Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Mompati Dikunwane/Wikipedia-meet-up and workshop/Report

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

@Mompati Dikunwane: Hey Mompati, thanks for this report on the workshops you ran earlier this year. Here are my comments and questions:

• I'm real sorry to hear that the rainy season hampered participants' ability to attend and your efforts to run all the workshops you had planned out. These kinds of circumstances are hard to mitigate, so your frustration is understandable, but we understand these situations with weather and other uncontrollable factors happen. I'm glad you were able to run some of the events. The only thing I thought about was whether you had considered running these workshops at a different time of year when the weather may not be as problematic. Alternatively, perhaps there is an venue where there are more options for your experienced editors to arrive?
• I think your work around building awareness in Botswana is extremely valuable, so I hope your are not disappointed by the outcomes related to your content-related goals you had planned. Here is the way I think about it: When folks do not know about Wikimedia projects or how they work, they do not use them. Furthermore, even if they have heard about the projects, they may not trust them because they don't understand how it works or who is involved with them. Workshops like the ones you ran educate people on how these projects work, how to use them, but also why they might find them useful. These workshops also build trust in our projects and between readers and volunteers, and this trust is fundamental to why Wikimedia projects are successful and why people are motivated to contribute. Your work is foundation building, and I consider your efforts to be tremendously important.
• Can you talk about what sorts of questions or comments participants had at these workshops? Why did they attend, and what did they want to learn or be able to do after the workshop?
• Thanks for providing some great photos from the event. It looks like you were able to secure a really good space for hosting the event!
• Regarding your request for additional funds to cover expenses beyond your funding, I'll be following up via e-mail.

This report is approved, but when you are able, please respond to my questions above. Thanks very much for your work, Mompati. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)