Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wikipedia for Peace 2024 (ID: 22458941)
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Applicant Details
edit- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Shikeishu
- Organization
Service Civil International Switzerland
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
I'm a staff member or contractor in a Wikimedia Affiliate, group, or allied organization.
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Contractor for Wikimedia Austria, contractor for Wikimedia Switzerland
Main Proposal
edit- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wikipedia for Peace 2024
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2024-04-01 - 2024-12-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Switzerland
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) Wikipedia for Peace https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_for_Peace
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
Wikipedia for Peace has been going on since 2015 as a project to get new editors and new target groups (youth, activists, people from marginalized groups) to write about peace, human rights and social justice on Wikipedia. Since 2018, Wikimedia Switzerland supports the project annually by making camps in Switzerland and online possible. SCI Switzerland organised five camps in person in Switzerland and five online camps with the support of Wikimedia Switzerland. More than 250 people from all around the world have participated in the project so far, writing and improving countless articles on a variety of topics ranging from climate justice and climate journalism, queer rights to antimilitarism. However, not so many people who have participated in the project have become regular editors. Most of our camps are project-based and we lack an ongoing structure to support newcomers also after an intense camp, emotionally, intellectually and in terms of technical support. The project has stalled a bit because of its project-based funding structure. We could never develop a proper volunteer retention structure, because we had not budgeted this, and the project could never develop bigger than its camp structure because of this lack of capacity. While several people were involved in organising the project over the years, only two people (Bogumila Hladki and Thomas Schallhart) are initiating new camps and the project heavily relies on their involvement alone. We have also lacked a system to summarize and promote the success stories of Wikipedia for Peace within the Wikiverse. Our Meta page Wikipedia for Peace is not taken care of as well as it could be and our Meta pages could get a brush-up in terms of layouting and design. While the project has been successful in involving groups that are underrepresented on Wikipedia (especially young people), there are still some accessibility issues that we would like to address especially for the offline camp. Participants pay a small participation fee to their sending organisation within the SCI network and also pay for their own travel costs. This is a financial burden to a lot of people, who in the end cannot come due to this. In 2024, we want to tackle this in the following ways:
- We want to get more newcomers from groups that are underrepresented in the Wikiverse (young people, activists and people from marginalized groups) from around the world to get active on Wikipedia around peace and social justice issues.
- We want them to get to know each other in an intercultural and international setting, build a small community within the structure of a volunteering camp, where they learn how to edit, and we want them to stay active also afterwards.
- We want to build up Wikipedia for Peace as an ongoing international working group on peace, human rights and antimilitarism within the Wikiverse, as a collaboration between SCI and Wikimedia.
- Through this and continuing our tradition of doing annual volunteering camps, we want to also improve content on peace and social justice issues on Wikipedia in multiple languages.
- We also want to develop the project structurally, thinking about new funding possibilities and ways we can improve and expand the project. We want to involve new people in our small coordination team.
- We want to provide a travel grant for 5 people to attend the offline camp. We also want to make the project environmentally more sustainable by providing travel grants for people only to travel by train or bus to the offline camp.
- We want to create a new landing page with better design for the project on Meta.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
The planned activities will be implemented in the following three stages:
- 1. Structural Development: improving the layout of the Meta pages of Wikipedia for Peace projects as well as setting out a simple website which will serve for giving information about previous/ ongoing/ future projects. These two platforms will sustain the life of the overall project Wikipedia for Peace and enable participants to contact the organisers, ask questions, sign up for a newsletter and provide feedback. It will foster sharing their ideas and needs as well as staying in contact before and after offline & virtual projects in order to ensure that participants continue editing Wikipedia after their projects. We want to hire help for layouting and design.
- 2. Engaging new volunteers into editing about human rights and peace: The main two parts of Wikipedia for Peace 2024 include organising 2 volunteering camps: first an 8-day in June 2024 offline in Mont Soleil (Switzerland). There max. 15 participants no matter their experience with Wikipedia will be able to get to know the editing process, discuss and develop the topic of antimilitarism, share their experience, knowledge and thoughts about antimilitarism, specifically about human rights of conscientious objectors and military conscription. The next camp will take place online in the late summer 2024 and it will focus on war propaganda and fake news. It will be a follow up of the offline workcamp, where participants from previous workcamps (not only the June one) will be able to do a follow up with editing online via Zoom sessions. However, the online camp will also welcome the beginners to Wikipedia, with again max. 15 participants in total.
- 3. Volunteer Retention: We want to create a structure for people who want to continue contributing anti-war, human rights and peace-related content to Wikimedia projects also after having attended Wikipedia for Peace camps. In order to support the group of participants of Wikipedia for Peace projects and sustain the editing process and their engagement as the follow up there will be a Telegram group set up and a newsletter.
What is more, there will be Monthly Zoom calls organised from September 2024 in the form of a new Wikipedia for Peace Support Group in the evenings. These 2 hour Zoom calls would include editing together, but also socializing, emotional support for the editing process and giving input on a specific topic.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Thomas Schallhart (User: Shikeishu) has been active on Wikipedia since 2004 and is active in the SCI movement since 2011. He is the founder of Wikipedia for Peace and has coordinated various camps in Austria, Switzerland and other places. Thomas is a political educator with a focus on antimilitarism and global justice and will coordinate the project overall together with Bogumiła Hladki. Thomas will be mainly responsible for the offline camp and will assist Bogumiła in the preparation of the online camp. He will be contracted by SCI Switzerland to carry out all the necessary tasks.
Bogumiła Hładki: (User: BogumilaH) Bogumiła has been an active SCI Poland volunteer since 2014.
She has coordinated 5 workcamps in total and 4 Wikipedia for Peace workcamps. The last two with SCI Switzerland in the summer of 2022 and 2023. Bogumiała is a youth worker good at working with people of various backgrounds, motivating them and managing groups. She believes that Wikipedia for Peace workcamps contribute to raising awareness about various topics and boost knowledge and skills to research for quality information. Her role in the project is to plan and prepare the activities of the project together with Thomas Schallhart. She will coordinate an online workcamp, and arrange the phases before the workcamps take place, and during the follow- up phase. She will be contracted by SCI Switzerland to carry out all the necessary tasks.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
Participants find the camps through the online camp database of SCI (https://workcamps.sci.ngo/). The collaboration with SCI enables a different target group to enter the Wikiverse, as most volunteers applying for SCI camps are part of groups that are underrepresented on Wikimedia projects (young people from 18 years and older, students, activists, people from marginalized groups). The camp database is promoted by member organisations of the SCI network in more than 90 countries around the world, so the camps will potentially attract participants from all over the world. We want to especially promote the camp within Switzerland (with at least 5 participants from Switzerland) and its neighbouring countries in order to minimize the ecological footprint of the offline camp by having less flight travels.
The follow-up is included in the project concept: Starting in 2024, we want to build up an ongoing international working group on peace, human rights and antimilitarism within the Wikiverse, as a collaboration between SCI and Wikimedia. Participants will be able to join a Telegram group and the Monthly Support Calls that we want to set up from autumn 2024 on, and participants of the offline camp can come to the online camp as a follow-up.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
Wikipedia for Peace projects involved in the last couple of years in total over 250 participants. During meeting discussions with volunteers who participated in the project, we elicited their needs, struggles and expectations they have. Thus, we collected relevant information concerning the profiles of participants and their feedback. This in turn enabled us to reflect and design a project consisting of two main parts: offline and online workcamp.
As SCI is a worldwide volunteering organisation which gathers people from different social backgrounds, countries and cultures and aims to bring people together, the volunteers of previous SCI and Wikimedia for Peace projects expressed their need of group support, and staying in touch after the projects. This is why this year we want to expand the project through developing platforms for communication and exchange with participants and between them.
The phase of brainstorming involved also the employees and volunteers of Service Civil International, which is a mission-aligned non-profit organisation to Wikimedia.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Other Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context)
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Human Rights
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Age (diversity of age groups)
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Identify Topics for Impact
Learning and metrics
edit- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
- How can we get participants of Wikipedia for Peace camps to stay involved on Wikipedia also after the end of a volunteering camp?
- How can we get underrepresented groups to get active on Wikipedia through engaging with high-impact topics like human rights of conscientious objectors and fake news/war propaganda?
- How can a continuous international and multilingual Wikipedia working group around peace, human rights and antimilitarism look like?
- How can travel grants work for the Wikipedia for Peace camp structure we have set up so far?
- How can we set up a Meta page and a website for our Wikipedia for Peace project in a way that it attracts new people to the project?
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 30 | participants for offline (15) and online camp (15) |
| Number of editors | 30 | |
| Number of organizers | 2 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 100 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 10 |
| Wikidata | 50 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
N/A
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
Dashboard
Financial proposal
edit- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
4258.44 CHF
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
5000 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
editPlease add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).