Application or grant stage: not funded

Applicant or grantee: Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group

Amount requested: US$21,180.00

Amount granted: TBD (to be added by WMF)

Funding period: 1 July 2021 - 31 December 2021

Midpoint report due: 15 October 2021

Final report due: 30 January 2022

Application

Background

Annual Plan

Annual Plan for 2021 – 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.

Budget Plan

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

Staffing Plan

No staffing; only volunteers.

Strategic plan

You can check out our annual strategic plan for 2021 — 2021 Strategic Plan.

Introduction

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

Content Gap

One of the main goals of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group is to increase the content of Wikimedia projects (the most important Wikipedia) in Arabic and English language. To achieve this goal, Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group will hold various competitions (Article Contests, Photography Contests, Wikimarathon, Wikicamp) on the Arabic Wikipedia. Contests are international. In June we will start one of the biggest contest in the arab world (see in the Arabic wikipedia) in association with Google.

This programm is focused on bringing new content into Wikimedia projects. Various online contests and field expeditions are designed for reaching this goal. While there are long-lasting projects like WLM and WLE photo contests.

Article Contests

The open competition proved to be one of the best ways to lessen content gaps that are identified, bring new content on specific topic and new editors into Wikiprojects. They also attract those users who are not interested in pressing Edit button until getting the motivation and appeal to write on the topic they care or know about.

We hold contests on topics such as literature, Books, Geography, etc. which are not finalized or do not exist at all on Arabic Wikipedia. This is a unique chance to increase Wikipedia content on difficult topics, as well as attract more volunteers to Wikimedia projects by providing them with opportunities (for information we have until now we trained 86 volunteers).

In 2021 we will continue organising article writing contests. We have already agreed to hold contests on the topic of gender, culture, art, music, and other long-lasting contests.

Photography Contests

We plan to bring again one photo contest, Wiki Loves Monuments 2021 in UAE and Wiki Loves Earth 2021. Each year cultural heritage sites under state protection get more and more images to illustrate articles but there are still significant gaps, such as entire naturals heritage without a single photo.

Wikidata For UAE

With the help of professionals from the Wikimedia Foundation and from Wikidata, we want to teach new skills in working out in Wikidata for the UAE WikiCommunity, for this we are going to arrange training in work out in Wikidata for enthusiasts of the UAE WikiCommunity. This is important for us because we have collected a large donation database on arab authors for the library. and all this content, we want to put it on the Wikidata platform.

Program Objectives:

to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics that were prioritized by the community.
to increase the quality and quantity of photographic content about protected nature sites, cultural heritage sites.
to ensure photo contest content is used to illustrate Wikimedia projects through organising an on-wiki collaboration.
Organizing and participating in the International projects.
Increasing the skills of editors of Wikimedia projects in Arabic language.

Program Metrics:

Number of contest: 2
Total participants: 300
Number of newly registered users: 200
New articles: 3000

Timeline:

June 1 – June 30: Kateb Maktub article contest 1st season (about authors of the arabic world)
August 1 – August 31: Kateb Maktub article contest 2nd season (about authors of the arabic world)

Increasing Participation

One of the main goals of Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group is to increase the volunteers of Wikimedia project editors. The increase of the number of participants in Wikimedia projects, primarily in the Arabic language, is strategic for us, since the growth of the Wikimedia content and the quality of the content created depend on the number of participants.

We seek to different groups and individuals, including under-represented in our community by supporting and organising trainings aimed at increasing participation in the Wikimedia movement. We are working with our community to find opportunities to increase participation and improve the climate for newbies in Wikimedia projects. This is done through outreach activities, partnerships with particular outreach institutions, on-wiki initiatives (such as Wikimarathons and Article contests). These activities have parallel aims of improving content and attracting more participation from the target groups.

To attract new volunteers and participants in the Wikimedia project in UAE, we will carry out the following projects:

We will conduct active trainings and workshops in educational institutions and for interested parties.
We will conduct thematic competitions and wikimarathons.

Program Objectives:

to engage more students by organising trainings in universities.
education of people in the UAE through Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia projects.
increase the content of Wikimedia projects in Arabic language through online and in person Wikimarathons.

Program Metrics:

Number of Community Events: 6
Number of trainings: 6
Total participants: 100
Number of newly registered users: 100
New articles: 500

Timeline:

May 1 - Zayed University
June 1 - American University of Beirut
July 1 - American University in Cairo
August 1 - University of sharjah
September 1 - University of Effat
October 1 -New York University of Abu Dhabi

Community Support, Development & Promoting Wikimedia

One of our main goals is organizational development. At the moment, our organization is a User Group and our goal is to become an official Wikimedia chapter and the first in the arabic world, which will also promote Wikimedia projects in Arabic as a user group. To achieve this, we will use different paths.

Community Events

Organizing face-to-face meet-ups is important for both Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group members and the whole WikiCommunity in UAE. They allow to enhance online cooperation, boost useful networking connections among volunteers, and facilitate knowledge sharing in the format of presentations, discussions, and personal meetings. Bringing volunteers together is especially crucial for community development in UAE because of the geographical vastness of our country. Organizing conferences and other events in regions also helps boost and increase local communities.

The UAE WikiConference and the Annual General Meeting are two main annual community events. The first such meeting will be held in Q2 of the 2022 Besides this, Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group will hold annual General Meetings with the participation of all members of our organization to address important issues of our organization.

Program Metrics:

Number of meet-ups: 3
Total participants: 60
Number of newly registered users: 45
New articles: 300

Timeline:

October 15 - Kateb Maktub meeting
November 15 - UAE WikiConference
December 15 - Kateb Maktub meeting

Grant Metrics Reporting

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

Needs Request

No requests needed

We confirm that at this stage we have no other needs, as we carry out limited projects and programs in the way of building larger programs and projects.

Midterm 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.

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.

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

XXXXXX.XX USD/Local currency

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.