Wikimania 2022/Scholarships/Wikimedia Community User Group South Sudan/Report

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Wikimedia Community User Group South Sudan sought to provide substantial support to members of the South Sudan Wikimedia community who were not supported by funded Scholarships from Wikimania team from the Wikimedia Foundation. This was Wikimedia Community User Group South Sudan's first time in distributing Wikimania scholarship grants, and organising a physical meet up for a wikimania event in the country and it provided us with invaluable experience in how best to support members of our community who are restricted from immersing themselves in our events and programmes, due to financial or geographical factors. The experience was both challenging and rewarding and we are delighted that we were able to reach our goals of using the grant money for financial and technological assistance, as well Conducting a 3 day meet up with the yet growing wikimedia community in south sudan.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1-2 post-Wikimania meet-ups will be funded	3 day event was held across the South Sudan. Over 25 members of the WMUGSS community attended.	These informal gatherings were our first in-person events since the start of the pandemic and gave us a fantastic opportunity to meet and catch up with active members of our community. The budget for these events was put towards catering costs, internet and event merchandise.
Data packages for one month will be provided to 20 participants	All 30 recipients used some or all of their grant money for data support.	The use of grant money for data support may be explained by the geographical regions of our recipients. In this sense, we were able to cater for individuals with a lack of technological infrastructure in their locations. This can be highlighted by feedback given by one of our recipients, who stated: "Since the internet connection is still expensive in South Sudan, this grant alleviated the cost of logging in to the Wikipedia platform and continue editing, translating, and posting articles on Wikipedia".

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

We were so pleased to have a succeful 3 day physical meet up regardles of the extra expensive way the place was with two of the datys including, training, discusion and preparations for wikimania events. we managed to get partners who helped us with mobilisation and a great team of on ground preparation and security clearance for our event, since we are in a post war city, its a bit challenging with security but we mnanged to make it happen.

In addition, for those who never attended the physical meet up sessions of wikimania, we were pleased with the opportunities that we gave applicants to explain why they were requesting support and how they would use the grant. Our online application process included several open-text boxes, which allowed us to gain good insight into each applicant’s personal situation and need for support, helping to ensure we chose the most suitable candidates.

What did not work so well?

The exchange rates in the country and econmic situation affected us as things became extra expensive form the time we had aplied for the grants, causing a challenge in executing the projected plans.

What would you do differently next time?

We would love to study the exchange rates from the bank and balck market to get a better undersatnding of how much we should cost things

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

The breakdown is as follows: Childcare services (or similar family services) 300USD Data packages to distribute to Wikimania participants 1000 USD In addition to a total budget, please indicate the average data cost per person who will receive funds for this need. Administrative or operational costs for distributing funds 200USD Small hardware expenses to support access 300USD Video production support 1050 USD Wikimania meetups and watch parties during the days of the event 2000USD (Space, Power, Drinks, Feeding)

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No

We are happy with our efforts of helping to engage individuals who would otherwise be restricted from participating due to financial and geographical reasons. We would like to continue this work, amd with the availability of support from other interested partners who would love to provide us with space, we belive that our wikimedia community shall grow to become a great community of contributors towards south sudan content on wikimedia. Through this, we can gain a better insight into what work is needed to support their engagement and provide them with the necessary resources and/or support so that they can develop their skills, abilities and activities on Wikimedia platforms. This will hopefully have a significant impact on the breadth and diversity of our community, and help us in our efforts to increase engagement with and representation of marginalised people and subjects from different ends of the country.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Wikimedia benefits from its global community of dedicated volunteers- we are very proud that we were able to support them in participating in Wikimania this year and are truly grateful for your support.