Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/ReCreate South Africa

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Dear Recreate South Africa,

Thank you for submitting your application for the Wikimedia Alliance Fund. We found your application clear and especially on the impact you seek to achieve and the strategies that will enable that change including your intended collaboration with Wikimedia South Africa.

We reviewed your application and to support us in the next phase of the review process, please find our comments, thoughts, and questions for you to share your input and responses to;

• Would you share more on the direct impact you hope to have on the Wikimedia community in South Africa or beyond? Please be as specific as possible. While we know WM South Africa is a collaborative partner, we would like to know the specific role they will play and the specific role that you will also have towards their community.
• We found the output of having a best practice to be valuable and wondered what your approach is going to be to share the tool with others in the movement and ensure usability. We thought for instance using videos to support your advocacy work. What are your thoughts on this?
• How will the community access the guide and what mechanisms of the usability will be put in place to ensure the output is useful? And how will you ensure sustainability - that they can work on their own without your direct support? Additionally, what are the specific African Wikimedia affiliates that you hope to work with?

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the positive feedback on our application. Here are the answers to your questions

1. The direct impact we hope to have on the Wikimedia community in South Africa and beyond (including the specific role Wikimedia SA will play and that we will play towards WM SA.

Force multiplier: We think our most important role in relation to Wikimedia South Africa (WMZA) will be to amplify their voice and impact when it comes to positive change in policies and the law. By gathering together mission-aligned allies of both ReCreate and Wikimedia, we will have the best chance of exerting enough influence to ensure the change we all require is realised. Our allies include the largest teachers’ union in the country, Blind South Africa, many community movements and organisations representing creatives. This will be the first opportunity to have all these groups speak with one voice to effect the changes that Wikimedia needs. Some of these specific changes are listed below.

Assist with expansion of wikimedia commons: Wikimedians in SA are unable at present to post pictures of many public artworks, monuments and any copyrighted works in public places. Through our work over the coming 24 months we expect the Copyright Amendment Bill to be passed, bringing in Freedom of Panorama in South Africa. This will remove the possibility of third party claims against pictures taken in public places, greatly increasing the opportunity to expand Wikimedia commons in the country.

Remove obstacles to editing Wikipedia in SA, especially use of illustrative materials: The introduction of Fair Use in South African law has been identified by Wikimedia SA as a key requirement to enhance the development of Wikipedia in the country. More specifically “A lack of fair use in our laws only serves to further a status quo where the rest of the world can freely use and benefit from the work of South African creators, but South Africans cannot do the same. Fair use, at its heart, protects publicly beneficial uses of copyrighted works.” Fair Use will allow the incorporation of a wide range of South African copyrighted materials into Wikipedia entries, from designs and artworks to photographs and illustrations.

Open up research sources and citations for Wikimedians in SA: Another less discussed benefit of the new copyright law in South Africa will be to open up research sources to Wikimedia editors, which may currently be located behind a paywall or other technical protection mechanisms. The Copyright Amendment Bill specifically brings in a right to research as an example of Fair Use. According to ReCreate’s legal advisors, this will exempt writers, researchers and editors from requiring copyright permission to access various scholarly sources for the purposes of research, fact checking, citation etc, something which is not currently possible. The benefits to Wikimedians are clear.

Engaging and organising: A final thought on the alliance between ReCreate and Wikimedia SA is that it will allow multiple opportunities to engage, organise, mobilise and energise diverse South Africans in support of free knowledge access in general. As an example of this, ReCreate and WMZA are already planning to partner on organising 2 Wikipedia edit-a-thons in South Africa in January 2023, as part of our partnership.

2. Our approach to sharing our best practice guide:

We will take multiple approaches including using meta wiki to share and distribute the written version. We are also intending to produce a number of videos specifically to share the lessons. In addition to these videos produced specially for the purpose, we are producing educational videos on several aspects mentioned above, including fair use, the right ro research, freedom of panorama. These will be uploaded to Wiki Commons and shared widely. We have also discussed making presentations at Wiki Indabia and/or Wiki Mania.

3. Access to the guide, sustainability and choice of specific Wiki affiliates in Africa.

In addition to our thoughts above on distributing the guide, we will offer training, mentoring and ideas exchanges to try to help Wiki chapters in other African countries from forming similar partnerships to the one between Wikimedia SA and ReCreate SA, where the local groups feel this will be helpful.

In other words, an ideal outcome of our alliance in 2023 and beyond will be to inspire similar alliances across the continent so that ReCreate does not have to be present in other African countries for many of the positive outcomes to be achieved and replicated.

In terms of choice of African countries to work closely with, we plan to engage in a rough mapping exercise to look at which countries have ongoing copyright reforms underway; which countries already have provisions like Fair Use and Freedom of Panorama that can be replicated, and also of course which countries have active Wikimedia chapters and other civil society groups working on access to knowledge. The mapping will start at a pan-African event we are planning in January 2023. Countries we are already looking at, or interacting with, include Namibia, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco. We expect the results of our mapping exercise to be documented on meta Wiki as well as our ongoing interactions and achievements. Some of these objectives will start to be fulfilled in 2023 but will continue into the future.

Thanks again, and we remain excited by this potential alliance. 41.157.45.101 10:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Alliances Fund approved in the amount of 50000 USD

Dear ReCreate South Africa,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Alliances Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended funding in the amount of $50,000.00 for the period of January 2023 - December 2023.

We agree that the issue of copyright law is vital for the Wikimedia movement, especially with many countries continuing to experience limitations with the Freedom of Panorama provision.

It was great learning about the possibility of you developing materials that would be useful for others in the continent and beyond to support shared advocacy efforts. The developed materials need to adhere to CC Licences. It would be helpful for you to add to the outcomes a directory of organizations with which Wikimedia communities can work to form partnerships and alliances if they want to embark on copyright law advocacy. This is informed by an assumption that you know other organizations working in this space.

We wish you the very best and look forward to learning more about the impact you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)