Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Kolami Wikipedia Community Awareness Drive (ID: 22133511)

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Endorsment from Varaprasad Sidam (talk)[edit]

  1. Support SupportKolami is one of the tribal languages from India and I strongly support this proposal as it is going to support the Kolami community to build it's own wikipedia.

--Varaprasad Sidam (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from 2409:40F0:9:5148:8000:0:0:0[edit]

  1. {S}} I support


--2409:40F0:9:5148:8000:0:0:0 05:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from Athram Rajkumar (talk)[edit]

  1. Strong support Strong support -- I think community awareness and content building are two essential activities of building a Wikipedia project. This proposal will totally help the Kolami Wikipedia to achieve new heights.


--Athram Rajkumar (talk) 14:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from మాన్కు మడావి (talk)[edit]

  1. Strong support Strong support -- Kolami community is an emerging community, this proposal helps us reach out to new members of Kolami speakers. This proposal also help us build new comers and train them to edit on Wikipedia. I would totally endorse this project to support Kolami Wikipedia.

--మాన్కు మడావి (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from Mothiram 123 (talk)[edit]

  1. Strong support Strong support -- Kolami speaking people live in the joint Adilabad district and Yuwathmal district of Maharashtra in Telangana state.

Our Kolami language is one of the endangered language! Kolami language is oral language, Kolami language has no special script! Therefore, Wikipedia articles with kolam language vocabulary are written in Telugu script. We are very happy to now include the Kolami language on Wikipedia as an international forum. I hope that the three-day Wikipedia workshop will be useful for the existence of our language and the survival of the Kolami language for posterity. --Mothiram 123 (talk) 15:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from M.Abhilash[edit]

There are many undeveloped and scriptless languages in India. Kolami language is one such tribal language. Our Wikipedia tries to bring tribal languages to light. So there is no doubt that this grant will be useful for this project. I Fully support this grant request. --M.Abhilash 14:07, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline[edit]

1 to 16 August 2023: Community Awareness drive as detailed in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Rapid_Fund/Kolami_Wikipedia_Community_Awareness_Drive_(ID:_22133511)

1 to 15 September : Post project activities and follow up and feedback from community.

grant report submission as per the approved timeline from Program Officer.

Mothiram 123 (talk) 14:32, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Grants made in the geographies of Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra[edit]

For context, I am putting together a list of grants that have been made in geographies - Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra and/or with relation to indigenous/ tribal languages. It is non-exhaustive. Please feel free to add on if you know of others. Thank you.

JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:57, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up questions from Programme Officer[edit]

Hello @Nskjnv,

Thank you for putting in an application. I've reviewed your application and have further questions. Would it be possible to receive your responses by some time this week (if your schedule permits) and we'll target to provide an update on funding outcomes by next week. Thank you.

--


Local context

1) Could you share more about you and your team's experience within the Wikipedia movement? Could you also elaborate more on you/your team's interests, experience or expertise in the Kolami language and your ties to the Kolam people. Could you share your project team's experience in contributing to, participating or implementing similar projects and with the wikimedia incubator?

2) While Kolami User Group is an informal group at the moment, what are your plans and vision for the group as founding members?

3) Given the list of projects above and your networks within the wikimedia movement, are you aware of any movement organisers/ groups/ projects/ communities that are doing similar work with yours and could potentially be a resource persons for peer learning?


Programme and Strategy

4) Could you provide a timeline for your project? For example, this spans the duration of the project from start to finish of reporting? And it would include an overview of activities, roles (i.e. who is doing what for activities and project roles - administrative, financial management, reporting etc), when would this happen and how.

5) Could you identify and provide further elaboration on the implementing partners of your project? For example: who are these partners, how did these partnerships come about, what would be their roles and how will they contribute to the project?

6) We also noted that your target participants is Kolami community writers and youth and would like to bring your attention to the basic criteria of rapid fund grants and the need for * youth safety policy to be in place for any activity that involves underage community members. Would you be able to elaborate on the safeguards that you have around your activities/ event?

7) Could you further elaborate on how you envision this will happen for the project - "While writers and youth are the major target audience, small pockets of knowledge will be collected in the form of audios from senior citizens who are proficient in language. We will also try to collect some documentaries of Kolam culture from a rural backdrop to be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons."?

8) Would you be able to elaborate on retention strategy that you have in mind for the project and would like to test out?


Financial Proposal

9) Based on your proposed budget, could you elaborate on the line items for staff related expenses? For example: computation of the budget line, cost assumptions, scope of work, assessment of completion/ quality of work, publication of work for future access etc.

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @JChen (WMF),

please find the reply to the questions from you below here.

Local context
1) Could you share more about you and your team's experience within the Wikipedia movement? Could you also elaborate more on you/your team's interests, experience or expertise in the Kolami language and your ties to the Kolam people. Could you share your project team's experience in contributing to, participating or implementing similar projects and with the wikimedia incubator?
Reply:
I am a social worker by profession working with tribal people from various parts of Telangana and other parts of India. While working as a district program Officer with a project under NITI Aayog(the think Tank of India), I got to interact with the people from various tribes of Kumuram Bheem Asifabad, a tribal district named after the Gond revolutionary Kumuram Bheem. Working with these tribal communities gave me a great insight into their culture and language, moved by their cultural heritage. As a Wikimedian and a language enthusiast, I’ve started working for the tribal languages Gondi and Kolami. As a part of my previous grant Wikipedia Pages Wanting 2022 I have taken up awareness and content drives for adding photos on Telugu Wikipedia and received good turn out from both these tribal communities and we have about 7 active editors who contribute to Telugu Wikipedia as a part of their learning and with these experience they work with the incubator space.
As a Wikimedian with good experience in organising training sessions, I have conducted two projects namely Wikipedia Asian month(Telugu), Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos 2022(Telugu) and an active contributor to Telugu Wikipedia (completed 100 Wiki days challenge and added images to more than 7000 pages in WPWP2021 campaign) and I also contribute to Wikimedia commons, Incubator versions of Gondi and Kolami while mentoring these communities. My team mate Athram Mothiram is an active editor contributing to Telugu Wikipedia and Kolami Wikipedia incubator. Our other Team members Raju and Jangu contribute to the Kolami Wikipedia incubator.
Athram mothiram is a Kolami poet and Writer, given that Kolami language uses Telugu script and follows Telugu grammar. Mothiram has also written a book in Kolami and published about 4 books in Telugu language. He also worked as a key resource person to Dr. Rajakrishna, a researcher on Kolami language from Dravidian university.
Our Team members Raju and Jangu are Native speakers and they are skilled at translating and producing content in the Kolami language.
As you have mentioned about the grants of the Geographical location Telangana for Tribal languages, I wanted you to note that the work that took place in Gondi Wiktionary is initiated by our team and We have also conducted a offline event at Kumuram Bheem Asifabad with the support from Government of Telangana [https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wt/wsg/Community_Awareness_and_Training_Workshop]. Our team also conducted several community meetings to raise awareness of the people from Kolami and Gondi Communities. As we have limited our scope of work, currently we are focussing on Gondi Wikipedia (Wp/wsg - Adilabadi Gondi) and Kolami Wikipedia (Wp/nit- Southeastern Kolami).
2) While Kolami User Group is an informal group at the moment, what are your plans and vision for the group as founding members?
Reply:
South eastern Kolami is an endangered indigenous language of India according to Ethnologue. Our user group Vision and Mission are as follows
Vision
To empower Southeastern Kolami through increasing its presence in digital mediums and Open Source knowledge platforms.
Mission
  • nurturing Kolami Wikimedia projects on incubator.
  • promotion of Kolami language Wikipedia.
  • Promotion of topics related to Kolami language and culture.
  • Collaborating with like minded organisations/bodies to foster Kolami language.
3) Given the list of projects above and your networks within the wikimedia movement, are you aware of any movement organisers/ groups/ projects/ communities that are doing similar work with yours and could potentially be a resource persons for peer learning?
Reply:
We see that the emerging Wikipedia communities such as Santhali(a tribal language from India) are potential for our peer learning. We are also in touch with the language team of Wikimedia foundation, learning about contributing to the Wikimedia incubator and requirements for a Wiki project to move to main space.
It would be great if we can receive suggestions from you to work on our peer learning part.
Programme and Strategy
4) Could you provide a timeline for your project? For example, this spans the duration of the project from start to finish of reporting? And it would include an overview of activities, roles (i.e. who is doing what for activities and project roles - administrative, financial management, reporting etc), when would this happen and how.
Reply:
Project timeline:
July 15 to 30, 2023 - Translation of material and resources for training and event planning
August 1st week - first offline event
August 2nd week - second offline event and online event on long weekend August (12,13,14,15)
August 3rd and 4th week - pending works and Project documentation
Roles and Responsibilities:
  • Nethi Sai Kiran (myself) - Manager and advisor
-Working on overall project management and ensuring the Wikimedia spirit in action, while nurturing the Kolami community.
  • Athram Mothiram - Outreach and administration
-Working on Collaborating with Utnoor Sahiti Vedika and ensuring the administration in place.
  • Athram Rajkumar - Community management and youth engagement
-Working on Community engagement and Safety and Wikimedia policy in space.
  • Jangu Madavi -  treasury and financial management
-working on finance management.
5) Could you identify and provide further elaboration on the implementing partners of your project? For example: who are these partners, how did these partnerships come about, what would be their roles and how will they contribute to the project?
Reply:
We are partnering with Utnoor Sahithi Vedika, an unregistered body of writers based in Utnoor town of Adilabad, Telangana. This organization produced many literary works in the Kolam language and constantly supported the Kolam writers.
Athram Mothiram an established member of Utnoor Sahiti vedika brings us the collaboration, given his previous experience in organising various literary activities like poem writing and content writing in Kolami language on behalf of Utnoor Sahiti Vedika.
6) We also noted that your target participants is Kolami community writers and youth and would like to bring your attention to the basic criteria of rapid fund grants and the need for * youth safety policy to be in place for any activity that involves underage community members. Would you be able to elaborate on the safeguards that you have around your activities/ event?
Reply:
Our project is aligned with Wikimedia movement and being an Ambassador for Movement charter I see that our project is aligned with following values and principles
  1. Free and Open knowledge (inclusion of knowledge that has historically been marginalized)
  2. Inclusivity
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content/Values_%26_Principles  (reference)
Our team ensures that the events take place according to the Wikimedia friendly space policy and will include flyers and posters of the youth safety at the event venue and we will also ensure that the youth below 18 years would be accompanied by their guardian at the event venue.
7) Could you further elaborate on how you envision this will happen for the project - "While writers and youth are the major target audience, small pockets of knowledge will be collected in the form of audios from senior citizens who are proficient in language. We will also try to collect some documentaries of Kolam culture from a rural backdrop to be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons."?
Reply:
Kolami community has rich cultural heritage especially for worshipping the tribal gods like Bhimayyak, Nadidimma, Polakamma etc. The community is going to celebrate Akadi, Pora and Badaga festivals in the months of July and August. We are going to collect images and videos of these celebrations to upload on Wikimedia Commons.
Our team members are from remote regions where the Kolami language is the only medium of communication among locals, we plan to collect audios of tribal women singing in the regions and photos and videos of local community interactions.
8) Would you be able to elaborate on the retention strategy that you have in mind for the project and would like to test out?
Reply:
Started in August 2022, Kolami language Wikipedia has about 50+ articles with a minimum of 150 to 200 words and about 10+ community enthusiasts. Which itself shows that we are in the process of attaining sustainability, The community’s will to protect their language and Wikimedia as a potential option to revitalise the language gives us a sense of project retention and our team has already taken up several community meets for training and awareness for Kolami Community, we look forward to continuing the voluntary spirit.
We see that this project can help us reach out to more people and bring up the contributors to Kolami Wikipedia.
Financial Proposal
9) Based on your proposed budget, could you elaborate on the line items for staff related expenses? For example: computation of the budget line, cost assumptions, scope of work, assessment of completion/ quality of work, publication of work for future access etc.
Reply:
The budget mentioned for Staff expenses has two headers one Translation and second is team coordination
Translating the basic resources for Introduction to Wikipedia, FAQ's, Help in navigating, Typing in Kolami(Telugu script), Building first article. This translation is to serve the training purposes for upcoming Kolami Wikipedia editors.  These are the activities that enhance the quality of work and also support in our future training sessions and newcomers to learn to contribute to Kolami Wikipedia.
The coordination part is to support the team’s time invested for documenting the project outcomes and time invested in planning of the events.

Thanks & Regards Nskjnv (talk) 15:50, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your grant application has been approved[edit]

Hello @Nskjnv,

Congratulations, your grant application has been approved. I have adjusted the project duration based on the estimate [talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Kolami Wikipedia Community Awareness Drive (ID: 22133511)|timeline] you provided.

Thank you for taking time to respond to the questions.


In your final report, could you include

1) links to the translated resources hosted on meta pages, so that it can be re-purposed or used by future movement organisers as well

2) an update on your Kolami Wikimedians User Group page, with more content on the past/ present projects that you are associated with or working on. This will serve as useful references for future grant applications or for wikimedians who are curious about your work. Here's also further reference on Wikimedia user groups/Creation guide, if you have plans to be recognised as an affiliate in the future.

3) Apart from the Gondi projects that you are familiar with, here are two wikimedians working on incubator projects, please feel free to reach out to them if you feel there could be an opportunity for peer sharing.


Let's continue to keep in touch and I'll encourage you to use this talk page to document discussions, progress or use it as a resource page so that we can support you as you progress. Of course, this is if you have the bandwidth and find it useful.

All the best!

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @JChen (WMF),
Thanks for the prompt reply and approval. Nskjnv (talk) 14:06, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Resources[edit]

Hello @Nskjnv

I'm starting a thread on resource sharing here. Please feel free to add resources about your project and we'll do the same if we come across any materials that may be useful.

Thank you.

Regards, JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:02, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Rapid_Fund/Kolami_Wikipedia_Community_Awareness_Drive_(ID:_22133511)&oldid=25232558"