Grants talk:PEG/WM VE/Start-Up/Report

Hi Oscar, Ybsen, and Dennis6492. Thank you for completing this report and all your work on this project. We realize it has been a challenging time in Venezuela and you have continued to support the community as best you are able. We have a few questions/comments and look forward to your response.

1. Congrats on achieving so many submissions to the 2014 Wikivoyage Contest! If there is a category for the contest, please provide the link. If you do have a category, you can find out how many of the photos have been used on Wikimedia project pages (articles) by using the Glamorous tool.
2. It sounds like the translation edit-a-thon was another successful project. Have you seen or used the Content Translation Tool? If not, you should check it out!
3. One of your key lessons learned was to focus on small, but significant projects and downsize some of the objectives. What objectives do you want to focus on? What does the group think are the priority projects that are achievable, yet significant?
4. Can you tell us more about the Wikipedia in the classroom project? We discussed this at last year's Wikimedia Conference but it would be great to have more details included in this report. For example, how many classrooms, students, and teachers did you work with? Are you planning to continue working with them in the future?
5. Many groups have challenges with retaining new editors, especially from photo contests as well as recruiting volunteers to become more active in organizing offline projects. Organizing editing activities alongside a photo contest, such as an editathon aimed at using photos in articles can help keep those new users engaged. You could also run a survey to better understand what types of activities people are interested in. Perhaps small photo walks/tours or more frequent photo contests on a specific theme.

Thank you again for your persistence in supporting the community in Venezuela and your work on this report. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, thanks to you and the team to review this report and for time spent to grasp our situation. I'm felling a little bit confident that things are gonna change in the near future regarding access to fund from and to Venezuela. To answer your questions

1. This is the main category for WikiViajes 2014, according to the Glamorous tool, 400 distinct images are been used (2.84% of all images of the category) to a total of 871 images used in project pages.
2. No, we didn’t use it the Content Translation Tool, we’re looking forward to use it in the coming months for community service program (Wiki in the Classroom).
3. The priority right now is to do small edit-a-thons (for 2016 we've trying to schedule at least one edit-a-thon every 45 days), workshops and online contests (we're doing WLE this year, wish us luck!), combining this with local gatherings and outdoors activities dedicated to strengthen our community.
4. We're working alongside with UCAB students that are doing or planning to do community service. Community service (Servicio Comunitario in Spanish) is a requirement by law to get a major degree in Venezuela, and the students needs to complete 127 hours of service. About numbers, last semester the program had 4 students doing the service in the first pilot test, this semester (starting in april) we had more than 10 students interested and we’re planning to pitch the project to at least 2 others majors colleges in Caracas in the next fall. What are the risks? With the pilot we had issues with the content uploaded to Wikipedia, syntax and copyvio errors, we need to invest more time in the tutorship phase of the program, with a more close-up follow of the progress of each student, ideally with the help of the teachers interested in the program.
5. We have been talking for quite some time to run a survey intended to know who is there visiting or editing Wikipedia from Venezuela, with the help of the central notice sidebar we could reach a lot of different people and hopefully engage with them. What we need to run the survey? Probably the time to structure it, if you have at hand any examples of this kind of survey, I’d great!

Thanks again for your questions, cheers, --Oscar_. (talk) · @ 21:48, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Oscar_.. Thanks so much for all your responses. In terms of the growing the education work, it is a really good idea to focus on the teachers and getting them trained and committed to the program. We've found that recruiting committed teachers is key in sustaining education programs from term-to-term. Please check out the page on survey resources. I will also put you in touch with Edward Galvez who can be of support with an editor survey. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:41, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Unspent grant funds due to WMF

Dear Alex, as you know, this grant was closed in 2016, part of our board ir charge of the finances of this period is currently out of the country and with little to none relation to the operations of the chapter, so It has been little more than impossible to coordinate with them most of these expenses.

What I can tell you is the same thing that I told you in December when this issue arose: we do not have any money left over from this grant, it was spent during 2016 and 2017 in different activities related to the chapter. I have been able to detail some of these expenses below based in our reports for those years, and I have obtained some physical vouchers from the exchange of currencies to bolivars, I leave here for your consideration.

Date	Description	Amount in USD	Receipts
March 10th, 2016	Edit-a-thon "Mujeres Científicas de Venezuela"	430	No
June 1-30, 2016	Amazon Gift Cards for Wiki Loves Earth 2016 Photo Contest	90	Yes
August 20, 2016	V Associates General Assembly	500	Yes
November 11, 2016	Edit-a-thon WikiArte Venezuela 2016	560	No
January, 2017	Social brand consultation with ProEmprendimiento	230	Yes
2016 - 2017	Other expenses (transfer fees, transportation, prints)	400	No
	Total expenses	2210

--Oscar_. (talk) 18:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Closing grant

Hi Oscar_.. I think posted the above right as I went on maternity leave. I am back and will now close out this grant. Thank you for posting the documentation that you do have. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:24, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing this Alex Wang (WMF), cheers --Oscar_. (talk) 10:36, 1 November 2019 (UTC)