Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Earth Bangladesh 2025 (ID: 22990584)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Icarus005
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wiki Loves Earth Bangladesh 2025
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-07-01 - 2025-07-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Bangladesh
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Wiki Loves Earth
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
Very much like any other Bangladeshi topics, Bangladeshi natural heritage like birds, flowers, plants, protected areas are not that much visible in the online world, specially in the open knowledge platforms. If someone wants to find images of the flora and fauna of the protected natural area of Bangladesh, it's tough for them to find some open licenced images. Wiki loves earth international aims to address this gap. And from Project Korikath, we will organise the 2025 Bangladesh edition of wiki loves earth, following the success of last year’s national contest. Our primary goal is to ensure equitable visual representation of Bangladeshi natural heritage on Wikimedia Commons.
Nature photography is a very niche, expensive and one of the most elite areas in the photography world. Finding nature focused photographs under an open license is thus very uncommon but yet very valuable for the subject depiction in Wikipedia and its sister projects. Our previous experience of working with the photography community in Bangladesh says that the motivation for the Bangladeshi photographers to donate images under an open license is very low, specially when the associated cost behind the images are very high. Competitions like WLEBD is a big moving factor for the photographers from Bangladesh to donate their photographs under open licenses which can later be used for Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Our experience of organizing Wiki Loves Folklore Bangladesh 2025 and studying 60+ previous grant proposals and reports made us confident of the grantmaking process and reporting in Wikimedia. We’re pretty confident of the usual grant allocation sectors and the process. We also tried to align our proposal with the recommendations (https://w.wiki/BMSj) provided by the Foundation Programs Team.
There are several challenges we are trying to address:
The Bangladeshi photography community is largely unfamiliar with Wikimedia Commons. Even those who are aware may hesitate to upload due to uncertainty about the benefits. Given the popularity of the nature photography genre genre among Bangladeshi photographers, Wiki Loves Earth Bangladesh 2025 presents an excellent opportunity to attract their participation.
Wikimedia Commons requires a sustainable flow of contributors, particularly in Bangladesh. The low recruitment and retention rates of photographers in our country pose a significant challenge. If we fail to address this issue, we won't be able to bridge the gap in Wikimedia in the long run.
While many photographers focus on popular natural areas, numerous lesser-known areas remain without documentation. Wiki Loves Earth aims to address this by encouraging photographers to capture these underrepresented areas of Bangladesh. Thus we make a list of the protected natural areas of the country and inspire the photographer to submit photographs from those areas.
Main approaches or strategies to achieve this:
We'll conduct at least three in-person workshops and several online sessions to promote our contest and encourage participation. These events will introduce participants to Wikimedia Commons and the benefits of contributing. We'll leverage existing Facebook and Telegram groups from previous Wiki Loves campaigns to maintain engagement and reach a wider audience. Based on our previous experience with Wikimedia photography outreach, we've found that in-person events are more effective in engaging Bangladeshi photographers. Short online attention spans and distractions are the potential reasons behind less success in online arrangements. This is why we're prioritizing workshops, photowalks, phototours, and an in-person prize-giving ceremony along with online sessions.
We'll identify key entry points into the photography community and leverage them. By collaborating with photography clubs and groups, we'll reach as many photographers as possible and invite them to participate in Wiki Loves Earth, encouraging regular contributions to Wikimedia Commons.
To recruit and retain young photographers through this campaign, we'll focus on outreach to educational institutions. We'll offer incentives in the form of recognition, skill development, and experience to encourage their participation.
We'll organize photowalks and phototours in the enlisted areas to capture the unique natural heritage. By exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations, we aim to document lesser-known aspects of Bangladeshi nature.
Last year, we closely examined the activities of participants and stakeholders in Wiki Loves Earth Bangladesh. Despite operating without funding, we achieved success by implementing several strategies. One key approach was to personally reach out to photographers, understanding their motivations and exploring ways to attract a wider audience. We're confident that these insights will guide us to success this year.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
The photography contest, running from July 1st to July 31st, will be the centerpiece of this project. Our goal is to engage both professional (mostly) and amateur photographers in creating open-source media files related to Bangladeshi nature. To ensure healthy interaction among wikimedia photographers and a lasting impact, we will organize photowalks lasting several hours and phototours spanning multiple days in the locations of the natural protected areas. These events will focus on capturing the natural livings and areas in those protected places. We'll issue open calls for participation, tailoring the events based on our capacity. At least three workshops on WLE will be conducted at partner institutions, strengthening our network and laying the groundwork for future Wikimedia campaigns. Prior to launching the campaign, we will establish partnerships with photography organizations, primarily based in educational institutions. These institutions will then host seminars and workshops on Commons and Wikipedia contributions, tailored to their capacity and program schedules. We will also establish partnership with media agencies for a greater outreach to our target audience.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Mrb Rafi- Chief Organizer A.R. Tawfique Hasan- Grant manager Tanvir Anjum Adib- Documentation and on-wiki support Tahsin Tasnim Talha - Branding and Visual lead Iftekhar Hossain Iftee - Community support
This is the primary structure of the team. Our team building experience in Wiki Loves Folklore Bangladesh 2025 will be very beneficial to outline the final team. Like WLFBD25, we’ll include volunteers with expertise in the other sectors and turn them into wikimedians. The volunteer organizers from WLFBD25 with good performance will also get included in the team.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
Our target audience for this photography campaign includes both professional and amateur photographers. We'll engage them through three key phases:
Partnership and Outreach: Before the campaign starts, we'll partner with photography clubs and groups in educational institutions and professional photography organizations. We'll also conduct media outreach and targeted social media campaigns to generate interest. We’ll follow the tested strategies of the previous wlfbd24, wlebd24 and wlfbd25 campaigns to engage the target audience.
Photowalks, Phototours, and Workshops: These events will be essential for maintaining photographer engagement. As outlined in the budget, we'll organize these events to capture natural heritages and increase interaction among participants and regular Wikimedians. We'll issue open calls for participation, tailoring the events based on our capacity. At least three workshops on WLE will be conducted at partner institutions, strengthening our network and laying the groundwork for future Wikimedia campaigns.
Follow-up and Assimilation: After the campaign, we'll invite participants to join our Wikimedia photography groups. We'll train them to become organizers and mentors, ensuring their continued involvement and contribution to the movement.
Based on our experience with previous Wiki Loves photography campaigns, we know that staying connected with participants on social media is crucial for support and encouragement. We’ll utilize the same facebook and telegram groups from the previous wl campaigns to keep the participants connected, which will also help us to retain photographers from those previous campaigns. We’ll also provide a handbook containing every necessary instruction like we did in the previous year’s wlebd (https://heyzine.com/flip-book/f241a29400.html) - this strategy was proved to be very handy as the hosting was extremely user friendly and contains almost all the necessary information.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
Yes
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Friendly_space_policy#Youth_Safety
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
We discussed the idea of our project with our community in social media groups, mailing list, internal community group, in person meetups and village pump. We took feedback from the previous participants and evaluated them accordingly.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geography
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Not applicable
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Innovate in Free Knowledge
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
The learning questions from WLEBD25 will build upon the lessons from WLFBD25 that we’re currently organizing in Bangladesh. The reports of WLFBD25 will be submitted in due time but our lessons so far indicate that partnerships with educational institutions and online photography platforms can be a game changer. We’ll go slightly deeper than WLFBD25 and build upon that knowledge.
Our primary learning questions for WLEBD25 would be:
What are the specific strategies to make our existing and new institutional partnerships contribute more to the campaign?
Our WLFBD25 lessons (yet to be published publicly) says that large online photography groups aren’t yet into the partnerships. What can be effective strategies to make them interested in partnerships?
What can be the effective methods to make photographers interested in donating nature photographs despite huge costs per image?
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 100 | |
| Number of editors | 15 | |
| Number of organizers | 10 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |
| Wikimedia Commons | 2000 |
| Wikidata | |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
N/A
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
Yes
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Partnerships | N/A | 5 |
| Photographer retention number after 6 months of the program | N/A | 20 |
| Media file usage on Wikimedia project pages | N/A | 100 |
| Quality images | N/A | 30 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
Photographer retention - we’ll evaluate the upload counts of the participants of wlebd2025 after six months of the campaign ends. If they have at least a total of 30 uploads after six months of the campaign, they’ll be considered as active.
Media file usage: https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorous/
Statistics from the previous wlebd iteration:
1.https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorous/?mode=category&text=Images%20from%20Wiki%20Loves%20Earth%202024%20in%20Bangladesh
2. https://wikiloves.toolforge.org/earth/2024/Bangladesh
Quality images: QIs will be added to a separate commons maintenance category like this one (https://w.wiki/6YwH).
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
430489 BDT
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
3588 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).