Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group/2020

Questions about your plan

Hello, Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group colleagues!

Thank you for this quality plan. We have a number of questions below and look forward to your responses.

Update on 2019 programs

1. Since you are still in the midst of your 2019 programs, it would be great to have an update since you posted the midpoint report. Can you please provide brief updates on your different program areas, specifically those that had not yet begun since you reported last?

Since June we have implemented Wiki Loves Monuments and Summer of Wikivoyage in both countries, Kosovo and Albania. We are currently running Illustrate Wikipedia online campaign. We have also carried out 4 out of 5 training with new partner Bonevet Makerspace while we have continued to work with RIT Kosovo. In Tirana we hosted 2 workshops one for Albanian Wikipedia 16th Birthday and one for Wikidata birthday also hosted a photowalk to photograph monuments resulting with around 300 images uploaded. We had a meeting with AIDSSH Albania in August to help them with the uploading they want to do in Commons as part of our memorandum. We are also continuing following up with University of Durres and Faculty of Science of Tirana with which we have an event on 26th of November to write about natural monuments. We are currently preparing Transitional justice thematic editathon and Diaspora Edits Wikipedia (to take place in January due to partner request).

2. Please provide an update on your total spending since the midpoint report.

For the second period of our grant so far we have spent 3173.21 in total. From this amount:

• 845.45 EUR were for Education program
• 270 EUR were for GLAM program
• 1915.26 EUR were for Outreach program
• 142.5 EUR were administrative.

3. Since this is our first time reviewing your annual plan, can you please give us a sense of the Wikimedia communities in both Albania and Kosovo? From wikistats, we understand there are about 95 active editors in the Albanian Wikipedia, but it would be great to have more context about your community. What are the general awareness levels in both countries? Do you have a core group of volunteers or project organizers in both countries? Has the core group remained the same over the last couple of years or are there new people who are developing as community leaders?

While board members have remained the same, core group of volunteers has changed throughout the years.

In Tirana, you might be aware of the split in two user groups. This merely formalized existing dynamics. In recent years, some people have moved out of Albania for education or work, but more volunteers with potential have joined the last 1-2 years.

In Kosovo, the situation has been more stable with two new volunteers showing promise to take organizational responsibility in what has been fewer volunteers able to take this role.

Education

1. It looks like you are hoping to establish 5 new wikiclubs in the next year. How are these wikiclubs managed?

Wikiclubs will be housed in schools where we aleady have some Wikimedian presence or where we have done significant training work. Ideally, the would be managed similar to other school clubs as we want to integrate into existing school culture with WoALUG providing support and encouragement only as needed.

2. Can you please provide more information about the accreditation program? From looking at last year's budget, it looks like you are requesting the same amount for similar work in Pristina. Is the program to train more teachers or to develop the curriculum further or both?

In 2019 the program was not fully carried out. It will take more effort to carry out to where we want it to be. At the same time, the money allocated is not sufficient for the size of the program but we hope to do this jointty with our partner.

GLAM

1. We understand it was difficult to establish partnerships with certain GLAM institutions over the last year. What were your main challenges? Considering the challenges, do you think it is feasible to establish partnerships with 4 institutions in 2020? How would you define a successful partnership? Are they about content donations, collaborating on events, other activities?

It seems key to having partnerships is having people who understand your mission. This makes it dependent on certain people. In Kosovo this did not work out as expected this year but we want to continue working in 2020 and look into other opportunities if Museum of Kosovo does not work out. In 2020, there is more hope in Albania as we have a new member on board who has contacts in several institutions.

2. Do you expect that Wikimedia-related activities will continue at the Museum of Kosovo even if you do not plan to have another Wikipedian-in-Residence there? Are the staff able and/or interested in organizing activities on their own? One of the great benefits we have seen of WiR in other places is that they can set up ways for Wikimedia projects/activities to be sustained after their residency is over. Do you have plans to support this sustainability for the new WiR positions?

Based on the work done in 2019, this was not the case as the results were mixed, partly because the WiR was young and partly because the Museum was going through unstable management structure. We will have this in mind in 2020.

Outreach

1.In 2019 it looks like user group members participated in three conferences. Was the group able to continue to engage or connect with participants after the events were over?

We’ve had several people who have shown up in other activities or have emailed us with questions. We funnel everyone towards our social media. But yes, event participant retention is something we need to work on more.

Staff

1. It would be helpful to have your reflections on the impact of having a staff person in Pristina. What were the biggest benefits? Did you see a lot more activity, ongoing engagement with partners or new editors versus your activity in Tirana? Did you encounter any challenges in managing staff? Why is the Ipko Foundation no longer supporting this in 2020?

Our part-time project manager has supported our activities offline and online. Something we didn’t expect was having better visuals for our online campaigns. Biggest benefit was being able to keep physical contact with partners and organizing some of the offline activities which otherwise would not be possible. One hiccup we had with managing staff was staff replacement which happened in October as previous one left losing us some time and energy not foreseen. Ipko Foundation agreed to support the PM in Kosovo in H2 2018 with the hope that WMF would step up in 2019, which did not happen.

2. We want to make sure we understand the full context and rationale for why the group is requesting additional staff. Where do you feel the biggest capacity challenges in terms of organizing activities in Tirana? What are the risks or consequences if this position is not funded?

On Wiki education:

Most of our volunteers or participants on events are students or pupils. We work hard on reaching as many pupils and students as we can, but then we cannot handle all the request coming from them to host at least one workshop at their education institution because classes are during working hours and our trained volunteers work as well so it’s impossible to leave their work day every time a school/university expresses interest in hosting a wiki event.

This year 3 of our volunteers used their holidays to host the events on Berat and Ura Vajgurore, because first it’s around 3 hours from Tirana one way. We really want to do this because the teacher told us that these Wiki events are the best thing that ever happened to those pupils. We can have a relatively active wiki club there if someone would have the time to travel at least 3 times per year to follow up with these pupils.

GLAM or Partnerships in General:

Working with public institutions is very hard, especially when you introduce yourself as a volunteer working for User Groups that they don't understand why a thing run by volunteers should work or be taken seriously.

Making a partnership it will never work with emails. We did 3 personal meetings with the secretary of the Director of Historic Museum of Albania to be able to meet the Director himself.

We have a momentum in Albania, it's not a matter of how much can we do, but how better can we do things. If we manage to do a good project with Historic Museum of Albania, all the other museum will join. To use this momentum, we need help from a person who is dedicated full time on this. The volunteers can still do the stuff they like but without sacrificing their holidays or working days.

Metrics

In comparing your metrics from 2019 to 2020, we have a few questions:

1. You expect to double overall participation in education and GLAM activities and remain the same for the Outreach programs. However, it looks like you expect fewer newly registered editors in your outreach programs. Can you explain why this is?

Outreach has been our most successful pillar and fully realized in 2019 whereas we think we will do better in education and GLAM in 2020 since there is still more potential. At the same time, with these two pillars we were a bit overly ambitious in 2019 considering the resources.

2. The number of editathons and workshops will stay about the same as last year. If you are adding staff, our assumption is that the number of activities would increase. If not, can you give us a better idea of where the staff would be focusing their time?

Additional staff effort will go towards establishing and developing partnerships which take the most energy. At the same time, editathons and workshops foreseen this year with existing capacities were ambitious, especially in Albania where couple large events we could not organize in 2019.

It would be great to have your response by next Monday if possible so we can incorporate it into the final decision-making process. Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Margott, Arianit, and User:Liridon. Thank you for these useful responses. We have a remaining question regarding your spending. According to the midpoint report and the spending detailed above, you've spent about 7,000 EUR of the 12,000 EUR from your 2019 grant. Do you expect to spend the remaining 5,000 EUR by the end of the year or do you expect to have an underspend? If you expect to have an underspend, do you know how much? Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Alex, sorry again for the late reply. For our remaining activities we expect to spend another ~2500 EUR in total, therefore we expect an underspend. --Arianit (talk) 08:00, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Simple APG Committee recommendation

We recommend that the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group receive a grant of 24,534 EUR for a year. We are pleased to see well-scoped programs that build off of experience and learning from 2019, with a stronger focus on professionalization, maintaining momentum, and increasing offline activity in Albania.

We are concerned about the ongoing challenges in coordinating work with the Wikimedia Community User Group Albania. We encourage both groups to deal with this challenge with the support of Affcom as we imagine that hiring staff in Tirana could exacerbate the situation. We recommend funding for hiring additional staff be contingent on clarifying the scope of both groups.

Beyond all that we wish you well and hope you stay safe, and hope that the earthquake Albania just experienced has not caused any harm to you or your loved ones.

For the committee, Alleycat80 (talk) 15:30, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Dear @Alleycat80 and Committee members, thank you very much for your evaluation and your trust in us. Thank you also for thinking of the victims of the earthquake in Albania. So far we have not heard that any of our members have been hurt though it doesn't seem to be over yet. On behalf of WoALUG, --Arianit (talk) 14:08, 28 November 2019 (UTC).

Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group’s grant is approved in the amount of 24,984 EUR for 12 months, with contingencies

Congratulations! This grant is approved in the amount of 24,984 EUR, for 12 months. The grant will be given in two installments, split 70% and 30%, respectively. Details on second payment and contingencies are below. This is a significant increase over the last year and we appreciate all of the work dedicated to organizational development and focused programming done in 2019. The proposed programming is reasonable and conservative, especially given the size of the communities you are supporting both online and offline.

We understand the focus last year has been on outreach and the group has had a lot of success in organizing workshops, editathons, campaigns, and contests. Wiki Loves Monuments, Summer of WikiVoyage, Diaspora Edits Wikipedia, and gender gap-focused events all have brought in new participants and content. Areas for growth include both the education and GLAM programs, which take more time and human capacity to develop relationships. By supporting in increase in time for your staff member in Kosovo and a new person in Albania, we hope you have the resources to explore partnerships in a more effective way. We are especially interested in learning more about the teacher accreditation program and the longer-term impacts this can have on how Wikimedia is perceived in academic settings and used in the classroom.

We want to recognize the committee’s concerns about overlapping scopes and ongoing tension between the two user groups that cover Albania and not exacerbate the situation by funding a staff person in Tirana before more clarity is achieved. We request that you do not hire your staff person in Albania until this situation is resolved. Both user groups will need to work with Affcom to make sure it is clear who is doing what and with whom. We understand this may cause some delay in your programming and we will be flexible if changes need to be made. We also want to support this resolution to happen as quickly as possible and will reach out to Affcom as well.

We hope 2020 will be a year of stability and focus. We look forward to working together.

Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Dear Alex Wang (WMF) and everyone involved, on behalf of the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group, thank you very much for the trust placed in us. We look forward to working and growing together by making Wikipedia more visible to the Albanian-speaking public, involving niche communities and contributing more content. At the same time, we believe that the staff in Tirana should contribute positively in having more coordination via-a-vis the other UG and with partnering institutions. Thank you!

Midpoint Report Accepted

Hello Arianit, Miranda038, Margott, OdettMelody, and Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group Colleagues, thanks for submitting your midpoint report. We have reviewed the metrics, budget, and report and marked them as accepted. Thank you for your work for the Wikimedia Movement! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)