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Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019 round 1/Wikimedia Argentina/Progress report form

< Grants:APG | Proposals | 2018-2019 round 1 | Wikimedia Argentina

Purpose of the report

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This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their progress after completing the first 6 months of their grants. The time period covered in this form will be the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing grant metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Metrics and results overview - all programs

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Total metrics

Total metrics Participants Newly registered Content pages Quality Impact Comments
Education Program 1296 270* 567 404 10 new partners new partners that address new topics beyond education and add diversity to the program.

Find all the activities and partners here.

Culture & Open Knowledge Program 964 318 185 books (52,519 pages pages uploaded to commons)

16,210 pages on Wikimedia projects

77% of content create and released is diverse* 367 cultural referents Our strategic lines of work are oriented to released missing or historically excluded content.

Find all the activities and partners here.

Community Building Program 448 71 8112 26 new women and LGTBIQ+ involved 19 new leaders involved. Find all the activities and partners here.
Total 2708 659 24,889 new pages on Wikimedia projects.

185 books: 52,519 pages pages uploaded to commons

n/a n/a n/a

*Newly registered: regarding to the Education & Rights Program, we kept the annual metric too high. We define it before our last impact report that also showed this issue. In fact compared to last year at this point, we are on term.

Education & Rights Program

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Summary

During 2018, the Education & Rights Program strengthened its alliances in order to address the existing education gaps, with a regional and comprehensive work perspective.

During 2019, we continued working in the same direction promoting our projects with three clear goals:

  1. Engaging educators and students in the creation of relevant knowledge that addresses the existing content gaps.
  2. Promoting a learning community for educators and organizations linked to the education world in order to foster exchange and creation of knowledge.
  3. Consolidating and expanding the WikiDDHH Project (violations of Human Rights,  LGBT+ rights and excluded communities) as an education proposal at a local and regional scale.


The Education & Rights Program in Argentina

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Success: What does “knowledge as a service” mean in our program?

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The new Strategic Direction of the Wikimedia Movement has presented new opportunities for us:

  1. Diversity: apart from creating diverse content, developing projects that represent the diverse ways of teaching and learning in Argentina.
  2. Innovation: designing innovative proposals beyond Wikipedia, such as new training opportunities for educators and new online platforms to guarantee access to open education resources.

These opportunities have turned into two large lines of work for 2019:

a) Guaranteeing access to resources and training courses according to the needs of educators and students

  • Even though educators promote collaborative work in the classrooms, they still do not know much about what free culture is and how it can contribute to their work.
  • Even though Wikimedia Commons provides free and open resources, it is not a friendly project yet. In fact, in most cases, the resources that educators demand are not considered to be relevant.

Based on this analysis, during 2019 we have worked the following way:

Aulas Abiertas: series of workshops on Education and Free Culture

What did we do?

  • A series of four workshops for the education community in general

How did we do it?  

  • New training courses: we organized the training in two parts. First, a panel in specific topics with experts. Then, a workshop lead by these experts with educators.
  • New topics: we worked on curricular subjects that are relevant for educators and related to open knowledge and digital culture: education & technologies, education & gender, education & human rights, and education & free culture.
  • New education alliances: we invited civil society organizations and education leaders as: Amnesty International, MINU, FLACSO, Faro Digital and Memory Park, Cecilia Sagol and Lala Pasquinelli.

Why is it innovative?

  • We offered original material for the education community and promoted debates in order to begin to incorporate free culture into the classrooms
  • Work was designed as open proposals, with the goal of understanding which issues are relevant to the education community.

OER: Open Educational Resources

What did we do?

How did we do it?

  • We worked on the website design with Argentine specialists in OER websites
  • We allied with organizations of the civil society that produce educational content, so they can free their content in the website. This way, we promote access to free, high-quality OERs.
  • We generated a space within the website for educators to send their own proposals, promoting exchange within the education community

Why is it innovative?

  • We are making accesible open resources within the education community and organizations of the civil society.  
  • We contributed the access to Wikimedia projects through more accessibles platforms that respects the ideas of free culture.



Which have been the most important qualitative results and learnings?

  • Reach: 90 participants for the Aulas Abiertas workshops: 30% high school educators; 25% students of education degrees; 9% professionals working in counseling teams in schools; 36% mainly university professors. The diversity of professional profiles proves there is great interest and need of this kind of spaces.
  • Share learning: Workshops fostered knowledge and exchange among professionals, who shared specific experiences and designed proposals for the classrooms.
  • New resources: +25 OERs available online
  • New audiences: we involved new strategic partners which allowed us to reach new audiences within the education community and also to consolidate ourselves as a key organization on these subjects in the education world.


Side effect: Wikipedia as a means, not an end

Working on the promotion of free culture in education to make knowledge accessible implies looking for new ways to approach schools and to relate to the Wikimedia projects. For this reason, since 2018 we have worked on the development of a ludic proposal designed for elementary schools and based on the biographies of Argentine women scientists in Wikipedia. We chose to work on this subject because:

  • In Argentina, only 16% of students of scientific and technological degrees are women.
  • According to Unesco, girls lose interest in these degrees during elementary school.
  • Even though Wikipedia is the source to design the project, the goal goes beyond it: to build and approach knowledge through OERs to promote the debate about the gender gap in science and technology.

After a pilot test and getting the sponsorship of the company Intive-FDV, the project will be implemented in 24 institutions. Even though the results of this project cannot be measured in number of editions, Wikipedia is at the core of it. Apart from the game, the project implies a series of activities in which children must work with the encyclopedia to find more information. This way, we are creating new ways to work with Wikipedia in the classrooms and guaranteeing access to free, open, non-gender biased, quality knowledge.


B) Promoting access to information that is locally relevant for educators and students

The new strategic direction of the Wikimedia movement considers education to be key, similar to the current Goals of Sustainable Development. In this sense we continue:

  • Working with universities allows the critical analysis of Wikipedia and the generation of high-quality information about topics that are locally relevant and currently missing.
  • Working with schools contributes to the use of Wikipedia as an educational tool.
  • Also, with Wikipuentes -our online proposal for educators- we trained educators from across the country to contribute to reduce the existing content gaps at a local scale.


How did we do it?

Wikipedia at the University
  • We developed a website specifically for the project, in order to foster its identity and continue expanding it across the country.
  • We took the project to 8  universities at a national scale, to the provinces of Santa Fe (Rosario), Cordoba, Buenos Aires province and the City of Buenos Aires.
  • We worked on diverse topics: journalism, sexual education, educational video games, illustrations, films, history of architecture, sports.

Editing Clubs

  • We launched an open call for schools from the entire country
  • We trained 17 high school educators
  • We carried out an online workshop for students, so the Editing Clubs could reach the provinces

Wikipuentes online course

  • We carried out the 9th edition of the Wikipuentes online course.
  • We made changes to the proposed activities, according to the educators’ needs
  • We opened a unit designed for the presentation of cases of study about the use of Wikipedia in higher education
  • We generated new course dynamics so educators could delve into Wikipedia’s editing tools
  • We developed material so educators get to know other ways to implement the use of Wikipedia in the classroom.


What results did we obtain?

  • Over half of our partners for Wikipedia at the University are new.
  • We continue expanding the topics contributing to reduce the existing gaps in diverse fields.
  • With online trainings courses, we reached 5 provinces: Mendoza, Corrientes, Chaco, Buenos Aires province and City of Buenos Aires.
  • In Wikipuentes, we expanded our recipients, beyond school teachers, aiming to diversify and engage new educational profiles.
  • After 9 editions, Wikipuentes continues to have a great number of people enrolled, which proves this project has become a trademark of Wikimedia Argentina.


Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year Comments
600 teachers 716 252 on target Editing Clubs, Wikipedia in the University & Wikipuentes
500 students 909 539 above target n/a
1000 articles 815 463 on target Editing Clubs, Wikipedia in the University & Wikipuentes
70% high quality articles 73% 69% on target n/a
70% diverse content n/a 80% on target n/a
70% girls and women confortable 80% 93% on target n/a
300 educators from learning community n/a 216 on target Educators from Aulas Abiertas and Quién es esa científica projects.
25 new partners n/a 22 on target n/a
Resources designed 8 5 on target n/a
Volunteers involved 35 3 on target n/a
% of satisfaction 100% 100% on target n/a


Challenges so far: why are we below in terms of number of educators?

As we explained previously, during the first part of the year, we worked on the development of innovative proposals that reflect the diversity of the ways to teach and learn in  Argentina. This proposal entails qualitative results that are highly relevant to continue reflecting on ways to position the Education & Rights Program. Even though all other projects continue progressing, the new proposals diversify our target audience between teachers with whom we organized trainings in schools and universities, and educators that are participating in our learning community proposals.This caused quantitative results to grow less than expected in this first part of the year. During the second semester, we will work on improving these results with the goal of achieving our quantitative objectives.



Gating factor: Working with alliances

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Expanding the Editing Clubs project represents a challenge for us. The goal of this project is to offer students and educators all over the country tools to use the encyclopedia in an educational way. For this, it is key to scale the proposal to a national level and to increase the number of schools that participate in the project.

As we have explained previously, the economic crisis in Argentina implied the reduction of the budget of provincial Ministries of Education, which makes it more difficult for us to reach the provinces. On the other hand, these latest years, our alliance with the national Ministry of Education has been complex, and it is not easy to match the development of our project with their methods and interests. During 2018 and 2019 Wikimedia Argentina invited schools to participate without a liaison, but it is clear that limiting ourselves to our own outreach reduces the scale of our goals.

The situation forces us to continue working on the implemented dynamics and particularly on finding the alliaces that we need to reach school across the entire country and in a greater scale, but with a high-quality proposal.


What have we learnt?
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  • Continuous follow-up according to the needs of each educator helps see the proposal through. This is so for both the Editing Clubs and the Wikipuentes experiences.
  • Consolidating a learning community is very important to generate a network of educators that become replicators of experiences in their contexts.
  • Opening the debate about the limitations and potentialities of the Wikimedia projects as educational resources allows educators to reflect on possible strategies to put free culture into practice in schools and universities.
  • Quality content generated from the articulation with national universities allows us to legitimate the use of Wikipedia as a reliable tool for the academic world.



What's next?
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  • Developing 1 pilot edition of Wikipuentes in Venezuela
  • Developing 1 Mooc Wikipuentes in Argentina
  • Developing at least 8 Editing Clubs in Corrientes, Buenos Aires province, City of Buenos Aires, Tucumán y Misiones.
  • Carrying out the Wikipedia at the University project in at least 8 universities
  • Call for projects to expand the website of Open Educational Resources
  • Carrying out the Who is that woman scientist? project in 24 schools


Education as a Human Right

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Success: Making historically excluded groups more visible 

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After taking the Wiki Human Rights projects to a regional scale during 2018, we set two main goals for 2019:

  • Going deeper into our work with Human Rights organizations in the creation of content about violations of human rights in Argentina and the region.
  • Expanding the WikiDDHH project to work with communities that have been historically excluded, like the LGBT+ community.

In order to achieve these goals, we established two different work strategies:


a) Creating and improving content about the LGBT+ community and violations of human rights, with local organizations

During the first part of the year, we developed editing workshops and edit-a-thons in Argentina and Paraguay to improve content about crimes against humanity perpetrated during the military dictatorships in both countries. On the other, we decided to continue working with LGBT+ organizations to update content about their history in our country.


What have we done so far?


Buenos Aires and Entre Ríos


Tucuman and Santa Fe

  • We continued expanding the WikiDDHH LGBT+ projects in alliance with Agencia Presentes
  • We worked with organizations of the civil society and journalists who are referents of LGBT+ issues to update and create prejudice-free, quality content that follows Human Rights standards.

Paraguay

  • We carried out an activity in Paraguay related to the edition of content on Crimes against Humanity.
  • We generated alliances with the General Administration of Truth, Justice and Reparation, providing them with a two-day training course and an editing workshop.
  • We trained the main referents of Human Rights in the country, researchers, lawyers, governmental authorities and social leaders in the use of Wikipedia

b) Diversity and participatory approach

This second strategy proposes to continue expanding our work method with a human rights, diverse and inclusive approach for Wikipedia to:

  • create knowledge together with historically excluded communities of our country, such as the LGBT+ community.
  • developing interdisciplinary workshops in which participants can learn diverse tools that help democratize the access and creation of content with a human rights perspective, from their own reality and community.

How did we diversify the WikiDDHH workshops?

We approach the following themes to diversify the content of our workshops:

  • The importance of knowing about open licenses regarding human rights content. For this, in the training of local Human Rights organizations, we worked not only in the importance of creating content in the encyclopedia but also in the value of all Wikimedia projects to make the history of excluded groups visible.
  • The development of good practices of communication. Our experience has taught us that, when dealing with sensitive content, we need to make experts our allies. That is why we decided to offer workshops for human rights advocates and organizations about communication strategies for themes related to diversity and Human Rights, to promote the creation and update of information with a diverse and inclusive perspective.


Which have been our results, so far?

  • 60 journalists and 70 activists were trained on good practices of communication regarding LGBT+ issues.
  • 72 experts, researchers and Human Rights activists were trained on the edition of content regarding processes of justice and violations of Human Rights in the region.
  • 70% of the content edited so far is quality content.
  • 100% of participants are advocates and experts on Human Rights in their contexts and they supported the proposal by disseminating the activities locally.
  • 80% of participants had never edited Wikipedia before.
  • 80% of participants surveyed affirmed that the edition of Wikipedia on Human Rights helps make their contexts and realities more visible.
  • For the first time, we organized edit-a-thons on LGBT+ content in the provinces of Tucuman and Santa Fe: 44 articles about the history of the local LGBT+ community were updated
  • Both in Paraguay and in Argentina, activities were organized together with institutions and organizations that are benchmarks in the Human Rights issues that we address.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year Comments
6 WikiDDHH edit-a-thons 9 5 On target n/a
200 articles 279 101 On target n/a
300 participants 388 272 On target n/a
70% diverse content n/a 80% On target n/a
70% women confortable 75% 100% On target n/a


Side effect: High level partners

Since its beginnings in 2016, Wiki Human Rights has proven to have the potential to be carried out and replicated at a regional and global scale. As WikiDDHH has grown, we have realized that this project goes beyond the Wikimedia Movement. This project can become a tool to generate alliances with institutions and benchmark organizations at a national and international level. In fact, during 2019 we have partnered with high-level organizations such as the United Nations and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, with the goal of expanding the WikiDDHH project so it can be carried out all over the world. Also the program has been recognize at the international level. During June 2019, we participated in the 40th Human Rights International Program for Human Rights leaders, organized by the Equitas Foundation and with the support of the Global Affairs Canada. 103 leaders were selected from different regions of the world to share strategies and innovative projects and WikiDDHH was among them!



Gating: The constant search for funds

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Our experience has taught us that disseminating and carrying out a project like Wiki Human Rights requires an active search for funds to scale the proposal to a regional and global scale. So far, we have applied for 6 international funds and we got funding from 2 of them: Open Society Foundation and the Embassy of Canada. This allowed us to carry out, during 2018 and beginning of 2019, the WikiDDHH edit-a-thons in 7 countries of the region and also cover the expenses of human resources and necessary materials in each country where we carried out the encounters.

Even though our main objective is to carry out these activities with local liaisons, together with chapters and UG of each country, the search for funds is usually very wearing for our team since it entails a double task: on the one hand, the design of a project according to the requirements of each fund; on the other, preparing the applications, which take place in different moments of the year and, in many cases, we find ourselves writing proposals while we organize our activities.

Besides the aforementioned issues and the effort of searching for funds, the results achieved have proven that this is one of the projects that have better engaged us in collaborative work in the region and it resulted in a valuable exchange of experiences. The great challenge is, year after year, to get the funds to sustain these activities that offer great contributions and generate alliances with organizations and historically excluded communities of our region.



What have we learnt?
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  • The importance of working with local Human Rights organizations allows us to meet the needs and demands of each particular social and political context.
  • Diversifying the workshops for the LGBT+ community and strengthening alliances with experts on these issues allowed us to offer quality workshops that provided tools for communication and production of content in Wikipedia, following prejudice-free and inclusive standards.
  • Addressing Wikipedia as a tool to make the history of historically excluded communities visible generates greater commitment and social responsibility in the creation of quality content.



What's next?
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  • Developing 5 WikiDDHH edit-a-thons in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Cordoba, Colombia and San Pablo.
  • Developing the 1st Conference of Human Rights and Digital Rights of the Wikimedia Movement in Buenos Aires.



Why do we do the things we do?

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  • To develop innovative proposals, we need to understand educational community needs: for that reason, we generate new strategies and dinamics to think with the educational community how to introduce free culture in their classrooms.
  • There are still significant content gaps regarding locally relevant knowledge: for that reason, we continue developing our key projects in universities, schools and remote teacher trainings to encourage the creation of diverse and relevant content.
  • Information about historically excluded communities needs to be improved in Wikipedia. Training Human Rights defenders in the creation of information about their specific context contributes to generate quality and diverse content on these issues.

Culture and Open Knowledge Program

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Summary

The objectives on which we worked during the first half of the year in the Culture & Open Knowledge Program are the following:

  • To increase the diversity and bridge the gaps regarding content within the Wikimedia projects.
  • Creation and release of quality open knowledge that represents the sum of local and regional diversity.
  • Strengthening, consolidating and positioning the work and development of diverse cultural communities in Argentina.


Diverse content

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Success: Reducing content gaps within Wikimedia projects

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One of Wikimedia Argentina’s goals is to promote the improvement and creation of quality content that is representative of the cultural heritage of Argentina and Latin America. In order to achieve this, we worked in the following way:

a) Training diverse cultural communities to diversify content

During 2019, we continued training different cultural spaces on the use of the Wikimedia projects in the following way:

1.Mentorship and training:

  • Workshops of awareness: we trained 11 cultural  institutions and civil associations (meaning 367 people) with the purpose of incorporating free cultural processes to their work spaces.
  • Content release workshops: support to different areas of government and the civil society to they can incorporate the use of free licenses. As a result of 7 institutions released 1016 files under creative commons licenses.
Partner Topics Activities, so far
SEDRONAR Current Issues Workshop
Fundación Espigas Latin American Art Workshop
Dirección General de Verdad, Justicia y Reparación Human Rights Workshop + Material Release
Subsecretaría de las mujeres de Neuquén Gender Edith-a-ton + Material Release
Secretaría de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de la Nación Gender and Sciencie Edith-a-ton
CAREF (Comisión Argentina para Refugiados y Migrantes) Local culture Workshop and Edith-a-ton
Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación Culture and Gender Edith-a-ton + Material Release
CAICYT Current Issues Workshop + Material Release
Museo Estación Cultural Lucinda Larrosa Local culture Material Release
Universidad Nacional de la Plata Current Issues Workshop + 1bib1ref
Directorio Legislativo Current Issues Data Release

2. Taylor-made activities:

This allows us to:

  • Work according to the opportunities and particularities of each institution.
  • Meet their needs appropriately.
  • Reduce false expectations and base work on the reality of each institution.

Thus, we organized:

  • Edit-a-thons with experts: in order to solve content gaps we focus on training specialists; so, the experts themselves are who improve specific articles. In this way we made 4 edit-a-thons..
  • Trainings for librarians: we carried out the 1bib1ref campaign to train librarians across the entire country. This year, the main activities took place in the provinces of Cordoba and Neuquen, and in the cities of La Plata and Buenos Aires. As a result, we trained 200 librarians and improved 518 Wikipedia articles.
  • Wikidata & databases: In the first half of 2019 we conducted 4 workshops with 32 people with the aim that they can start to make and release their databases. So far we have released databases of politicians, sports, scientists etc. meaning 11735 items created and updated in Wikidata.

3.High-level partnerships:

In the beginning of 2019, we signed agreements with two very important cultural institutions: the National University of La Plata and Argentina’s National Academy of History.

Why is it important?

Both agreements represent engaging with new that were out of reach for us until now. The National Academy of History is one of the most important Argentina’s centenarian cultural organizations, and regarding the Universidad Nacional de la Plata means the 1st agreement with a university with a national outreach, and this is the first agreement of its kind in Latin America.

What did we do?

Incorporating a WIR: both cultural organization have involved a Wikipedian in Residence to digitize part of its cultural archive.

Reducing content gaps: we will include currently missing and diverse local heritage as per example related to the beginnings of science in Argentina.

Training cultural referents: we offered a cultural training course for 60 cultural leaders, belonging to Biblioteca Central de La Plata, Museo de Odontología, Museo de Ciencias Agrarias, Museo de Física, Museo de La Plata, Museo de de Instrumentos Musicales etc. that were taught about the different projects of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata.

Results: So far, 8359 Wikidata items have been improved. Three activities were organized and 108 people were trained.


What results did we achieve, beyond the numbers?

  • Strengthening alliances: 1bib1ref campaign became a space for the betterment of librarians and opened the doors for us to offer training in strategic spaces such as the National Congress of Librarians, the Argentine Center of Scientific and Technological Information (CAICYT), which belongs to Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), the degree of Library Science of the National University of La Plata and the School of Librarians of the city of Buenos Aires.
  • New Alliances: both high level partnerships have opened us doors for us to establish new strategic partners as per example the Museum of La Plata, one of the greatest science museums in Latin America.
  • Incorporation of new profiles to the program: During 2019 not only we have worked with governmental offices related to the cultural world, but also we decided to strengthen our bond with civil society organizations, bodies linked to scientific journals and spaces that work with excluded communities.

b) Work on missing content: Science & Local History 

During 2019 we have continued working on these two main topics because:

  • Argentine culture lack funding and their heritage is at risk.
  • Since we have promoted science as a part of our work, content has increased by 50% in the Spanish Wikipedia.
  • These content, is currently missing or/and the content gap is huge.

What did we do?

1.Science & Gender

During 2019 we have continued working on the science & gender line, with a double goal:

  • Reaching communities that are very active on this topic and thus engaging new women as editors.
  • Making an invisible group visible in Wikipedia in Spanish: women scientists.

For this purpose, we have worked as follows:

  • Engaging the community of editors: we promoted a new editing project with the most active community of editors, with the goal of improving content related to Latin American women scientists. So far, +500 articles about women scientists have been improved or created in Wikipedia.
  • Disseminating the work of women scientists in Wikipedia: We designed an online project with educational and statistical resources about the situation of women scientists in Wikipedia.
  • Strengthening counterparts: We have continued fostering edit-a-thons on gender in alliance with RAGCYT and the Department of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, engaging 43 editors. We have also incorporate the University of the Center, the Youth Institute and the National Technological University as new counterparts.
  • Positioning WMAR in strategic spaces: we participated in the International Conference on Gender, in Argentina Abierta 2019 and in spaces that the Argentine communities of women scientists manage themselves.

2. Local history: digitizing project

During 2019, the digitization project, which remains stable, focused particularly on the following goals:

  • Prioritizing and expanding the project to archives and institutions that have  limited resources and their heritage at risk, even if they are outside the Argentine borders.
  • Fostering access to culture and education

For this purpose, during 2019 we have worked as follows:

  • Increasing our counterparts: Through our WIR, we actively work with the Argentine Academy of Letters, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Library of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires, the Circe Library and we have incorporated a new space: the National Academy of History.
  • Local, relevant history at risk: we focused our program on digitizing very damaged and neglected archives belonging to the institutions with the purpose of safeguarding it. Around 90% of the released content is about Argentine history.
  • Quality content: We created and improved 3665 articles through the Wikimedia projects.
  • Positioning the digitizing project in Paraguay: we organized a training course on free culture and digitization for 30 people to make Paraguayan culture visible within the Wikimedia projects. As a result, the final report of Paraguay’s Commission for Truth and Justice was released. Its 8 volumes are now available in Wikimedia Commons. Also, we began to release part of its photographic archive, in particular the May 14 collection that exhibits the movement that attempted to overthrow the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner.


Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Promote the free culture in 10 institutions 13 7 On target 1016 documents released
300 new cultural leaders involved in our cultural program 632* 367 On target n/a
5 cultural communities New target 3 On target NGOs - Data Scientists- Government organizations.
Number of editors involved (700) 328 318 On target Women editors: 167
2 new GLAM cultural partners n/a 2 On target n/a
Content improved/created: digitizing project 441 (123,556 pages uploaded to commons) 185 books (52,519 pages uploaded to commons)

3534 in other projects


On target n/a
Content improved/created: specific topics n/a 12676 On target n/a
Wikipedia page views 9,411,474 1,784,072 On target n/a
% of diverse content release New target 90% On target Our strategic lines of work are oriented to free content from Argentine popular culture
Learning: How can we make a more innovative digitizing project?

During 2019 we decided to carry out a project of pendrives with material released by Wikimedia Argentina because:

  • Access to internet is still difficult across Argentina.
  • The Wikimedia Commons platform is not easy to browse for people who are not familiar with the project.
  • It is a new way to promote cultural heritage in spaces where Wikimedia Argentina has no influence.

What are we doing?

Along with UNESCO we decided to carry out a project of filling pendrives with content related to Argentine culture and released by Wikimedia Argentina, so we could disseminate it in educational spaces. In this sense we are selecting appropriate content according to the curricular programs of elementary schools and high schools, so it can be used in the classrooms. Apart from the treated content, each pendrive comes with an activity card so the material can be used with educational purposes.

What do we want to achieve?

  • Bring part of the historical heritage that we have released to rural schools that have no internet access.
  • Guarantee the access to a more quality and free education by making accessible documentary collections that are out of reach for rural students.  


Gating factors: The electoral period

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The Culture and Open Knowledge program is one of the programs most affected by the Argentine electoral context. In particular for two specific reasons:

  • End of a government period: many teams in the government know they won’t continue working after the elections, regardless of the result, so they decide not to innovate in their work.
  • Lack of budget and human resources: the governmental spaces that do decide to work on projects of free culture suffer from lack of budget and human resources to carry them out, because all resources are set aside for the electoral campaign.

In the face of this challenge, we continue to maintain the flexibility of our program to adapt it to the context in order to facilitate new alliances beyond GLAM organizations to continue diversifying the content of the Wikimedia projects.


What have we learnt?
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  • Working on specific topics allows us to generate new strategic alliances and to position WMAR in new cultural spaces.
  • Keep the program flexible and open to different kind of organization helps us not only to avoid the electoral year, but to create diverse new content.
  • In the face of the lack of resources, it is necessary to generate even more attractive proposals that include trainings on tools.
  • Consolidating alliances with great cultural institutions with the aim of improving their resources generates long-term alliances and helps defines our work inside the organizations.



What´s next?
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  • During the second half of the year we will continue to deepen the working relationship with the University of La Plata.
  • We will continue working with projects related to science and gender around the country and engaging with strategic partnerships.
  • We will continue strengthening and mentoring diverse cultural organizations.
  • We will continue digitizing and releasing local cultural heritage, focus on the National Academy of History.
  • We will carry out #WikipediaenDebate.


Free Knowledge Awareness

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Success: Advocacy & Rights

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During 2019, we have continued designing and positioning a local and regional agenda about digital rights and open knowledge with the following goals:

  • Promoting and incorporating Wikimedia Argentina to the debate about digital rights in Latin America.
  • Providing training on this subject for the Argentine and Latin American society.

a) Building a network and a local agenda

Since 2018 we have promoted the creation of an #OpenGlam network in Argentina, with the goal of generating a common agenda to have an impact on copyright policies. We have continued strengthening the network, opening it up to new actors as follows:

  • Alliances: in coordination with Creative Commons and Fundación Via Libre we have coordinated actions on the proposals that are a detriment to free knowledge and freedom in internet. We have organized regular encounters regarding a common agenda.
  • Impact: We have worked with national representatives as senators that are leading changes on intellectual property and copyright laws, particularly regarding the new European Directive. We have also worked with lobbies that oppose to our position.
  • Positioning: We have participated in the most important events about this subject in our country, such as Argentina Abierta and Internet Day, organized by Ministerio of Modernization and the University of San Andres.

b) Position WMAR at a regional scale

One of our greatest challenges is to position WMAR as a respected interlocutor regarding public policy at a regional level. For this purpose, we have worked:

a)Training on digital rights

since 2018 we have fostered distance trainings on digital rights. Through webinars, we gained access to communities related to free knowledge that are not part of the Wikimedia Movement yet.

What did we do?

We organized three webinars about digital citizenship with Ibero-American outreach.

  • Topics: We designed webinars about internet safety, Digital Rights and Access to culture in digital environments.
  • Engagement: Over +200 people enrolled in the series of webinars. 94 were in-person participants and 449 were subsequent views. Most participants were from Argentina, but other countries with a large number of views were Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and Spain.

b) New alliances beyond Argentina

Thanks to our experience during 2018, we could expand our alliances beyond Argentina. We worked with the Spanish collective Akelarre Ciberfeminista, R3D (Mexican Network for the Defense of Digital Rights) and Uruguay’s Artica Online. Also, we are working to shape a Latin American network for the defense of Internet in relation to the new European Directive on Copyright.

c) Contributing to the debate at a global scale

Our participation in global discussions have grown during 2019, in particular related to the new European Directive on copyright. In fact we jointly with other local organizations are leading this discussion.

In order to continue strengthening our knowledge we have been working as follows:

a) Learning within the movement: during 2019 we have organized frequent meetings with Wikimedia Spain, Wikimedia Foundation, and FKAGEU to promote the transfer of knowledge about the new European directive. We also attended the training meeting on public policy organized in Madrid in June 2019 where we began to articulate a global network on policy work.

b)Working from the Global South: we are working together with Wikimedia Southafrica, Wikimedia Mexico and Wikimedia Indonesia to articulate a network of support and learning. While we have different contexts, our challenges are similar. Although we are in a very early stage, we want to study the opportunities to build a network.


Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Involving 200 trained on digital rights 172 94 On target +400 views after
5 new partners n/a 3 On target n/a
30 volunteers involved n/a n/a n/a #Wikipediaen Debate will take place in the second part of the year
Reach n/a n/a n/a #Wikipediaen Debate will take place in the second part of the year


Gating factors: Overcoming challenges at all levels

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Strengthening Wikimedia Argentina’s profile in relation to public policies is a chance not only to position ourselves at a local level but also to deal with issues that have a direct impact on the work we do. We still had to face certain challenges that could be summarized in the following way:

  • Local awareness : although changes are being generated in the national intellectual property legislation, it's being difficult to position its importance within the civil society, partly because of the electoral period. In any case, we hope that nothing is approved before the elections to be able to raise awareness of this important topic accordingly.
  • Regional cooperation: even though the approval of the European Directive on copyright has had an impact on all regional laws, in Iberocoop we have not yet been able to articulate a joint position. In fact, it has been easier with non Wikimedian regional digital rights organizations.
  • Knowledge transfer within Movement: the Wikimedia Movement is full of experiences and learning, but sharing them is not always easy. The impact of European policies in Latin America has shown it: there is no orderly or coordinated transfer of knowledge.

Similarly, we will continue working to overcome these difficulties. At local and regional level by strengthening our alliances and communication. On a global level, the movement is immersed in the strategy process, a great opportunity to emphasize the need to design specific policies for knowledge transfer and capacity building within the communities around the world.


What have we learnt?
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  • By consolidating appropriate alliances, Wikimedia Argentina can and will continue working to have an impact on the defense of digital rights in internet at a local, regional and global scale.
  • It is a fact that the political decisions taken in Europe directly affect countries from outside. As a movement it is necessary to generate learning spaces outside the European borders as well as support strategies accordingly.



What´s next?
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  • Through the #OpenGlam community, we will generate debate spaces on the Copyright and Access to Public Information Bill, at a local level.
  • We will continue training in digital rights in alliance with Latin American organizations. In particular during the second half of the year, this topic will have a very important place in our Human Rights conference.


Why do we do the things we do?

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  • We need to create a workflow where the free culture is part of the daily jobs of cultural institutions. For that reason we design tailor-made projects and mentoring activities to introduce not just the Wikimedia as allies but to make long-term changes in the institution's culture.
  • Prioritizing work issues is not accidental. One of our main objectives is to reduce content gaps on local culture. For this we work with all kinds of cultural institutions, beyond GLAM, with whom to build knowledge that represents the Argentine cultural reality.
  • Ensuring access to free knowledge is equally important for us, especially given that Argentina is a very unequal country in opportunities. For this, we generate innovative projects that bring the Argentine historical and cultural heritage closer to the most remote areas of the country.
  • Working to keep the Internet free and open is key to the development of the Wikimedia projects. Although we are not in a leading position yet - fortunately there are many organizations that work for the defense of digital rights in LATAM - it is essential that we continue strengthening this line of work by promoting alliances and regional projects.


Community Building Program

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Summary

In 2018, the Community Building Program has focused on strengthening the existing community and generating new strategic communities. In this sense, the activities we carried out reinforce our objectives for 2018:

  • To expand and build a motivated community as part of WMAR
  • Supporting and promoting the emergence of new themed communities organized around the objective of editing with purpose.
  • Defining new volunteer's opportunities to build a more diverse and inclusive community.


Building communities

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Success: Themed communities as a way to consolidate long-term bonds

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Since 2017, we have organized our community in themed communities. This has allowed the following:

  • Generating stable bonds among volunteers with similar affinities.
  • Engaging senior volunteers as mentors of new editors on the theme in which they feel more comfortable.
  • Positioning communities as referents in their areas of expertise.

During the first half of 2019, we have worked as follows:

What have we done?


Community Activities Results
Long-standing community
  • Mobility Grants to encourage the participation of our community in WMAR activities.
  • Helping designing and mentoring projects.
 7 mobility grants granted.

6 projects supported.

37 participants.

Photographers community
  • Technical and financial support. We provided grants for carrying out projects, as well as the material needed.
 3 projects

32 photographers involved.

8645 images uploaded.

Gender Community 7 editing meetings.

4 lectures.

3 edit-a-thons

119 participants.

113 articles created/improved

Litoral Community
  • Design and support of projects.
 5 leaders.

6 lectures in cultural and educational spaces.

3 projects

17 volunteers involved in 2019.

Wikidata
  • Design materials in Spanish for the community. [1],[2].
  • Monthly workshops
  • Set up the Spanish Telegram group for the whole Spanish community.
  • Promote leadership within our volunteers.
 70 participants in the Telegram group

5 workshops

38 participants

558 items improved

2 scholarships for the Wikidata Conference

Community of Journalists
  • Encounters with journalists
  • Workshops in media spaces
 3 meetings

63 journalists participating

39 media reach from 9 provinces

What results did we achieve, beyond the numbers

  • We generated specific exchange spaces for each community that allowed us to develop more stable bonds of belonging among the volunteers.
  • We position wikimedia Argentina as a flexible organization willing to develop diverse activities according to the multiple interests of our volunteers.
  • The maintenance of monthly work meetings allowed the generation of more stable and lasting communities.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Established communities
40 engaged volunteers. n/a 37 On target n/a
At least 15 of them women or as of LGBTI's collectives n/a 97 Above target n/a
4000 improved/created articles n/a 8112 Above target n/a
80% feels supported and describe WMAR as an inclusive organization where is easy to participate. 85% 90% Above target n/a
New communities
2 new communities 2 2 On target n/a
30 new members 32 36 Above target n/a
At least 15 are women or as of LGBTIQ+. n/a 26 Above target n/a
5 new alliances n/a 3 On target n/a

Learning: How have we adjusted our work basing on the demands from our community?

Each community is unique and particular and in order to support them in the best possible way we need to adapt to each of them, generating specific proposals according to their specific interests:

What did we do?

Beyond the editing activities, we identified within the gender community the need to generate training spaces. With this goal, we organized the “Feminist Internet & Free Knowledge meeting", in which 20 feminist leaders from Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia participated, representing 10 organizations. We worked on three core topics: cyberfeminism, freedom of expression and safety in internet. The meeting took place in a safe place of work and also involved 5 experts on these fields.

What results did we achieve?

  • We positioned WMAR as a referent in gender beyond the Wikimedia projects.
  • WMAR as trainer of leaders in gender and freedom of expression issues in the digital world.
  • De-virtualize ourselves: One of the greatest problems of the digital world is the lack of face-to-face encounters. Conferences have allowed us to get to know each other, to strengthen bonds of trust and to exchange among peers.
  • Workshops and training courses have allowed us to discuss our perspective on the participation of women in the digital world, ask ourselves new questions and acquire new tools to participate in internet in a safe way.
  • Wikimedia Argentina is considered an ally for the strengthening of the network of gender organizations at a local level.




Gating factors: Federalization

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Even though we managed to expand our communities and reach new provinces, it is still difficult for us to generate stable volunteers.

In this sense, we face some challenges:

  • the absence of a stable local community in the inland of our country for the organization of activities
  • local volunteers don’t have enough time to develop proposals.
  • it is hard to give continuity to the projects if Wikimedia argentina is not involved.

Therefore:

  • We have continued organizing activities in the inland, with a very close follow-up of new volunteers, so they feel supported and secure in their first steps.
  • We have identified local referents who are interested in generating projects and who have allowed us to articulate with local organizations.


What have we learnt?
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  • Organizing in thematic communities allows us to better identify organizations to work with that are of interest of our current community.
  • Organizing activities that meet the demands of our thematic communities allowed us to diversify our trainings and workshops and expand the community with new members.



What´s next?
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  • We will continue designing specific activities that meet the needs of each thematic community.
  • We will continue to generate online and offline trainings for volunteers.
  • We will continue engaging with partners that meet the demands of each community.


Diversifying the audience

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Success: Reaching experts as community members

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One of the main objectives of the program is not only to continue diversifying our community but to strengthen communities outside the Wikimedia movement, already established, for which the Wikimedia projects are presented as allies for their work. For this, during 2019 we have designed new trainings for civil society organizations with the aim of working with communities of experts in the creation of new content, locally relevant to Argentine society.

Why?

  • Wikipedia is one of the first sources of information for a large part of the local population.
  • There are organizations that already create free knowledge on topics that are widely consulted by citizens.
  • Wikimedia projects are potential allies to promote citizen participation in the creation of socially relevant content.

What did we do?

We identify relevant topics on the public agenda - Justice, Health, Misinformation- and we carried out the following activities:

  • Partners: we have partnered with some of the main Argentinean organizations on these topics as ACIJ, Fundación Huésped, MINU.
  • Trainings: we generate workspaces to update content with experts.
  • Free Knowledge: we identify outdated content and we have created and improved the content available on these topics.
  • Capacity Building: we promote Wikipedia as a useful tool to increase the reach of their work.

What results did we achieve, beyond the numbers?

Working with specialized organizations on subjects of interest for the society has allowed us to:

  • Wikipedia as a tool of critical reading for students.
  • Update content using specialized sources of information and expert insight.
  • Position our projects as allies to strengthen, foster and disseminate the work of our partners in order to guarantee access to quality information.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress End of year (projected or actual) Comments
250 people from outside the Wikimedia movement trained or participating in our community activities. n/a 108 On target n/a
65% women/LGBTIQ+. n/a 51% Below target n/a
25 people get involved in new volunteer opportunities. n/a 19 On target n/a
80% of the participants consider that the Wikimedia projects are a fundamental tool of citizen construction and / or the projects of the program respond to their needs and interests. n/a 100% On target n/a




What have we learnt?
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  • Working with experts allows to improve the quality of Wikipedia content.
  • Generating critical reading projects is another way to engage the encyclopedia readers.



What´s next?
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  • Continue to generate alliances to work on issues of interest to citizens.


Why do we do the things we do?

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  • To increase retention we organize ourselves in thematic communities, where we promote new projects that are of interest of their members.
  • To increase diversity and welcome new members we keep our definition of "community" flexible, providing all kind of opportunities to participate as part of our community.
  • The community aren't just active participants or Wikipedians. Partners have an active role to reduce the current content gaps regarding information of interest for the Argentinean society.


WMAR in the movement

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Sharing learnings inside and outside the Wikimedia Movement

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During the first part of 2019 we continued working to share our experience with the movement, as follows:

a) Supporting projects & leaders

  • We have participated in the organizing committee of the Wikimedia+Education Conference 2019 where we also lead two sessions.
  • We participated in the committee in charge of selecting the winning project within the frame of the W&E Greenhouse, organized by the Wikimedia Education Team.
  • We mentored the new Programs Coordinator of Chile as well as the new ED of Wikimedia Mexico. In the case of Chile we went to Santiago where we shared learnings, our knowledge about the movement and even work processes for 3 days. In the Mexican case, we shared a week in Buenos Aires. In both cases we have also worked thematically mainly regarding their planned Education programs.
  • We have provided support to agreements of other communities as it's the case of Wikimedia Colombia. In 2018 we carried out a WikiHumanRights activity in Colombia with Wikimedia Colombia. The National Memory Center was very interested in the project and offered us to sign an agreement. Instead, we encouraged and supported Wikimedia Colombia to do it. We have has regular meetings with both organizations and we will be supporting our colleagues during the implementation in October.

b) Positioning our community and its diversity

  • In March, we received a visit from the Wikimedia Foundation with the purpose of getting to know our community in detail, the way they organize themselves, their needs and learnings. During one week 14 volunteers (7 women) from 4 different provinces were interviewed. This was a great opportunity to share with the movement our diverse community and the different ways they participate as volunteers.

c) Supporting the emerging community in Paraguay

  • During 2019, the Culture program trained referents of cultural institutions from Paraguay in order to promote free and open policies inside their cultural institutions as well as make the Paraguayan culture visible within the Wikimedia projects. In this sense, we organized a training course during 3 days for 30 people coming from cultural institutions and governmental bodies. As a result the final report of Paraguay’s Commission for Truth and Justice was released. Its 8 volumes are now available in Wikimedia Commons as well as part of its photographic archive.

d) Our roles in the strategy process

  • Wikimedia Argentina continues to participate actively in the strategy process. In the beginning we participated in two working groups - Roles and Responsibilities and Revenues Stream, However, we lost the person on Revenues. Even there are personal reasons for it, he also changed his job and couldn't meet the demands and needs of the groups. Regarding Iberocoop we have also tried to involve as many people as possible in the discussion. However, it is important to notice that the community is kind of burned-out, something that can be a real problem in the future, especially in the implementation phase.

Challenges?

  • Continue strengthening and supporting organizations of the movement, especially those in Latin America in a more planned way. For this we are designing training and learning programs for 2020.
  • Maintain as much as possible the interest in the strategy process in Latin America. In this sense, we need to be able to transfer all the important outcomes clearly in order to ensure more and better participation of all.

Revenues received during this six-month period

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal

Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
FDC grant ARS ARS 6.622.223 USD 163.207 - - - ARS 6.622.223 USD 279.784 USD 163.207 *Since august 2017 we are keeping FDC Grant in USD. The exchange to ARS is made every week if needed
Membership fees USD USD 500 ARS 2.000 - - ARS 2.000 USD49 USD 500 n/a
Ministry of culture - City of Buenos Aires ARS ARS 176.000 ARS 176.000 - - - ARS 176.000 USD 4.338 USD 4.338 n/a
Facultad de Información y Comunicación - City of Uruguay USD ARS 36.518 ARS 36.518 - - - ARS 36.518 USD 900 USD 900 n/a
Pan American Development Foundation - City of Buenos Aires USD ARS 101.439 ARS 101.439 - - - ARS 101.439 USD 2.500 USD 2.500 n/a
In-kind donations ARS ARS 279.000 ARS 139.500 ARS 139.500 - - ARS 279.000 USD 5.000 USD 6.876 n/a


*The average exchange rate for 1st semester of 2019 was 1 USD= 40,6 ARS

Spending during this six-month period

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Staff Expenses ARS ARS 4.991.953 ARS 1.288.737 ARS 889.651 - - ARS 2.178.388 USD 123.028 USD 53.687 44% n/a
General Administration ARS ARS 1.287.188 ARS 333.951 ARS 470.879 - - ARS 804.830 USD 31.723 USD 19.835 63% n/a
Education program ARS ARS 1.676.741 ARS 415.406 ARS 261.771 - - ARS 677.177 USD 41.324 USD 16.689 40% n/a
Culture & Open Knowledge Program ARS ARS 1.101.969 ARS 227.910 ARS 154.971 - - ARS 382.881 USD 27.158 USD 9.436 35% n/a
Community Support program ARS ARS 957.915 ARS 181.121 ARS 264.398 - - ARS 445.519 USD 23.608 USD 10.980 47% n/a
Buenos Aires Human Rights Conference* ARS ARS 1.336.639 ARS 668.320 ARS 668.320 - - ARS 1.336.640 USD 32.942 USD 32.942 100% The budget will be fully executed at September 2019 during The Buenos Aires Human Rights Conference.
In-kind donations ARS ARS 202.878 ARS 139.500 ARS 139.500 - - ARS 279.000 USD 5000 USD 6.876 138%
TOTAL ARS ARS 11.555.284 ARS 3.254.945 ARS 2.849.490 - - ARS 6.104.435 USD 284.784 USD 150.446 53%


*The average exchange rate for 1st semester of 2019 was 1 USD= 40,6 ARS

*Wikimedia Movement Funds were reallocated for the Buenos Aires Human Rights Conference Scholarship Program

Compliance

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Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?

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As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Signature

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Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Resources

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Resources to plan for measurement

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Resources for storytelling

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