Grants:Project/Rapid/Editatona Mujeres latinoamericanas en República Dominicana 2019
Please see the sample Editathon/Training application before drafting your application.
Project Goal
editWhat is the problem you're trying to solve?
editIn Wikipedia the knowledge of women, people of color and the global South is significantly underrepresented. According to our statistics (Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group) there is a large deficit of biographies of women on Wikipedia in Spanish and especially of Central American women, as there are no chapters or user groups there since there are no editors from those countries. Until the Wikipedia community is much more diverse, the knowledge on Wikipedia will not be truly global. Dominican Republic is one of the most underrepresented countries in terms of women's biographies in Wikipedia in Spanish. There are only 66 biographies of Dominican women (see Categoría:Dominicanas) and we do not have users from Republic Dominican editing. In Dominican Republic there are no people with experience in editathons or contributing to Wikipedia or other projects.
What is your solution?
editWe want to train women, with a gender perspective, in Dominican Republic, and teach them how to edit Wikipedia, encouraging participation in activities so, in the future, they will lead and enrich the movement in Centroamerica. We believe that we need to form women editors in the country. My idea is to travel there to teach a group of women how to edit in Wikipedia and Wikiquote and how to upload files to Wikimedia Commons. Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group wants to support 4 edit-a-thons in Dominican Republic.
Goals
edit- To create a more inclusive and diverse editing community.
- To build a wikimedian community in Dominican Republic that could access and contribute to free knowledge.
- To recruit new women editors and to engage them as contributors on all Wikimedia projects.
- To promote the participation of Dominican women in all Wikimedia projects.
- To increase the number of Dominican women editors.
- To add and improve content about Dominican women.
- To organize meetups with the media and government staff to promote understanding of Wikimedia projects.
- To promote editathons in order to make visible the contributions of Dominican women to society.
- To foster a meeting space between Latin American women contributors to strengthen ties and a sense of belonging and community identity.
- To promote the importance of Wikipedia as a source of free and accessible information and to stimulate the use of Wikipedia (and Wikiquote and Commons) in Dominican Republic.
- In the future, we aspire to make this an annual event, supported every year by Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group.
Project Plan
editActivities
editWe plan to do 4 editathons in three different cities of Dominican Republic, two in Santo Domingo, one in San Pedro de Macoris and one in Santiago de los Caballeros. We also will have a meeting and lecture in Santo Domingo, open to all public, to explain the mission and goals of Wikimedia and the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia and sister’s projects. This event will be open to more women or people who, although do not want to edit during the editathons, they want to learn how Wikipedia works.
We also will have two meetings with the media to promote the events. The interviews are already scheduled.
Our partner in Santo Domingo will have a first meeting during January with the participants where they will be given a guide so that they will become familiar with what they will see in the editathons. In these meetings they will give them the guidelines that I sent them and they will encourage the future participants to create their accounts in advance. They will have time to find the necessary information, to look for materials and sources on each of the women to be biographed in order to enrich the research work before the editathons that I am planning to conduct. The participants will be women and people of color.
2. How will you let your community know about the event? Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.
Our focus community is an active partner in this proyect. They have already planned several meetings with the Dominican media to promote the activities and our user group will notify the events both on-wiki and off in spaces like Facebook, mailing lists and our blog.
Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group in Facebook.
We have already create the 100 Central American Women Challenge: Wikipedia:Desafío 100 mujeres centroamericanas.
And we have already created Wikiquote:Desafío 100 mujeres latinoamericanas
You can also see our blog of Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia User Group
We have created the page es:Wikipedia:Encuentros/Taller Introducción a Wikipedia Mujeres latinoamericanas en República Dominicana 2019 for the meeting and lecture open to all public in Santo Domingo.
We want to get, at least, 40 biographies of Dominican Women.
3. Do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?
I am a long term user and sysop with extensive experience in several editathons in Argentina, Uruguay and Spain. I am co founder of Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia, Co Founder of Inter WikiWomen Collaboration, Co Founder of Wikitherapy and Board Member of Wikimedia Argentina.
4. Do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?
In Dominican Republic there are no people with experience, there are no editors or people with experience in editathons or any activity about Wikimedia projects.
We (Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia, a Wikimedia User Group for women of latinoamerican countries in the wiki movement, have been supporting individuals and groups aiming to address systemic bias on Wikimedia projects for the past 4 years and we have recently been recognized as an official user group) have contacted a feminist group that has been working in Santo Domingo for several years, CIPAF. They know about dominican women but they don't know about Wikipedia. Together, we are working on a list with 187 women of whom we intend to choose the 40 most notable.
We already booked one room at the National Library and another room at the Telecommunications Center, both in Santo Domingo. Both spaces have computers, internet and projection equipment. In Santiago de los Caballeros we are in talks with the León Centre for the use of its Media Library which also has everything necessary to carry out the event.
5. How will you engage participants after the event(s)?
We always follow the new editors and watch the new articles.
Our main interest is to create a community of wikimedists in the Dominican Republic. We hope to be able to maintain contact online, to encourage them to edit and to build community. We intend to set a precedent so that this event can be replicated every year.
6. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?
It is important to take into consideration the low representation of the wikimedia movement in Latin America and particularly Central America. Excluding Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela, where there are Wikimedia chapters, participation in Latin America is scarce. There are user groups in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru with whom we are in permanent communication, but outside those countries there is very little user participation in Wikipedia and much ignorance among the population of our work and mission. Female participation is still lower in all those countries. There are nine countries where we don't have wikimedists or wikipedians working. One of them is Dominican Republic, where Wikipedia is little known. Our user group is interested in building communities throughout Latin America, to get people interested in our movement. Beginning with Dominican Republic, we hope this will be the beginning of a great campaign throughout Latin America.
Impact
editHow will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets:
- Number of events 4
- Number of participants 10 per event = 40
- Number of new editors 40
- Number of of articles created or improved at least 40
You have to consider that there are only 66 biographies of Dominican women in Wikipedia in Spanish, so 40 new articles will be a lot. We also aspire to upload material to Wikimedia Commons, to improve Wikidata and Wikiquote, so we hope we will arrive to more than 40 new articles. Anyway we aspire to create more articles and upload images to Commons.
Moreover, the most important goal of this project is not the number of articles created but that the Dominican Republic community knows Wikimedia projects and understands that Wikipedia is an important and accessible source of knowledge in which you can not only access the information but contribute to create it.
Resources
editWhat resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).
We will work in partnership with community leaders from Dominican Republic. The CIPAF, which is a non-profit feminist organization with more than 35 years of experience working to defend women's rights. In the last 10 years their central focus of work is gender and TIC where they have conducted research on the situation of the digital gender gap in the Dominican Republic and promoting several projects and initiatives to narrow it. We are working closely together with Syra Leonor Taveras Pineda, Executive Director of CIPAF.
We started conversations with the Department of Social Communication of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) to integrate at least 10 of its students in the process of producing content for the Dominican women's portal that we want to create. That team has a researcher who is responsible for collecting digital objects (photos, books, articles, letters, videos, audios, etc.) on each of the women chosen. I expect this content to be upload to Wikimedia Commons.
We do not expect the Wikimedia Foundation to fund all aspects of the editathons or infrastructure. The Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic collaborates with Fondos Concursables and we will have one room at the National Library and another room at the Telecommunications Center, both in Santo Domingo. Both spaces have computers, internet and projection equipment. In Santiago de los Caballeros we are in talks with the León Centre for the use of its Media Library which also has everything necessary to carry out the event. Everything paid by the Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic.
We have already raised funds to cover internal transfers of the volunteer to the cities, the meetings with the media, photographer, editathons and different activities, costs of internet connection, food and drinks for participants, child care, advertising, printed material, location and rooms for activities.
What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.
We need to cover the costs of the round trip from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and the stay at the hotel of the volunteer who is going to conduct the editathons, that is me.
1 international roundtrip flight from Buenos Aires to Santo Domingo @ $900 (it depends on the day we buy the ticket and the availability of the airlines)
Hotel and accommodation: 8 nights x @ $100 per night = @ $800
Food = @$300
Total amount $2000
Since we have to buy the tickets and book the hotel in advance we would appreciate an answer as soon as possible.
Endorsements
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