Grants:IEG/Convidando o Brasil/test

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project:

test


project contact:

rodrigo.argenton(_AT_)gmail.com

participants:


Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton



summary:

Convidando o Brasil (Inviting Brazil), is a project for volunteers, or volunteer, to work on dissemination, training and partnerships throughout Brazil.

engagement target:

Portuguese Wikipedia and sister projects, Brasil

strategic priority:

Increasing Participation

total amount requested:

30,000 USD (?)


2013 round 1

Project idea

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Outreach program in Brazil, including on-line and off-line tools, focused on motivating volunteers, and create a methodology to others volunteers continue the program.

Rationale

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The project is needed to reach the regions of the country that Movimento Wikimedia Brasil does not reach due to lack of resources, both human and financial. It has a great potential to increase penetration of the movement in universities and cultural centers, especially in those hard to reach regions. It will increase the visibility of the Wiki, generates many projects throughout the country, and bring new volunteers.

But without a documentation of how to do this, only a feel volunteers will be able to continue this work, so the creation of tested materials are essential do the success of this program.

Project goals

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The project's goal is to bring in new volunteers, and train new volunteers from all regions of Brazil. And also learn what is the best method to attract volunteers, testing online and offline methods, measuring and evaluating the results.

But the main focus is in that they initiate educational projects aimed at building collaborative free resources, using the Wikimedia Movement as a platform. Notwithstanding the previous point, we will also go beyond the universities, seeking regional groups of free culture, other potential contributors, and also Fora do Eixo points, which retain much culture, but not yet fully utilize the Wikimedia potential.

And to improve the project impact, and others do the same activities, all the data collected during the project will serve to create a methodology to motivate volunteers.


Background

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This was a project originally written as a submission to the Fellowship Program: Wikimedia Fellowships/Project Ideas/Convidando o Brasil.

Movimento Wikimedia Brasil

In many parts of the text you will see that the term Wikimedia Movement Brazil is used, or Movement. In Brazil to do the best work possible (or impossible) with the community, we treat partners as part of the Movement, as the definition of Wikimedia movement, so this project is not something just for the "chapter", this project is oriented to help movement as a whole, including projects as the WMF Brazil Catalyst Project. If you see the Programs, there are many points that are common between the two, but there is no accident, this project was designed to address several gaps in Brazil.

About Brazil

Brazil is a country of continental proportions, which has little penetration of the Wikimedia movement and most activities of WMF have been centered in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro cities thus far[1]. Wikipedia is not even one of the 15 most visited sites, but given the educational deficit of the country, in particular regarding the quality of educational resources, there is clearly much potential for growth.

We have a consistent group of volunteers working in the country since 2008 which develops a wonderful job and work without money. We are currently present in several states, but as the penetration of Wikipedia itself is low, we are not represented in certain regions. Almost all our activities are concentrated in the hub Rio-São Paulo, most of that because of the lack of a critical mass of volunteers in other places.

What is Circuito Fora do Eixo (FdE)?

A peer network of thousands of artists, culture workers and agents throughout the whole country, many of whom work with education or are university students. From the Wikimedia standpoint, this opens up several possibilities of collaboration. Moreover, as they are all over the country and working with culture, we can establish partnerships to aggregate Brazilian cultural content into the Wikimedia projects.

In green

You will see throughout the text parts of it is green. Everything green, depends on an expense of approximately $ 12,000 more on the project budget, which is not completely necessary, however, this can greatly improve the project, moreover, this equipment will serve many, many other activities in Brazil. This equipment expenditures are green in the budget section with the justifications for buying it.

In pink

It's all activities directly related with the WMF Brazil Catalyst Project.


Project plan

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On-line - Scope and activities

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On-line work will be the creation of advertising material of the movement, both in social networks, as in Wiki's internal campaigns to generate media, as well as the creation of video tutorials and, institutional videos. For the establishment or evaluation of these materials, during this program, we will check what materials that have brought results to the Brazilian public (or lusophone in cases of on-line disclosure), calibrating so what is needed for a good advertising material, as well as how is the best way to distribute. This work has already been done a few times with some existing materials (small example).

On social networks

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As a means of evaluation

Working with social networks, we have sincere opinions of volunteers, as well as what and what are the biggest concerns or interest of them. We were also able to get a sense of why people do not predispose to volunteer, even though interest in Wikis. We were also able to evaluate the impact of any activity of the MW, and often a real-time feedback. And in addition to numerical data, you can know the opinions more applicants on the activity.

Outreach materials

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Here the idea is to create four types of materials, one for readers of Wikimedia projects, another for volunteers, a third party for disclosure of the movement and a fourth material that would be a manual for conducting activities.

Material for readers

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Readers are the people who do not edit yet, but makes frequent use, or not, of the content generated by the communities. So, it would be more spread out Wiki sites, or on more visible areas of the sites, as sitenotice.

  • "Wiki for dummies"
Here we would write to the Wikimedia Movement is organized, what are the ideals, the reasons why we do and brief explanations of all existing projects.
These texts would be created along the Portuguese-speaking communities, improving the design of existing pages, and to sum up and empower the existing texts. Would also be created versions for distribution in social networks, perhaps small videos.
brief explanations about the community, basic explanations as "Wikipedia/books/... is not just a Web site and is not a company", how is organized, how the content control works, which means the free, and especially the ideals and that there are other Wikimedia projects.
  • How to participate
Many times people do not become volunteers by simply not knowing how, then the idea is create a small campaign of explanation of how to become a volunteer, and in which people can contribute and how.
This also involves how they can edit.
Thus, images of disclosure would be made for social networking, videos calling for collaboration and explaining how. And to help in issues, tutorials on short videos (example, another example), illustrated tutorials (which needs to be improved).
  • Explanation of how they can exploit the project
Many see the Wikipedia and other projects as just a means of research.
Here would be an incitement to other types of exploitation, as improve the writing, increase the level of argument and social coexistence, enhancement of the volunteer work, the search for new knowledge, understanding of other cultures ...
  • How to behave
This is a "primer" to auxiliary newcomers to not disrupt the organization of the community, this would have to be created for each community.
How to behave, sometimes it's just a cultural issue, so to lessen the culture shock between outsiders and community insiders, we create these tips of recommended postures. Things like "is healthy before reverse a reversal, talk with the editor ...".

"Institutional" material

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  • "Institutional" printable material
For partnerships, it is interesting that there is a printed material that can be delivered in person to sum up the entire movement and our global importance.
There is a material under construction File:Wikimedia Brasil nas escolas.pdf (the cover could be easily swapped), however, it does not meet all audiences, and would be required the creation of other types of materials in order to adapt the reality of the partner concerned.
  • Creation of printed material for massive disclosures
Every time we have a major event in Brazil we have to or ask for materials created in the US, or we have to generate a scratch that we don't know the impact.
The idea is to create various types of materials and see which ones have more positive return. We've done something along those lines but haven't tested, like this. And we also need to check out which best cost benefit material.
This material will be used to all kinds of activities that may have a large audience interested, unlike institutional materials, these should be low cost because there will be a wide distribution, but maintaining the quality.
  • Creation of institutional videos
Short ludic videos that could be replicated via internet, to for volunteers and for readers.

Off-line - Scope and activities

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To increase the number of skilled volunteers, and to motivate new editors, fieldwork would be conducted using the material created for us to increase the bus factor of the programs carried out in Brazil, as well as increasing the number of editors in content projects.

Spread the idea

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Step zero
  • Identify major schools with potential for developing Wiki activities;
  • Identify groups of free culture (GFC);
    • Prioritize groups;
  • Identify free cultural events that may serve to disseminate the mutirões (has begun);
Step 1
  • Start working on publicity and lectures at schools/GFC in priority, traveling as necessary;
    • Empower people who show interest in volunteering to join in the Movement;
      • Work with trained people or stakeholders to identify more teachers/volunteers with the potential to embrace the project;
  • Attend interesting events to publicize the program or to spread the word;
All along
  • Document the efforts and discuss optimizations with the Wikimedia community, as well as evaluate decisions for future steps;
  • Make several small meetings with older volunteers and new interested people.
In the end
  • Back to the places visited, to follow up with the work as necessary;

Qualitative measure

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To make a qualitative analysis of workshops and lectures, one of the ideas is to record short statements about what has been absorbed, and what could be improved. We could also ask for people, who want, talk before and after the presentation what they think about the Movement, then we get to feel the level of understanding absorbed.

Budget:

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Total amount requested

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20'000 + 10'000 (USD)

Budget breakdown

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  • Co-project manager (full-time): 10'000
  • Support material: 2'000 (prints, t-shirts, banners..)
  • Travels: 7'000
  • Video and photographic components: 10'000

Intended impact:

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Target audience

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We expect to build a greater penetration in the country with this project, increasing the diversity of participants and stretching out of the Rio-São Paulo axis.

We will also aim to reduce the gender gap in the Movement. For example, one Wiki workshop already held with Fora do Eixo had 100% female participation. Listening to their criticisms we will reduce usability problems and increase the real number of girls using MediaWiki.

We may be able to catalyse education and culture in the country. We expect to increase significantly the number of volunteers with greater penetration throughout the country.

As a result, many cultural and educational articles/books/classes/media shall be generated.

Fit with strategy

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  1. Increasing Participation
    • Bringing new volunteers, and facilitate their entrance
    • Decreasing the gender gap
    • Increasing the penetration in Brasil
    • Encourage diversity
    • Support volunteer initiatives
  2. Increasing Reach
  3. Stabilize infrastructure
    • Spread information
  4. Encourage innovation
  5. Improve the quality

Sustainability

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By engaging and empowering trained volunteers in each regions, they can perform activities independently, while counting with the on-line support of the Wikimedia Brasil community.

All work will be thoroughly and continuously documented. This model can be applied at any scale and in any location.

Measures of success

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  • The creation of all materials listed;
  • Partnership with at least 3 large schools (~5000 students);
  • Association with at least 5 groups of free culture;
  • Getting double the number of people following the Wikipedia in Portuguese Facebook page, and reach at least 1000 followers, in the pages of other projects;
  • Getting hold workshops for at least 150 people of all ages;
  • Present lectures in all regions of Brazil;
  • Achieve at least 10 new volunteers to Wikimedia Brazil (today we have ~32, so +30%);
  • Achieve at least 150 new volunteers for Lusophone projects (~+10%), being at least 50 girls (~+66%);

Participants

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  • Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m
    • About: I'm volunteer of Wikimedia Movement since 2006, Movimento Wikimedia Brasil volunteer since the beginning, undergoing several important processes such as the discussion of the Strategic Planning of the Movement.
I also do volunteer work in others Movements and NGOs for over 12 years. More recently I realized works as a community mobilizer in a collaborative mapping project. Today I do volunteer work with Teto a NGO how works with social empowerment with families in conditions of extreme poverty.
I studied mechanical engineering (not finished), got a notion in photography, I have skill in photos and videos editing tools, as well as post-production. And desktop publishing software.
I am administrator of almost every Facebook page of Lusophone projects, the exception is Wikipedia, I am only publisher there. I received a little while ago this accesses, and only dedicated a little time on Wikivoyage page, now this is the second page in likes among the lusophones on Facebook.
  • Sturm
  • Marcio De Assis (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
    • About: I am a volunteer of Wikimedia Movement since 2011. My main objective is the improvement of the contact among the participants through events and other forms of communication. I attended the Wikimania 2012 in Washington - DC and, since last year, I am one the events planners at Wikimedia Brazil. I have a degree and a post-degree in Communications from ESPM and I have an MBA in IT Management from FIA/USP. I have been working with advertisement in the last 20 years and, nowadays, I am the Marketing Communications Manager in one of the leading industrial companies in Brazil.


Part 3: Community Discussion

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Discussion

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Community Notification:

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Please paste a link to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions, here.

References

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Endorsements:

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Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

  • Community member: add your name and rationale here.
  1. Solstag (talk) 14:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC) Back in 2010, I emphatically told WMF staff that they should forget all about offices, chapters, programs and fundraising in Brazil for a few years and throw every single penny they had allocated for Brazil in funding itinerant groups or individuals that would move around the country stopping to engage and empower already existing educational and cultural structures, both formal and informal, both from the government and civil society. Here we might have the opportunity to finally try this by ourselves. So, although I am personally unable to "fellowteer" for such an effort, I second Sturm in saying that "All we need is projects like this!".
  2. We sure need more brazilians in wikipedia, but we have so many rude and arrogant adms that I think they wouldn't stay long. I approve, but we need to improve our administraion too for them to stay. EternamenteAprendiz (talk) 21:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
  3. Vinicius Siqueira (talk) 00:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC) Portuguese Wikipedia is under an important decrease of editors. This proposal is very clear on what kind of volunteers it wants to reach; exactly groups of people that are already involved in free knowledge activities. That's why I am sure that the outcome cannot be other than the increase of editors and spreading the Wiki idea around the country. Moreover, Rodrigo is a very reliable volunteer and heading this project is another demonstration of his commitment with Wikimedia projects.
  4. --Tom (talk) 19:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC) As I said in the previous proposal and being shorter now, I think this can help the Education Program in Brazil. Notice: this is a comment done with my volunteer account used usually on my spare time, since I also have the working account ezalvarenga as a freelancer for Wikimedia Foundation.
  5. Marcio De Assis (talk) 15:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC) I do believe a project like this can be a game changer. You can count on me.
  6. --Raylton P. Sousa (talk) 16:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC) Undoubtedly very important to strengthen the Wikimedia Movement in Brazil