Applicant or grantee: Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group

Amount granted: 29,139 EUR ()

Funding period: 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021

Midpoint report due: 15 July 2021

Final report due: 30 January 2022

Application

Background

Link to these documents, for the upcoming funding period, only if you have them.

Link to your organization's staffing plan, for the upcoming funding period.
Link to your annual plan, for the upcoming funding period.
Link to your strategic plan, which includes the upcoming funding period.

Please add your grants metrics to this sheet. Note that requirements for shared metrics have changed for grants starting 1 January 2017 or later.

Programs

Please describe any changes to your programs for the upcoming funding period, including the addition of new programs or any programs you are no longer doing. Include your rationale for any major changes to your programs here.

Please use the templates provided to add information about each program you are planning for the upcoming funding period.

Application

Background

Annual Plan

Required. Link to any outside relevant document around your annual plan.
- For returning grantees, the annual plan should focus on what is being done differently compared to last year.
- New summaries or explanations are not required for any continuing programs from the previous grant that have no or minimal changes, and can be linked to a previous proposal for reference.
- 2000-word limit recommended. If you have an annual plan already prepared for other purposes that is over 2000 words, this is satisfactory, and it is not necessary to prepare a separate one for your Simple APG application. Please clearly indicate any new programs or changes from last year.

LINK to our 2020 plan. In 2021 we aim for the same goals, with online activities largely being done in the first part of the year.

Budget Plan

Required. Link to your budget plan.
- Total budget for each program overall
  - Overall budget for each major activity in a program, but not necessary to provide budget for specific activity-level expenses (such as travel, food, equipment, swag, etc.)
- Staffing / compensation costs for each funded role
- Operational expenses with some detail, especially around larger expenses such as office space, rent, and accounting / bookkeeping services.

LINK to the detailed budget plan

Staffing Plan

May be required. Link to your staffing plan if you are requesting staff. If you're asking for staff for the first time, please give a rationale (and talk to your program officer). Staffing Plan should only include:
- Project Manager x 2, AL & KS.

Miranda038, Miranda Mehmeti: October 2019 - present, based in Prishtina.
TBD, January 2021 - , based in Tirana.

The project managers’ key duties are to:

- Identify and coordinate activities, timeline, and budget to execute within the program's grant application.

- Network, research and reach institutions, organizations and individuals to create further collaborations and partnerships.

- Manage activities, allocate resources, coordinate and organize duties and tasks within the timeframe.

- Organize events and other promotional activities.

- Develop and implement a communication plan for the User Group.

- Send press-releases, reach out to media and manage social media marketing to promote events, user group and the free knowledge concept of Wikipedia.

- Develop and monitor user group’s reports, proposals, presentations, and other documentation.

- Administer the budget, by executing, monitoring and recording expenditures.

2 FT staff: January - December. 40HRS per week, 12 months.

Strategic plan

May be required. Link to your strategic plan, if you have one. This is not required for new applicants or affiliates developing their strategic plan.

Introduction

Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group is a user group created by the Albanian community of Wikimedia projects, interested in increasing the quality and quantity of articles and multimedia material in Albanian Wikipedia. We aim to do this through trainings, workshops and edit-a-thons, running competitions online and offline, and GLAM partnerships in the territories of the Balkans where the Albanian language is spoken.

Programs

Required. Each program should contain only the following information:
- Name of program
- Brief description of overall program (about 100-500 words)
  - A comprehensive list of activities for a program is optional, and no extensive description of these activities is required.
- Description of SMART objectives or goals for that program
- Target metrics at the overall program level (not the activity level)
- Brief explanation of why this program is important in relation to your organizational strategy or movement strategy (2-3 sentences).

EDUCATION

Through this program we aim to establish cooperation with education institutions, integrating Wikipedia into the teaching curriculum. Our aim is to fill the content gap in terms of quality and quantity in the Albanian Wikipedia, by integrating Wikipedia editing into an academic setting.

We have signed MoUs with Riinvest College and have worked with University of Prishtina's Faculty of Education, Rochester Institute of Technology Kosovo, University of Business and Technology, Third Millennium High School and Bonevet Makerspace, all based in Pristina.

Seeing the potential, we will continue extending our education program, setting partnerships, creating collaborations, delivering presentations, workshops & editathons, and assisting instructors and student editors on Wiki editing. In addition, we would still like to work on Wiki Clubs, preferably outside of the capital cities.

We want to continue our education program in creating collaboration with educational institutions such as high schools and universities by deepening these partnerships and supporting the teachers that will be involved. In Albania, we plan to work with University of Durrës and University of Tirana.

Goals:

Continue to establish partner relations with universities and high schools
Increase the number of educators who use Wikipedia in their class and train them
Increase the number of students involved in Wikimedia projects
Establish several Wiki Clubs at high schools & universities
Enhance content creation and improvement in Wikimedia projects (especially Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons) by editing in an academic setting
Establish an accredited training for teachers.

Measures of success:

Develop 4 collaborations with high-schools & universities
Create 5 Wiki Clubs
Deliver 10 workshops with students
Produce 430 new articles
100 new Wikidata items.

GLAM

We believe that through GLAM partnerships we will be able to source important material, as well as gain experience and create successful examples for expansion to future GLAM institutions, including gaining Ministry of Culture support.

Goals:

Continue collaboration with 1 partner GLAM institutions and expand to another
Organize residencies who will interface with the User Group and Wikimedia community and conduct wiki technical work within the partner institutions
Organize editathons with partner institutions
Increase content in Wikimedia Commons from partner institutions
Document Museum artifacts in Wikidata
Increase the number of articles in Wikipedia with material from partner institutions.

Measures of success:

Develop further 2 collaboration with GLAM institutions
Develop and support 2 residencies with GLAM institutions
300 new materials uploaded in Wikimedia Commons from two GLAM institutions
60 new articles added to Wikipedia from GLAM material.

OUTREACH

We will continue with our outreach program, which has been quite successful meeting and surpassing our targets of media presence and visibility. Our social media channels are now established and also our group website established https://wikimediashqip.org as a single point of entry for group activities and tutorials for those uninitiated and perhaps fearful with the wiki. Towards these goal we have created demo videos and handouts to be handed to the public. In this pillar will continue making Wikimedia projects more visible to the general public using a variety of platforms and activities.

In 2020 we have presented 2 speakers at Software Freedom Kosova 2020 Conference. We have also partnered with UNICEF and a local NGO to produce Wikipedia editing videos in the course of their digital media literacy work.

Our outreach program includes reaching out to media and organizations, hosting online and offline competitions and events that attract the public and continuously being active in social media and other channels, raising awareness on Wikimedia movement. Through this program, we will support active users and reach to new users, building a larger engaging community who will increase the quality & quantity of content.

Goals:

Reach the general public through media and online promotion and mass edit campaigns
Develop a larger and more diverse community of volunteers through events and collaborations
Produce tutorials and how-to's in video and written format
Reach out to new audiences through conference sessions
Reduce the barrier to entry through making sq.Wikipedia easier and more welcoming for newcomers
Diminish the content gap in specific areas such as local knowledge or Articles every Wikipedia should have through thematic online campaigns & competitions, and offline events such as walkathons
Promote the free knowledge concept and Wikimedia projects through guest speakers in conferences
Establish a network of collaboration with different organizations, finding new editors who are passionate about niche topics.

Measures of success:

Present at 2 conferences
2 new offline volunteers recruited through offline events
100 new editors registered
470 new articles in Wikipedia
100 new items in Wikidata
600 new media files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons
2 guest speakers on Wikimedia projects/free knowledge topics.

Grant Metrics Reporting

Required. Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Needs Request

No requests needed

If you have no specific requests, please confirm this here.

No specific support request at this time.

Staff and contractors

Please describe any changes to your staffing plan for the upcoming funding period. These should include increases in staff or contractor hours, new staff positions, or staff positions you are removing. Include your rationale for any staffing changes here.

{{{staffchanges}}}

For each new staff or contractor position, please use the template provided to add information about each new staff or contractor you are planning for the upcoming funding period (or to describe significant increases in hours or changes in job descriptions for existing staff). You are not required to provide this information for existing staff where no changes are required.

{{{staff}}}

Budget and resource plan

Link to a detailed budget for the upcoming funding period. This budget should include all of your organizations expenses. Please specify which expenses will be covered from your APG.

{{{budget}}}

Midpoint report

This is a brief report on the grantee's progress during the midpoint reporting period: 1 January 2021 - 31 June 2021.

Program story

Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Effect of the Pandemy

Like in many other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic was disruptive to our program: Education, GLAM and Outreach and it changed the way we developed edit-a-thons and workshops throughout the first midterm projects. As you will see in our report below, most of the activities were online and we tried to engage as many volunteers and contributors. Schools and institutions moved their activities mostly online and we were able to cooperate with them in order to gather people and alternate our workshops online/offline.

Lately, we are working to change our way of training and workshops offline. All this time, working online and offline has taught us to work while respecting the COVID-19 rules and social distancing, being flexible and trying to complement teachers with using digital platforms while engaging with Wikimedia projects in class.

Promotion Plan

This year we have used an extensive media promotion plan to reach our audience when promoting not only our activities, workshops, edit-a-thons and campaigns but also to keep it informed and updated with the latest news and curiosities about online conferences, collaborations, events and much more. We increased the intensity of online posts weekly in order to communicate with our community and tried to understand their need for information and focus on the Wikimedia projects.

Our online promotion plan included at least these regular features:

Rubrika “Bashkëpunimi i javës” - Weekly Collaboration initiative. We have engaged our Wikipedians to write, improve and translate articles about different topics that we publish on the sq.Wikipedia landing page. We are so delighted to have people and contributors to actively improve the quality and the quantity of the articles. Every 2 weeks we post on social media simply to keep the community engaged and focused on articles we publish.
Picture of the day.
Picture of the Day promotes culture, history, geography of countries worldwide to gain our audience’s attention.
Posts regarding different Wikimedia Projects to raise community’s awareness and to increase their engagement in our campaigns, edit-a-thons and workshops.
Posts regarding educating our audience about writing articles on Wikipedia by sharing tutorial videos on our YouTube Channel; sharing Article of the Week on Social media to supply the community with information about culture, history, geography of Albania and Kosovo; or sharing the articles our Wikipedians create, improve or translate throughout the week.
“Wikimediani i muajit” - Wikimedian of the month. A monthly post, in order to put some light on the hard working Wikimedians of our community and inspire others to join and become part of the community. Wikimedians that we select for this activity have shared their story and experiences from the first article they edited to where they are now, what pushes them to contribute to Wikipedia and what themes they like to contribute to.

Progress

Education Program

Metrics	Goal	Description	Status
19 editors 16 articles created 18 articles edited	Develop further 2 partnerships on Education - KS	Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty of University Prishtina, Scientific Research Methodology class	100%
In process 25 editors 46 articles created 47 articles edited		In April, WoALUG organized an online training on writing Wikipedia articles with master students of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty of University Prishtina, Scientific Research Methodology class. Students choose topics from the field of telecommunications which they discussed thoroughly on how best to cover on Albanian-language as well as English-language Wikipedia. Articles they are writing are part of their final project for the class of Scientific Research Methodology. Some of the topics they have chosen are Machine-to-Machine communications, IT Disaster Recovery Plan, Mobile Payments Systems, MIMO, Security and Privacy Challenges in 5G Network, 5G Network Slicing, Migration from IPv4 to IPv6 etc. Faculty of Philology, University of Prishtina Hasan Prishtina In May WoALUG organized an online training on writing and translating Wikipedia articles with students of the Faculty of Philology. Part of the training were students who are studying Italian language, English language, and Latin language. We also held an online Q&A session on the 4th of June where participants could talk about technical problems they're addressing and discuss further the topics they want to cover. The students were given the opportunity by their professor to write/translate an article from the language they are studying in Albanian (Shqip) on Wikipedia Shqip instead of having to take the paper-based final exam. The students were very open and enthusiastic about this proposal. We also have created a Facebook group with all the students where they can further discuss and address any other questions they might have. The students started to work on the articles even though they had 4 weeks to complete and upload the article as the professor had given them the deadline if they wished to take this innovative final exam instead of the usual exam they have.
1 editor 2 new article 2 articles edited	Host Wiki workshops with educational institutions	Offline workshops with Nikola Koperniku High School students (Albania) WoALUG developed and held 2 offline workshops with 3 students from Nikola Koperniku High school in Elbasan, Albania on April 12-14th, 2021. The students enjoyed the workshops very much as they learned the basics of editing and how to translate articles according to their school needs. Also, they shared with our Group that they always faced the lack of articles in subjects, such as biology, mathematics, history. More info: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/May_2021/Offline_workshop_with_Nikola_Koperniku_High_School_in_Albania	100%
25 editors 1 article created 6 uploads	Start/continue working on 5 Wiki Clubs in high schools - KS	Workshop with students from KEC (Kosovo) WoALUG in partnership with the Kosovo Education Center (KEC) continued training high school students, now on Wikipedia Commons. KEC is working on various after-school activities with 16 high schools across Kosovo. As the previous sessions were on Wikipedia and Wikidata, now the students were taught how to use Commons and finished the workshop with a take-home project that they finished in the upcoming two weeks. Some of the activities they covered are: photographing and illustrating cultural monuments, articles, natural monuments, traditional foods, main streets/squares/city parks, villages in Kosovo, scientific experiments they conducted in school, and their schools.	20%
30 editors 10 articles created 41 editors In process	Wiki Ponder Workshops in Gjilan and Lipjan. (Kosovo)	This year as well, WoALUG in Kosovo were invited by UNICEF Innovations Lab in Kosovo and Ipko Foundation to collaborate for online workshops Ponder / Wiki Academy 2021 hosted by them. Part of the workshop, precisely the final session of the workshop, participants (mainly high school students) were asked to translate new articles from en Wikipedia on sq Wikipedia. This year's topic was Education. There were two workshops, one for participants from Lipjan and one for participants from Gjilan. Each workshop lasted two weeks, the first week the participants were trained on how to use the translation tool while the following week they worked on the article.	50%
15 editors	Workshop with students from Municipal Learning Center, Gurrakoc (Kosovo)	In June WoALUG held the first offline training in Kosovo ever since the pandemic. We organized the training on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons with the students from the Gurrakoc-Istog Municipal Learning Center. Students learned how to create articles on Wikidata as well as illustrate them with photos from their own uploads on Wikimedia Commons. The participants captured some of the beautiful sceneries around the learning center throughout the workshop in order to upload into Wikimedia Commons and use to illustrate the articles in Wikidata they created or edited.	100%

GLAM

Metrics	Goal	Description	Status
5 editors 5 articles edited 4 articles created	Cooperation with Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents	When State Security was engaged in Science in Albania When State Security was engaged in Science was a workshop developed on March 12th, 2021. Wikimedians of the Albanian Language User Group collaborated with the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents (AIDSSH) in Albania. A group of people joined this offline workshop in Tirana and they were introduced to documents from 1946 when the new communist regime was being erected in Albania. Contributors learned how to create new articles on Wikipedia and how to use the old original documents. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/April_2021/Contents/Albania_report	100%
976 articles created on Wikidata	Edit-a-thon with the National Gallery of Kosovo	As a first step in this cooperation, we have created Wikidata entries for artwork the National Gallery of Kosovo holds. Wikidata is the database of free data, a sister project of Wikipedia. These entries can be now used to easily develop new projects beyond just Wikimedia projects. Established in 1979, the National Gallery of Kosovo holds works by hundreds of Kosovo, ex-Yugoslav and world artists. The entries created on Wikidata will now allow this artwork to be connected to their authors and other significant artwork by the same authors. The next phases of the collaboration are the placement of a Wikimedian-in-Residence at the Gallery and holding the first edit-a-thon with the art students of the University of Prishtina.	50%
50 photographs In process	Historical Museum of Albania	In cooperation with the National Historic Museum in Tirana, Albania, we received 50 photographs with high resolution images from the National Albanian Treasure. We uploaded the images on Commons and started populating them with data. Unfortunately they were deleted because the OTRS was not sent on time. But once we send the OTRS the pics will be returned back. We are still in touch with them via email or in person contacts to push the museum to sign the OTRS as soon as possible.	90%

Outreach

Metrics	Goal	Description	Status
26 editors 38 articles edited 5 articles created https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WoALUG/Un%C3%AB_redaktoj_Wikipedian_(Janar_2021)	I Edit Wikipedia	I Edit Wikipedia Campaign started out January 2021 and it lasted one month, until February 21st. Through events and workshops we held, WoALUG introduced to new people how to edit articles on Wikipedia. We had the opportunity to have new editors that appreciated and enjoyed the process of editing articles. At the very beginning, we held an online training session to train the participants how to edit Wikipedia. Everyone had the possibility to practice editing by choosing a topic. In the meantime they were able to ask questions and discuss as a group in order to ease their editing process. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/March_2021/Contents/Albania_report	100%
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Folklore_2021_in_Albania_%26_Kosovo	Wiki Loves Folklore	For 2021, Wiki Loves Folklore was really fun and the outcomes showed a high participation of volunteers in contributing to uploading pictures from different aspects of the Albanian Folklore. Wikimedians of Albania Language User Group invited people to show the Albanian Folklore through places, people, dances, clothing, buildings and so on. This project has an impact on social, cultural and educational aspects of Albania and Kosovo.	100%
1 editor 64 articles edited 61 articles created https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WoALUG/International_Roma_Day_Edit-a-thon_2021,_Albania_(1-8_April) 5 editors 58 articles edited 39 articles created https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WoALUG/WikiGap_2021 33 editors 145 articles edited 128 articles created https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/UMSH,_WoALUG/Women_in_STEAM_2021,_UMSH,_WoALUG	Wiki Diversity Editathon	International Roma Day WoALUG organized the International Roma Day together with two Roma organizations. We developed two workshops with the respective organizations: Roma Versitas Albania and Roma Active Albania. Contributors wrote and translated articles about Roma minorities, their identity, history and culture. We also talked about the difficulties this community comes across in the Albanian community. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/April_2021/Contents/Albania_report WikiGap 2021 Albania WoALUG have closely collaborated with the Swedish Embassy in Albania for years now in order to close the gender gap and having more women to write articles about other women. This year, female contributors wrote new articles about female women’s rights activists in Albania and translated articles from the English language about female Swedish activists. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/April_2021/Contents/Albania_report Women in STEM WoALUG collaborated closely with the Mediterranean University in Tirana Albania to write new articles about women who contributed to science in Albania. A group of students, consisting of 33 editors, also translated articles about female scientists all over the world. More details: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/April_2021/Contents/Albania_report	100%
1 editor 139 articles edited 105 articles created https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WoALUG/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2021,_Albania_and_Kosovo	CEE Spring 2021	From March 21st until May 31st Wikimedias of Albanian Language UG participated in the edit-a-thon organized by the Wikimedians of Central and Eastern Europe. Each week we kept posting on social media topics of the week and the respective countries. People reacted by sharing our posts on their personal social media.	100%
In process	Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos	Much the same as the WPWP campaign in 2020 we got ready to participate in the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos international campaign. We translated the home page on meta and we plan to start promoting it on social media 2 weeks prior. Also, we plan to host one online edit-a-thons and write blog posts to help beginners understand how they can participate and help improve sq Wikipedia with illustrations. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Pages_Wanting_Photos_2021/sq
In process	Summer of Wikivoyage	WoALUG is currently organizing the offline edit-a-thon and it is to take place in the northern area of Albania, called Rubik. We decided to travel towards this place by the end of July 30th-31st and have already invited 12 people to participate in this campaign. We are planning to write articles about this area and the nearby towns, and take high resolution pictures in order to illustrate the area and its known landmarks.
16 participants	Editathons	Collaboration with New Vision Organization in Tirana, Albania In 2021, we collaborated for the very first time with the New Vision Organization based in Tirana, Albania. This non-profit organization works with young people. Its mission is to develop volunteering work at different social aspects and to raise awareness regarding the community and leadership. On July 2, 2021, the New Vision Organization invited us to participate in the outdoor training with the topic of Leadership. Therefore, we presented a session about how youth can develop leadership skills through Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. The group consisted of 20 participants and everyone enjoyed the session by asking questions about Wikipedia; why we should contribute to the Wikipedia community; how to accept and receive knowledge in order to develop their leadership skills, be persuasive in their arguments, learn how to communicate and be aware to get things better and much more. In the end, participants had the opportunity to wrap up the information it was presented and everyone offered to participate in the coming campaigns that WoALUG is developing. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Summer_School_WoALUG_New_Vision	10%
	Special guest speaker (KM) at DokuTech Conference and speaking tour	Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annually held DokuTech Conference will not be held this year. This means that we will not have a special guest speaker at the conference.	0%
	Budget for international conference attendance	Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference is going to be held virtually, which means that the allocated funds for the attendance in the conference will not be used on it.	0%
1 article written in media and 5 TV/Radio appearances	Media outreach	RTK - Morning program Promotion of WoALUG, the "I Edit Wikipedia" campaign and workshop February 2, 2021 SCAN TV - News (online article) Promoting the "I Edit Wikipedia" Campaign February 2, 2021 RTV Dukagjini - Morning program Promotion of WoALUG, the "I Edit Wikipedia" campaign and workshop February 4, 2021 TVSkampa - Good morning Elbasan Promotion of WoALUG, the "I Edit Wikipedia" campaign and workshop February 4, 2021 Radio Kosova2 Promotion of WoALUG, the "I Edit Wikipedia" campaign and workshop February 8, 2021 KTV - Emisioni SOT, LIVE Promotion of WoALUG, the "I Edit Wikipedia" campaign and “Wiki Loves Folklore Kosovo & Albania” February 10, 2021	50%

Program Progress

PROGRAM TITLE

Spending update Midterm

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the first half of your grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.

Link: Mid-term spending

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:

11,209.9 $

Grant Metrics Reporting Midterm

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Final report

Program story

Optional. Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

Learning story

Optional. Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

Programs Impact

PROGRAM TITLE

Spending update Final

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:

XXXXXX.XX USD/Local currency

Grant Metrics Reporting Final

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Spending

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.