Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Documenting the folk songs sung during Shama Chakeva, a festival celebrated in eastern Nepal’s southern plains (ID: 22596971)/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)
All the folk songs sung during the festival were collected during the first leg of the workshop held in October 2024. The videos of the women group singing the folk songs have been uploaded in the Wikimedia Commons site.
The folk songs constitute the ones that are sung while collecting clay for making the statuettes, leaving the house to celebrate the festival, celebrating the festival and immersing the statuettes in water sources after a week. The songs talk about the birth of Shama, her life and the day when she leaves the women and girls – when they immerse her in water. The songs talk about different stories that are part of the festival. They talk about the bond between the brothers and sisters as well.
The team also collected nine songs and seven videos of the Shama Chakeva statuettes making process. They have been added to Wikimedia Commons along with more than 150 images of Shama Chakeva characters and the workshops.
During the second leg of the workshop held in December 2024, a set of papier mache statuettes were created based on the clay statuettes made during the Shama Chakeva festival.
A connection with a Taiwan-based company to sell the papier mache Shama Chakeva statuettes. Eva Hsu, the entrepreneur, will visit Nepal and meet with the women group to talk about the consistency of production and how they can make sure the export takes place seamlessly.
A series of illustrations was created to tell the story of Shama Chakeva which were later compiled into a children’s storybook. The storybook which will be shared with school children.
2. 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
Link to Shama Chakeva songs videos
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Eastern_Tharu_Shama_Chakeva_folk_songs
Link to videos of workshops making Shama Chakeva statuettes, both of clay and papier mache
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Documenting_Shama_Chakeva_videos
Link to images of workshops making Shama Chakeva statuettes, both of clay and papier mache
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Documenting_Shama_Chakeva
Link to images of Shama Chakeva characters made of paier mache
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Shama_Chakeva_characters
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
A workshop for making papier mache Shama Chakeva statuettes was organised where a trained artist guided the women group on making papier mache statuettes.
During the first workshop the women made the clay statuettes themselves and sang songs that were recorded.
During the second workshop also they made the clay statuettes themselves and based on the clay statuettes the papier mache ones were created.
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? 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 | Strongly 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 | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly 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: I would like to learn about the process of documenting the going-to-be extinct folk songs and popularising them once again among the young generation. Also, I would like to learn whether it is feasible to monetise the whole process by not only popularising the characters mentioned in the story but by also making papier-mache souvenirs and selling them.
The main learning was, the communities also want to document their folk songs but they don't have the required expertise to do so. Implementing this project, I learned how to reach out to the people who still know the folk songs and how to request them and make them record the songs.
After making papier mache statuettes, I posted them on my Instagram which attracted the attention of Eva Hsu, a Taiwanese entrepreneur who sells handicraft items from Nepal and other countries in Taiwan. She reached out to and said that she would come to Nepal and meet with the women group to deal with them to supply the statuettes to them. She also wanted to buy the one set of Shama Chakeva characters made by the women. However, we didn't sell them as we need them during awareness raising sessions in schools.
I learned that there is a market for the souvenir items created based on Shama Chakeva characters.
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)
The travel costs exceeded as the link road to Kathmandu Valley was swept away by the floods. The team had to take a long route and hire a vehicle in October 2024 as it was the festive season and public buses used to take more than 14 hours to reach the destination. The buses had to travel a longer route as almost 10 kilometres of the BP Highway was swept away by the September 2024 floods at more than 10 places.
Since the artist could not complete the illustrations on time and the second leg of papier mache workshop got delayed due to the unavailability of women group members, the team had to request for an extension until end of February 2025.
A part of the amounts allocated for food and stationery remained unspent. However, the team has requested to use the remaining amount to cover up the extra expenses and print more copies of the storybook.
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)
We will meet with the women group again and share them about the success of the project. The Taiwanese entrepreneur wants to buy their clay and papier mache statuettes, if they can produce consistently maintaining the quality.
The storybooks will be shared with school children raising awareness about Shama Chakeva festival.
I will write articles on online portals and contribute to Wikipedia articles to raise awareness about the festival.
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 | 25 | 25 | During the workshops more than 25 women and children participated. However, six women were involved in singing the songs and making clay and papier mache statuettes.
The storybook on Shama Chakeva has been shared with school children and we aim to reach more children in the future. |
| Number of editors | 2 | 2 | Amrit Sufi and Subhashish Panigrahi, two Wikimedians, advised and suggested to improve the project activities. |
| Number of organizers | 12 | 12 | Two artists, a filmmaker, a designer, a photographer, a videographer, a project manager, three advisors and two coordinators supported the project activities. |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 2 | ||
| Wikimedia Commons | 10 | 16 | 150 |
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | 1 | ||
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons | At least 25 high resolution pictures will be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. | 25 | 150 | More than 150 images of the workshops on making clay and papier mache satuettes, including the papier mache characters of Shama Chakeva festival. |
| Videos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons | At least 10 high resolution videos of the songs will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. | 10 | 9 | Nine videos of folk songs and seven videos of making Shama Chakeva statuettes, both of clay and papier mache were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. |
| Updating Wikipedia articles | At least one article about Shama Chakeva in Wikipedia will be updated. | 1 | 2 | The two pages, Tharu people and Sama Chakeva were minorly edited. I plan to add more information to the Sama Chakeva page. |
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. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
660000
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
4695
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Upload the financial report
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
As the roads were swept away by floods, we had to take a longer route that hiked the rate and spent 50000 in a hired vehicle alone for a round trip for the first workshop. For second workshop three people travelled by bus which costed 15000 for the round trip including food on the way. We used 15000 remaining from the food expenses to cover the expenses of second leg of travel.
We spent the 35000 remaining after purchasing stationery for gving honorarium to the book designer and printing more copies of the storybook.
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
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
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A