Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Hello User:Anasskoko and User:Musa Vacho77,

Thank you for taking the time to prepare your application for the general support fund. We reviewed your application and share the following comments and questions;

• The project idea is a great one in general and seeks to innovate in free knowledge through its focus on audio-related content across the various projects.
• We observed a few gaps in the project for instance there was no international connection beyond Nigeria in as much as the project has been positioned as an international campaign.
• We can encourage you to embark on the project at a local level with a smaller grant and thereafter, based on the learnings gained from the project, develop it further including reviewing what funding pathways are best suited to provide resource support. Having said that, we were curious to learn more about your thoughts on starting with getting resources from the rapid fund program before pursuing the general support fund. Please let us know your thoughts.
• We also encourage you to partner with other community that has embarked on a similar project such as WPWAP.
• Some further breakdown of expenses in the budget will be helpful. For instance, the expense of video creation tutorials and research programs.
• It has been highlighted in your most recent rapid grant report that a total of 50 audio and video files uploaded will be made use of. However, only 10 of these files were made use of. Could you share with us your efforts to ensure a greater number of audio files will be used this time around?
• Is the project for 12 months or 6 months? This is because it is stated on the summary page of the proposal that the start date is 2023-01-01 and the end date is 2023-05-30. However, it states in the budget that the budget is for the period 2022-11-25 to 2023-04-25 (cell B5). Please provide more clarification.
• We are curious to learn why 6 videos would be created for sound creation and convergence/equalization and also uploading and linking respectively. Should the same be done for event videos? Please provide more clarity.
• Would you share what structure you have or plan to have in place to support you in financial management, ensuring transparency and accountability on the project deliverables?

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff--VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Answers to the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee

Hello VThamaini (WMF) and MEA Regional Committee and Staff,

Thank you for taking time to review our application, after a mutual discussion with Musa, the following are the answers to your question accordingly;

• We are glad that you understood how impactful this project application proposal seeks to innovate Wikimedia ecosystems and its various projects.
• We positioned this campaign as an international because it is part our campaign strategic plan and ideas that we would struggles to develop and create connection internationally across the mentioned countries through online and offline campaign, call for participation, mentors enrollment first from different region, to know their technical audio capacity and how we can engage them in the campaign if interested, after mentors are engaged, then mentees enrollment will be the next, to couched mentees on audio Wikimedia activities. The international campaign will also bring along different experience users that will become Mentors of WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign in their region, it will give them the privileges to participate in the international level, and to be able to organize local events in their communities for WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign. We understand that you thought it is internationally when other users internationally are engaged or connected to this very campaign right now and right from the beginning, but right now and right from the beginning it is only me and Musa with the idea, seeking support from Wikimedia Foundation to make it Locally active in Nigeria, and with other users from different states to make it active in international level in Wikimedia world through the above mentioned strategic plans and the detailed explanation in WikiSound_Audio_Speaks_Campaign under the Strategic Plan section. Furthermore, after submitting the grants proposal we have started to inform other prominent users about this campaign project, users like Ceslause Ogbannaya were informed to include the campaign in Wiki in Africa level across Africa and others are in process of getting in torch, continuously as planned.
• We understand how helpful you are by encouraging us to start the project at a local level with a smaller grant and thereafter develop it to international level based on the learnings We gained from the project, but from our past experience and the projects we have executed, we strongly feel like this is the right time move to general support fund for this great campaign which we have planned to make it internationally effective, having funds support from general support funds will make the campaign effectively sound in the international level, and is the one that will suit the activities we wanted to do as described, had did it been we planned it at a local level, we ourselves could have even suggest embark on rapid funds not general support funds for the campaign. Also, the following are some of our thoughts on why we should embark on general support funds.

1. Veronica Thamaini encourage us to move on ward from rapid to general support fund after having a mutual meeting with Musa.
2. This campaign of WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign budget exceed the allocated amount for rapid fund program which is 5,000 USD.
3. The strategic planned we have which we seek to develop the activities of audio content is larger and bulky, having several trainings, workshops, video tutorial creation, WPWA, Video campaign creation, online and offline promotional campaign and what have you.
4. We have past experience from rapid fund program.
5. Moving to rapid grant will change our entire strategic plan and it will make the campaign slow and inefficient.

• Yes it is part of our plan to partner with WPWP community, not only WPWP communities, but User Groups and group of individuals, we described this in How can you help and Collaboration section in WikiSound_Audio_Speaks_Campaign. Also, we would definitely collaborate with WPWP in seeing that Wikimedia_Pages_Wanting_Audios program campaign is achieved by adopting their past experiences and a ways to avoid or tackle challenges their have encountered from local Wikis administrators, like for linking of too much images or irrelevant images to some Wikipedia pages and other reasons suggested.
• Considering the past project impact you mentioned, this time around we rest assured you that the number of audio files to be linked will be more than 80% of all the audio files uploaded, that’s why we innovate a sub campaign titled Wikimedia Pages Wanting Audios under WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign, as a tactics to make the audios uploaded impactful in relevant Wikimedia projects/wikis/wikitionaries. Besides the previous rapid grant project tiled Audio and Video in Wikimedia Commons which we have carried out and unfortunately minimal number of audio files were only used, this is because we made an emphasis on couching technical skills of conversation, recording and uploading audio/video in Wikimedia Commons, so during the project linking of the files is the last aspect of the entire project which we found it difficult to accomplish, aftermath we try to linked them but the words in ha.Wikitionary are yet to be in existence. This time around we have a plan to run Wikimedia Pages Wanting Audios as part of our strategic planned, so that we can make use of every audio file uploaded in Wikimedia Commons, also during our research program we would conduct depth research on pages that are requiring audios, words in Wikitionary, articles needing audio pronounciation, musical/instrumental articles and accent/dialects across different languages.
• Breakdown of expenses: in the budget for video creation tutorials and research programs.

1 - Video creation tutorials; we make a provision of $1,000 for eight communities to create a video tutorial in their native, the detail expenses for the 1,000 USD will be for data support, tools, editing expensesm, childcare and studio technical expenses.

2 - Research programs expenses for On -Wiki research and documentation and Data and information/Libraries and Books is below

• Transportation expenses: Departure expenses from academics, libraries, villages, street walking.
• Refreshment; during conducting the research.
• Interview/questionnaire/oral languages surveillances: Designing interview to collect data and information from different native speakers in form questionnaires, google doc, students linguistic academic projects.
• Meetings for research program;
• Logistics:Documentation/Communication materials;
• Data analysis and report writting:

Note: we allocate 20,000 USD to this in the budget table, but the things that will cost the amount will be distributed to the above mentioned activities according to their needs.

• Sorry for the mistake, the project is designed for the duration of 6 months not 12 months, as stated on the summary page/probox of the proposal that the start date is 2023-01-01 and the end date is 2023-05-30. Unfortunately, we mistakenly states in the budget that the budget is for the period 2022-11-25 to 2023-04-25 (cell B5) which was corrected accordingly.
• Again We also made a mistake which was recently corrected by now in the budget expenses doc, correction is below;

1. creation and conversion/equalization: Here 10 videos will be created for creation and conversion/equalization, 5 for creation and 5 for conversion/equalization making the total of 10.
2. Event videos:Video to cover the entries of the 10 evnts;

• We planned to have an accountant so as to be able to book record all the funds interms of spending and management. For easy accountability, management, transparency and also records keeping.

Thank you once again for taking time to ask this question for clarification, we do hope that the answers we provided will be sufficiently understood, we look forward to further question for clarification, on behalf of WikiSound Audio Speaks Campaign Organizers. An@ss_koko^(Talk2me) 10:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of 10,100 USD

Hello Anas and Musa ,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 10,100 USD, with a grant term starting January 2023- June2023.

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended funding in the amount $10,100 for the period of January 2023 - December 2023 .

We are pleased to see your interest in building a new idea that has potential impact for our movement. We see the proposal in its current form as ambitious and needing a deeper review to support establish a pragmatic plan that would move the actualize the idea. The idea has great potential but needs careful and thoughtful planning for it to be a success.

We therefore recommend the following; Start working on a pilot Invite learning from other similar campaigns such as WPWP to learn how they started and continue to implement the successful campaign with minimal resourcing. Take time to develop a new workplan that is also clear about volunteer engagement

We thoroughly reviewed the budget and believe with the recommend funding amount you would still be able to implement the project but within a period of 6 months to allow for ample time for learning, planning , implementation, and reflection and learning. Here is an example of how you might allocate the recommended budget for the pilot ;

• Grant Launch (online): $1,000
• Promotional Campaign: $1,000
• Organization of edit-a-thon: $1,500
• Awards and prizes: $1,100= (300+200+100= 600 Inter) + (50*10=500 local)
• Creation of video: $2,000
• Other costs (studio cost + data): $2,500
• Research programme: $1,000

We wish you the very best in your project and look forward to learning about the impact of you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:08, 1 December 2022 (UTC)