Application[edit]

Background[edit]

Annual Plan[edit]

Annual Plan for 2021/2022 – this is the annual plan of the Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group, which was developed on the basis of the organization’s strategic plan for 2021/2022.

Budget Plan[edit]

Annual Budget Plan of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group for 2021

Staffing Plan[edit]

Staffing plan 2022

Introduction[edit]

Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group is a user group of the Wikimedia Foundation, an U.S.-based non-profit organization that operates and manages the Wikimedia projects. Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group (Arabic: مجموعة مستخدمين ويكيميدية الإمارات العربية المتحدة) created and approved on 04 February 2020 by active members of Wikimedia contributors living in UAE, who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on a national level. It aims to promote and participate in the projects offered by the Wikimedia Foundation and to organize the UAE community. One of its core missions is to aid and encourage people to collect, develop and disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or other licenses that allows everyone to freely use the knowledge, and to distribute and modify said content for free. Since March 13, 2020, Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group is an officially registered Non-Entrepreneurial (Non-Commercial) Legal Entity in UAE.

The mission of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group is to aid and encourage Emiratis and Expats to collect, develop and disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or other licenses that allows everyone to freely use the knowledge, and to distribute and modify said content for free. Also, promotion of Knowledge (initiation and stimulation of public interest in Knowledge and in means of creation, development and spreading of Knowledge and access to it), promote access to knowledge and education for all citizens and expats, regardless of their social or other status, to organize such access, assist in the preparation of laws and other normative acts that promote knowledge creation, accumulation, development and dissemination. Our mission and goals are consistent with our organization’s Bylaws.

This Strategic Plan defines the programs of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group divided into five main goals: 1) Content Gap, 2) Increasing Participation, 3) Community Support, Development & Promoting Wikimedia, 4) Collaborate with GLAM, Universities, Educational Institutions and other Wikimedia and Non-Wikimedia organizations. All of these programs are designed to develop Wikimedia projects in Arabic and other Wikimedia languages.

Programs[edit]

Education and Digital literacy

Description: This program sums all the actions and activities that seek to connect the work of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group and the Wikimedia projects with the public outside our organization, to promote the incorporation of new users and content managers, and the dissemination of the Wikimedia philosophy on the national stage.

Why we are doing it?: To promote the sustainability of our movement, as suggested by the Strategy 2030, it is important that more people learn about our activities and join our community of editors and knowledge managers; we are also interested in people to subscribe to the philosophy of the Wikimedia movement, to the free culture spirit and the critical use of information on the Internet. To do so, we will focus on two projects:

Diffusion and promotion
Advocacy

Our Objectives

Show the work of the Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group on the national stage.
Reach and incorporate new members to the Wikimedia movement in Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group
That Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group has a role in the discussion on free and collaborative knowledge in the local setting.

Our Activities

Forming collaborations with Universities in the UAE to train their students on Wikipedia and recruit interns to support the Kateb Maktub project of achieving 15000 Arab author pages on Wikipedia
Establishment of university roadmap across 7 emirates – where we hold sessions at every university to introduce/educate students and professors to the importance of information sharing and digital literacy
Training librarians in big universities.
Talk to school teachers and university professors on how to include Wikimedia philosophy in their methodologies for teaching and evaluating educational competencies.
Building partnerships with reliable sources of data such as Mohammed bin Rashed Library in Dubai, House of Wisdom in Sharjah etc…
We will launch the 2nd version of our Arabic Wiki MOOC for newbies.

Metrics

PROGRAM	GOALS
Education and Digital literacy
	Develop at least 10 Wikimedia activities (like workshops, training sessions, talks, etc) that involve students.
	Reach at least 150 students during the activities performed within the Education and Digital literacy program.
	Create or improve at least 100 Wikipedia articles during those activities.
	Organize at least 3 teacher training activities or projects.
	Reach at least 150 participants coming from the education field during those training activities.

Communities and new users

Description: This program brings together all the actions and activities that Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group displays to accompany and train editors and content creators and on to relate and collaborate with other Wikimedia structures in the region. Why we are doing it?: To give sustainability to our movement, we need to train new users, but we also need to ensure their continuity within the Wikimedia projects, especially in the case of members and communities that find more problems when participating, such as women and gender diversities. To do so, we will work on three main projects:

Training and engagement of editors
Regional communities

Objectives

Increase the retention rate of Wikipedia editors in UAE.
Encourage the participation of historical editors and Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group associates in the activities of the affiliaton.
Develop work strategies at a regional level to encourage the participation of more people in the creation of Wikimedia content.

Activities

Engage different youth groups in the UAE to train and sign them up for Wiki-club meetups and be a sustain the interest of new users.
Organize edit-a-thons and competitions to incentivize the community and beginners to Wikipedia to participate.
Youth Camps with fun activities related to different wiki projects like Wiki-dictionary where youth would add local UAE words and expressions.
Pursuing partnerships in the Arab Gulf region to fill gaps for the lack of usergroups in the region.
Organize a local UAE Wikimedia conference in May 2022 and invite stake holders locally and internationally to speak. This will be a big exercise for the Wikipedia Arabia
Giving UAE local dimension to global Wikimedia initiative i.e. Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments etc…

Metrics

PROGRAM	GOALS
Communities and new users
	Perform at least 10 open activities on training or accompany new editors, like webinars, training sessions, workshops, Editing Club, etc.
	Have at least 100 participants during those activities.
	Support the development of at least 5 content creation activities or projects coming from Chilean editors.
	Organize activities or projects with at least 5 institutions engaged in reducing gender and gender diversity gaps in UAE.
	Reach at least 50 participants in those activities or projects.
	Organize at least 5 encounters or activities with other Wikimedia structures.

Media Outreach

Description: This program considers actions and activities that aim to promote the pedagogical use of the Wikimedia philosophy and to discuss free and collaborative culture on the Internet within media, journalists.

Why we are doing it?: Education is considered by Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group as a high-impact topic, much more after the 2020 health crisis that so hardly affected educative communities. Through this program, we encourage teachers to use free culture and collaborative knowledge to enhance their teaching practices, especially in times where remote and digital education arise. To do so, we will focus on three projects:

Wikimedia and Media
Journalist training
Digital cultures

Objectives

Disseminate the pedagogical use of Wikimedia projects within educative communities.
Train school teachers and journalists on how to include Wikimedia philosophy.

Activities

UAE Wikimedia usergroup to Contribute in opinion pieces and articles in major UAE newspapers on monthly basis on the importance of data sharing and open source data.
Host dinner with journalists and digital literacy enthusiasts to put to give visibility to the UAE Wikimedia usergroup and its initiatives and activities
Publish a monthly newsletter or mailing list with highlights of new articles written of local interest, identities and territories in Wikipedia and engaging local communities in the creation of that same content as well as inviting them to edit and add to them.
Create a podcast or a segment in a local podcast on Wiki projects and articles of local interest.

Metrics

PROGRAM	GOALS
Media Outreach
	Develop at least 10 Wikimedia activities (like workshops, training sessions, talks, etc) that involve journalists.
	Reach at least 60 journalists during the activities performed within the Media Outreach program.
	Create or improve at least 100 Wikipedia articles during those activities.
	Organize at least 3 media training activities or projects.
	Reach at least 150 participants coming from the media field during those training activities.

Local Identities

Description: This program refers to the actions and activities that seek to improve the quantity and quality of the content related to the United Arab Emirates and its identities and territories in Wikipedia by engaging local communities in the creation of that same content.

Why we are doing it?: Promoting local and representative content of the UAE territory and society in Wikimedia projects is an essential part of our Strategic Plan. To do so, we are will develop two main projects within this program:

Regions of United Arab Emirates
Memory and cultural heritage

Objectives

Create and improve Arabic and English Wikipedia content that is related to the different regions and territories in United Arab Emirates.
Create and improve Arabic and English Wikipedia content related to UAE history and its cultural heritage.
Motivate the participation of local and regional editors in the Wikimedia projects.

Activities

We will collaborate with regional institutions (like the National libraries network ot the National cultural heritage service network) to organize activities in at least 2 different regions.
We will work with a network of culture and tourism agents to train municipal officials in at least 7 emirates and cities in UAE on how to use Wikipedia.
We will create a list of cultural institutions and organizations to propose new collaborations.
We will develop at least one content creation project on memory and human rights.
We will launch at least one photographic campaign to collect historical images.

Metrics

PROGRAM	GOALS
Local identities
	Perform at least 4 open activities about regional content.
	Involve at least 4 regional institutions in those activities.
	Work with at least 2 institutions related to the UAE cultural heritage.
	Develop at least 2 open activities on memory and human rights.
	Involve at least 60 participants within this program.

UAE in Images project

Description: This is an initiative that promotes the creation of visual content that represents UAE cultural and social life, as well as its natural and urbanistic values and characteristics. Why we are doing it?: We want to contribute to a better representation of UAE society in the Wikimedia projects by engaging our community of Wikimedians in platforms other than Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons. To do so, we will focus on:

Public events coverage
Urban and cultural heritage photography
Nature and landscape photography

Objectives

Increase the amount of visual content related to Emirati culture, society, and cities in Wikimedia Commons.
Disseminate on the local scene the Wikimedia Commons project as an open repository for donating and for information query.
Motivate the participation and engagement of new Wikimedia users.

Activities

We will develop at least two photography contests or campaigns to promote significant visual content about UAE natural and cultural heritage on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
We will organize photographic tours through Emirati cities to create and update their urban images on Wikipedia.
We will promote the participation of our associates in the photographic coverage of public events and the donation of that content to Wikimedia Commons.
We will perform workshops and training sessions on how to donate and how to use Wikimedia Commons and its content.

Metrics

PROJECT	GOALS
UAE in Images project
	Photograph at least 4 massive public events, like matches, concerts, festivals, political manifestations, etc.
	Donate at least 2000 images.
	Perform at least 2 activities on how the Wikimedia Commons project.
	Reach at least 50 participants during these activities.

Grant Metrics Reporting[edit]

Overall Metrics.