Wikimedia CH/Grant apply/Wiki Loves Folklore 2023

Infodata

Name of the project: Wiki Loves Folklore 2023
Amount requested: 5000 Euros
Type of grantee: Individual or the group of Individuals
Name of the contact: Tiven2240 and Benipal hardarshan
Contact: Hardarshanbenipal.hbgmail.com gonsalvestiven22gmail.com

In case of questions, please write to grantwikimedia.ch

The problem and the context

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

The vision of the project is to bridge the local folklore and cultural gap around the world on Wikimedia commons in free license. Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 is the fifth edition of the international photography contest in which photographers can submit media (photographs, video, and audio) about their local folk culture to Wikimedia Commons under free licenses to be used on Wikipedia and other sites with attribution. This photography contest focuses on regional folk culture, such as folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, such as ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, and so on.

A concurrent writing contest, Feminism and Folklore is organized on Wikipedia to improve the coverage of women in folklore and intangible heritage and folk culture of different regions, including folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, etc. The campaign is targeted at documenting the world’s intangible cultural heritage. Wiki Loves Folklore allows local folklore enthusiasts and conservationists, Wikimedians and non wikimedians to document and make freely available on the Commons their local rituals, folk cultural activities,dance, costumes and songs. It will empower the larger Wikimedia community to improve its coverage of various cultures and new forms of heritage that have not previously been documented on Wikimedia commons under free license.

As an ongoing initiative to expand the documentation and awareness of cultural heritage media on Wikimedia Commons and sister projects. Work areas such as documentation, maintaining the Central Notice infrastructure, running the international jury, and so on are standard, and we would like to explore ways to improve these processes and build a strategic direction for the competition each year. Apart from the standard campaign components, we would like to improve in the following areas: providing proactive support to our national organizers and new campaigns: While campaigns backed by established affiliates do not usually require much support from the international team, many require regular follow-up from the team and assistance in setting up the necessary infrastructure. Participation has always come from countries where national competitions are held, which necessitate the organization of a group of volunteers. Currently, there is no way for countries with no national competitions to participate in the competition, even if they have images from those countries to upload.

What is your solution to this problem (please explain the context and the solution)?

Since 2019 the photography contest has led to 42,442 images from 3838+ participants from over 158 countries. https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention#art2

The “intangible cultural heritage”is manifested inter alia in the following domains:

(a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
(b) performing arts;
(c) social practices, rituals and festive events;
(d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
(e) traditional craftsmanship.

One of our primary goals is to teach and train the local organizers from emerging countries to be able to start coordinating the campaign locally to improve the visibility of the campaign in their region with local photowalks and regional partnerships with heritage bodies and better coverage of their traditions with wider participation. This campaign allows the local photographers to be able to share and pass the wealth of oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, traditional knowledge and practices and crafts to Wikimedia Commons, thus, not only documenting the important part of their heritage but also releasing content under free license so it can be reused for research and educational purposes by academia and cultural lovers. Feminism and Folklore - Wikipedia Campaign: The Wikipedia edition of this campaign aims to document the gaps related to culture and gender under the theme of women and queer personalities in folklore professions and mythologies. It is organized in parallel to the photographic campaign but it continues from 1 February - 31 March.

A dedicated communication person is required so we can focus on the programmatic part since we are already stretched to our capacity. We need Communications specialist who is dedicated in supporting media partnerships, updating our project website content regularly, publications of blogposts and press releases; connect with media houses and manage the strategic communication required for project of such grand scale.

Links

Project goals

The project aims to offer opportunities for communities and photographers all around the world, including the regions that have no or little organized Wikimedia community to organize or coordinate such contests and some of the important tribal and indigenous areas of Asia, Africa, Latin America that have no documentation over the internet. In such regions, it may not be possible for individual explorers to visit and document their everyday life and traditions but our campaign allows the local photographers who stumble upon the contest to be able to share and pass the wealth of oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, traditional knowledge and practices and crafts to Wikimedia Commons, thus, not only documenting the important part of their heritage but also releasing content under a free license so it can be reused for research and educational purposes by academia and cultural lovers. The project will additionally create a framework for:

Country coordinators to organize the Wiki Loves Folklore locally
Training modules (text and video) for the participating photographers to upload photos, videos, and audios on Commons and the licenses
Illustrate articles

We will inform the local coordinators and National organizers of Wiki loves folklore and feminism and folklore about the new contest, Create Project pages, Templates, Uploadwizard, Sitenotice, Centralnotice, Dashboard and Fountain tool for the project. Send mass message for invitation of more language coordinators and National organizers. Prepare (or coordinate for others to prepare) communication material that can be used by national organizations. Create an Article list. Update our social media channels and website with the necessary and useful information regarding the project. Partner with various Media partners and Affiliates. One of the biggest achievements that is unique to only this project is its structure that allows underrepresented and marginalized communities, indigenous tribes from different parts of the world that have few resources but a rich cultural and historical legacy to document and share their culture. One of our amazing achievements is being able to engage folks from indigenous cultures and local tribes to document their culture from countries and regions such as Oman, Tajikistan, Serbia, Ukraine, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Laos, Iraq, Syria, Cuba, Lebanon, Ethiopia, China, Madagascar, Mongolia, Vietnam, Yemen etc where there is little or no structured presence of Wikimedia leadership and affiliates for any organized campaigns. We provide toolkits and tutorials to ensure that new people can register, login and upload media easily during our campaign.

Project impact

Do you have any goals or metrics around participation or content?

Goals for success in 2023:

At least 27 country teams get actively involved in the competition (measurable by activities)
At least 5000 images submitted in 2023 (we want to keep the initial target low due to ongoing pandemic)
At least 36 local teams get actively involved in the Feminism and Folklore competition (measurable by activities)
At least 500 articles in different languages are created in 2023 (we want to keep the initial target low due to the ongoing pandemic)
A survey is conducted amongst team organizers, winners and jury
Documentation of best practices, training modules with a toolkit
A final report is published for the general public

Project plan

Activities

Key Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 and Feminism and Folklore activities:
Research and list creation for the content gaps on intangible heritage
Partnerships with the local country organizers
Communication management (before, during, after)
Social media driving
Prize management
Coaching, mentorship, and support for local groups
Post contest clean up with volunteers
Categorization and quality image nominations
Jury coordination and contest results
Documentation and report
Create Project pages, Templates, Uploadwizard, Sitenotice, Centralnotice, Dashboard and Fountain tool for the project.
Outreach via mass message, mailing lists, social media campaigns (paid and non paid), blogspot, media partnerships (internet and mass media, radio, etc.) for invitation of more language coordinators and National organizers.
Prepare (or coordinate for others to prepare) communication material and toolkits that can be used by national organizations.
Update our social media channels and website with the necessary and useful information regarding the project.

Budget

Communication Officer Stipend for 10 months (15 hours per week) (400*10): 4000 Euros
Hardware needs (Repair of faulty laptop and internet modem) - 700 Euros
Internet support for intern - 250 Euros
Bank fees: 50 Euros

Total: 5000 Euros

Community engagement

WMCHs comment

This apply has to be rejected. The whole answer will be found on the applicants user page. Lantus (talk) 09:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry all, Wikimedia CH do have to refuse the revised grant request as well. If you would like to apply for a grant for your 2024 campaign, could you do so by June 2023? Thanks in advance!--Flor WMCH (talk) 09:44, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]