Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom in Morocco (2nd edition, 2022)

Regional Committee Recommendations

Dear Wikimedia Morocco UG,

Thank you for submitting this grant application. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee has reviewed your application and recommended it for partial funding with the following notes;

We appreciate the work you have done in developing a clear and well-organized proposal. We hoped to learn more about how you plan to go beyond capacity building efforts with various stakeholders so that the awareness components of the project can continue beyond your intervention.

We recommend funding the communications and project manager role for this particular grant, kindly adjust your budget accordingly. Seeing that you are working with a new fiscal partner, we are recommending that you receive funding in two parts, this is mainly to manage any financial management risks.

Please reach to the MEA regional officer to support you in making the needed changes to your proposal which are due by the end of the day, 2nd of December 2021.

Looking forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the Regional Committee. VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 09:55, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Response from grantee

Dear Committee,

First, we would like to thank you for reviewing our application, as well as for your valuable insights, comments, and recommendations. Having discussed them in detail with our MEA regional officer, as well as with the Wikimedia Education team, and after getting a good understanding of your observations, we are happy to answer you in the present communication, hoping that the additional information we will provide in it can clarify our context and background better for your committee, helping you to take your final decision with all the figures needed. We have identified four main areas where we believe further details can be useful for us to share with you. They are the following:

1. Motivations for the need of four paid roles in the project

The current application regards an education project building on an earlier pilot implemented in Morocco. During that pilot phase, two local certified coordinators were facilitating and conducting the training sessions. The coordinators were contracted by the Wikimedia Foundation and worked an average of 5 hours per week each. Many of the project tasks (such as design) then were taken in charge by WMF education team, who supported enormously in the pilot. For this edition, the user group will need to perform all tasks, starting some from scratch. Moreover, to guarantee wider participation and diversity of participation, especially from remote areas, the scope of the newer edition is bigger than the pilot project (200 applying teachers Vs 100 earlier). New features and activities, including a model to be built from scratch and the organization of an onsite event, are also notable differences from the previous edition. Among the tasks that will not be performed by volunteers, and that will need paid staff in this edition, we can mention:

• Build a new module from scratch (conception of content, creation of a deck, assignments, and exercises related to the module).
• Communication with teachers (email, social media, general support, discussion with partners, creating social media ads).
• Conduct online sessions and provide support to teachers (keep track of the advancement of teachers, post announcements and the program details, provide technical support for teachers, and answer their questions).
• Coordinate and organize the onsite event (search and book hotel rooms, prepare the workplace, facilitate the 3 days activities and workshops, create the workshop program, ensure the participant’s safety and well-being, design booklets).
• Create surveys to select feedback and measure the impact (perform data analysis and build data visualization).
• Design and create certificates and flyers (graphic design).
• Set the proper environment to train the teachers (manage a Facebook group, follow-up tasks, interview teachers, select the most motivated teachers to join the program).
• Write an extensive final report and perform outreach.

When estimating workload for these tasks, an average of between 10-15 hours of work per week will be needed per person, for a four persons’ team. We see this as the best alternative. There are three other alternatives that we do not think will provide good results: (a) Keep the same scope with less employees - This alternative can be overwhelming for the remaining employees, who will work for an average of 30 hours/week, and even more on some weeks, (b) Have a smaller scope - which will not go in line with the main idea of this work, as the team was encouraged by the education team to extend the results of the pilot project, (c) Rely on volunteers - which will also overwhelm them, and put the work at risk given that volunteering is a non-binding activity and that many tasks can be felt as difficult and deserve to be done at a professional level.

In addition to the workload, we would like to mention that since the team intends to work with applications from 200 teachers, having 4 members implies that each will work with 50 participants. Given the recommendation from the grant team (in education projects) to have a ratio of 1 trainer per 30 participants, we believe that a number of four staff members is a decent one for this activity.

Not only this project will have four staff members but also volunteers from the user group (mainly an advising group) who will support several other tasks across the path of work.

2. Staff Management

Wikimedia Morocco user group has members with project management and leadership skills, and who have extensive experience in managing budget and staff in their professional life. Project advisors have also organized several conferences and led projects in both staff and volunteer contexts.

For this specific application, the user group is partnering with the national association ‘the Reading Network in Morocco’ who will take in charge the administrative sides of contracting and salaries. The association is well experienced with these routines and has contracted several people on earlier occasions.

Finally, Wikimedia Morocco is a well-established group in the Wikimedia movement (founded in 2015). The group has a good and healthy dynamic, where collaboration between members is encouraged, and where different projects conducted earlier helped shape a good working structure and routines. No external participants will need to be onboarded, as the employees will be group members. The fact that the staff is internal will be very helpful given their prior experience in collaborating together, and reinforces the argument of good management, either for themselves or for the team as a whole.

3. Plan to go beyond capacity-building efforts in the project

The project team agrees on the fact that the project and its impact cannot be limited to the capacity-building parts. Many tasks are planned to extend these parts, and the team is planning to keep the program’s impact on the longer term. To provide a clearer picture regarding this area, here below are examples of tasks that will be part of this project, and that is meant to keep sustainability and durability of the impacts and relationships:

• Create and facilitate discussions in a community of practice (ex: WhatsApp group) where teachers can interact with each other after the program, and share lesson plans and experiences.
• Invite teachers to join the Wikimedia movement
  • This can be done by presenting different alternatives teachers can participate in, not only online (through the different available editing projects), but also offline, through joining the local user group in Morocco, the Wikipedia & Education User Group, and also attending the EduWiki regional meetings for those interested.
  • Teachers will also be welcome to attend any activities of the user group, both online and offline as part of the pool of external allied contacts that the group is always seeking to enlarge.
  • The project team will also ensure that any participant wishing to be connected /join with any part of the movement, can do so, by providing the necessary contact and support needed.
• Visit some teachers in their classes to reinforce the relationship with them, and understand their daily challenges. Creating these binds will motivate them to remain more connected with the movement even after the end of the program.

4. Balancing between Paid staff and volunteer work

This project is interesting as it involves both paid staff and volunteers working together. It is important to keep a balance for both groups, where all can feel comfortable in their work.

Our user group was aware of this when planning the project, and this is why we have carefully made a distinction between the paid employees and the advising group. This distinction is not only in the status, but also in the tasks. The advising volunteer group can in fact be seen as a steering committee for the project, supporting and helping the project team to achieve its goals and activities. The volunteer steering group will mostly be taking strategic decisions related to the project, and approve the different milestones and deliverables. The volunteer members have also expressed their interest in supporting some project tasks that they found exciting and would like to be involved there in that capacity.

The project staff has also expressed their interest to participate voluntarily in some tasks to reinforce teachers’ digital skills and support them.

Being all members of the user group, and having participated and worked in earlier projects together, both the project team and the advisor group have already created a good collaboration atmosphere and conducted regular meetings to ensure good preparation and a smooth start to this project from all sides.

We sincerely hope that these explanations will allow the committee to have a clearer picture of this application and its different details. We are of course available for any additional information or questions and look forward to continuing this collaboration with you, as well as starting this project in the upcoming weeks.

Cordially,

Reda (Reda benkhadra (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2021 (UTC)) on behalf of the project team

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 35,614.00USD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 35,614.00 USD, with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 August 2022.

We are excited to see Wikimedia Morocco UG scale the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom project beyond the pilot led by Wikimedia Foundation’s Education Program. We recognize the selected implementing partner, ‘ the Reading Network in Morocco’ and the contribution they bring to the success of the project.

We look forward to learning about the impact you achieve with working with 200 teachers in different parts of Morocco and in supporting them beyond the life of the project to the extent you can. We encourage you to document your learnings and success and share those with the community to celebrate the work and its milestones but to also provide a learning experience for those who wish to implement a similar project.

We are pleased to see this project presenting you with opportunities to strengthen processes and structures that guide the implementation of projects within the user group including staff , volunteer and financial management.

We understand that the Wikimedia Education team will continue supporting your project and appreciate their support knowing that this project will inform future scaling strategies in collaboration with other Wikimedia communities.

Thank you for your work and all you do for the community and Wikimedia movement.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2021 (UTC)