Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Kashmiri Wikimedians UG October 2024 - March 2025 Activity Plan (ID: 22752145)

Endorsement from Kashmiriwriter (talk)

Great Initiative, These workshops will train our community about different aspects of Wikimedia.

--Kashmiriwriter (talk) 17:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Status Update

Hello @511KeV

Hope you are well. Sharing an update that we'll require more time to review your application and I'll look to provide an update (or outcome) next week. I noted your proposed start date is scheduled for 1 October. Thanks for your patience and we'll connect soon.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Your grant application has been approved

Hello @511KeV,

Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 195,000 from 1 October 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Observations/ Recommendations / Notes

• 1) Key comments captured through the review process: a) Not clear as to what the outreach plan is for the workshops - who is the target audience etc; b) Not sure about the website idea as there is maintenance required each year, and so on.

• 2) We have general questions about Kashmiri Wikimedia community and hope you would be able to support us in understanding your local context better. Would you be able to provide more details to these questions: a) From this dashboard, we were able to understand more about the editing patterns of Kashmiri wikipedia. Would you like to supplement this with your observations about the community/content contribution trends in general?; b) Using these tools, we were able to understand more about your/ your implementation team's global user contribution and global account information. Would you be able to share more about your member community? And would you be able to organise the information based on office holders, active and non active members? Here's an example if you find it useful; c) In your most recent annual report, you mentioned joining the Train the Trainers Programme conducted in 2023 jointly by CIS-A2K and Wikimedians of Kerala. Could you share more about the key reflections from that participation?

For the purposes of documentation, we are including links to your first grant (application in 2022; report).

• 3) Before putting in your next grant application, I'll encourage you to meet with the Programme Officer for a conversation and discussion about your proposed plans. The intention of this is to hold space to reflect on the learnings of your first 6 months to inform/ feed into the next planning cycle. The rapid fund cycle timelines can be found here. Do note that for this to happen you will need to proactively plan ahead so that there is sufficient lead time for the conversation(s) to happen as part of your next proposal iteration process.

We know even the best thought through plans may change

In the event that there are changes to your implementation schedule, you can reach out to request for a grant extension (i.e. extend end date). Similarly, if there is a surplus budget or changes to your planned budget, you can reach out to me about reallocation (via email and on this talkpage). There is also the option to have the unspent funds deducted against a future grant. More details here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Return_unused_funds_to_WMF

Additional resources which may be useful

• The reporting requirements and templates for the grant can be found here. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.
• Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or on Fluxx.
• Instructions for post award: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Processing/Grantee_Portal/Post_award
• Documenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses

We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. Let’s continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Please let me know if you require support in any way or would like to share your experiences with a wider community through the Let's Connect Programme or on South Asia Open Community Calls.

Thank you.

Regards,

Jacqueline on behalf of SA Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Dear @JChen (WMF),

Thank you for supporting this "incubator baby," (one of the members of the grants committee used to call the Kashmiri Wikipedia). I would also like to thank all members of the review process for their questions and valuable feedback. Below, I have provided responses to the questions raised.

1. This has been demonstrated on the Grant proposal that we would target active, semi-active as well as potential contributors on the Kashmiri Wikipedia. Our target audience is mainly existing users of Kashmiri Wikipedia and potential kashmiri language students. We will reach out to the existing non active & active users via existing communications channels & utilise our social media handles to reach the potential editors. The workshops are designed to be as a series of sessions in online format in which we will be covering from basics to admin level editing tasks. We will also organise an in-person meetup cum training workshop.
2. Our plan is to have the website designed and prepared once, and have hosting renewed every two years. This won’t cost much maintenance charges. Website development would be a one-time investment (from this grant) and updates on the website would be regularly carried out as part of our volunteering. This will help us to establish a presence and ways for other organisations and volunteers to reach out to us.
3. Thank you for sharing the link to the dashboard. We have also observed a decline in new user registrations and are facing challenges with user retention. However, we have noticed an improvement in the quality of content being produced. We believe there is a general lack of awareness about Wikimedia projects in Kashmir, particularly about the Kashmiri Wikipedia. These points were discussed with the community and our partners, which led to the request for this grant
4. The question does not seem to be very clear however I understand that you are asking about the members of the Kashmiri Wikimedians User Group. The membership is open to anyone contributing to Kashmiri Wikimedia projects (and Wikimedians from the Kashmir region), alongside those who contribute Kashmir-related content and knowledge. The membership is also open to open researchers who work on the sustainability of the language, for example, those from the Koshur Collective. The members of the community are mainly students who are enthusiastic about saving their mother tongue and contribute to Kashmiri Wikipedia with few users who also are active in technical work eg. Bot operation (User: Nadeemulhaqmirbot). I am leading the implementation team, and we will select a second member from the community to support the execution of this project. Additionally, we will engage with users to invite them to participate in the grant, offering it as an internship opportunity for those interested.
5. The User Group is not legally recognised and does not have any office. However, the affiliate has been led by me since its inception and supported by User:Imranqazi90. Both users are primarily contacts of the user group submitted to Afcom. Given your recommendation, we will organise the membership and roles sub-pages in a more cohesive and coherent manner. As mentioned earlier, we would also have a role for event manager, whom we will select from the community. This will be updated once we have the person ready.
6. Thank you. I will definitely work on this and share a detailed set of reflections soon. One key takeaway from the program was how it instilled in us a sense of responsibility to mentor and guide fellow Wikimedians who are just starting their journey. The hands-on sessions and collaborative activities equipped us with valuable skills and also reinforced the importance of sharing knowledge to strengthen the Wikimedia community as a whole. I will also share in the write-up why we proposed hosting a future edition of the Train the Trainers Program, to be held in the region of Kashmir.

Thank you once again for your support and trust in this small language project. I hope that the efforts of our community will turn this initiative into an incredible resource for the Kashmiri language. If you have any further questions or need clarification, I would be more than happy to assist.

Regards _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 13:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Reallocation request - approved

Hello @511KeV,

Thank you for your email and for the update. We are acknowledging and approving the request via email for budget line reallocation and are also documenting the changes here:

Budget line for event manager role reallocated to:

1. Prizes for Edit-a-thons : INR 13,000 for two events (Amazon vouchers valued at 3000, 2000, 1000, and 500 for each edit-a-thon).

2. Food: INR 6000 (addition to existing budget line)

3. Travel & Accommodation: INR 6000 (addition to existing budget line)

4. Communication Materials: INR 5000 for graphic design and related needs

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:17, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Dear @JChen (WMF), Thank you for the approving the request. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 06:04, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for Extension of Grant Timeline

Dear @JChen (WMF), We would like to request an extension of our grant timeline by one month. Due to the observance of Ramadan, we were unable to complete our planned offline activities as most of the participants were unavailable for offline activities. Given these circumstances, we kindly seek your approval for an extension to ensure the successful completion of our activities. Thankyou for your consideration. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 13:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello @511KeV, We are acknowledging your request and have also provided an update via email. Tagging @PDas (WMF) so that he can provide the support that you need. Thank you.

Regards,

Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:09, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

@511KeVYour extension request has been granted. Your new grant end date is 30th April 2025, with a reporting due on 31st May 2025. Thank you PDas (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)