of service are mentioned in the Budget spreadsheet.

19.3. Describe any staff or contractor changes compared to the current year / ongoing General Support Fund if any. (required only for returning grantees)

N/A

20. Please provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. The budget breakdown should include only the amount requested with this General Support Fund (required).

Budget category	Amount in local currency
Staff and contractor costs	0 CAD
Operational costs	5750 CAD
Programmatic costs	33529 CAD

21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_tErHRyNuZgxa6JXnYq8tk1-jokzYTn8/edit?gid=1317624397#gid=1317624397

Additional information

22. In this optional space you can add any other additional information about your proposal or organization that you think can help us when reviewing your proposal. (optional)

Our earlier pilot outcomes and technological wishlist: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/02/18/openspeaks-archives-a-language-archive-for-wikimedia-projects/

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By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.

We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes

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