Usuario:Ybsen lucero/Taller6

Goals

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

Wikimania Venezuela: The Wikimania festival in Caracas was one of the many local events around the world that revolved around the 2022 edition of Wikimania. This would not have been possible without the collaboration between Wikimedia Venezuela and Wikimedia Small Projects in Spanish; their joint efforts made this festival a reality.

It was organized a Wikimania in-person meeting, it served three purposes:

• The first was that this event was the WMVE's comeback to in-person events after two years of the pandemic, so it was a meaningful event for the community that hasn't seen each other in person after a long time.
• The second was that this event was the first WMSP's presenctial event.
• And the third was to celebrate our internal and external community, who have been accompanying us throughout this time, plus the event served to integrate new members and new allies of the Wikimedia projects to our communities.

This Wikimania in-person meeting provided us with invaluable experience because it was the first event that was organized for two affiliates from our country. It was a challenge to get our communities back online after such a long time, but we managed to get high participation and were able to meet with community members again.

The grant provided the whole expenses of the event, this means scholarships for people out of Caracas, the venue and the food, goodies for the attendees and for the speakers, and stationery costs.

• 
  The Event's Organising Committee
• 
  Speech from Luis Carlos Díaz: Human Rights on Social Networks
• 
  Raysilut Valero giving her lighting talk.
• 
  Luis Serrano talking about Cybersecurity
• 
  Carlos Mora talking about Small Projects
• 
  Wikimania 2022, Day 2. Live Broadcast

Outcome

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

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?

Promoting our awards scheme was a success; utilising our social media channels to market the grant opportunities picked up a lot of traction, and we also used our internal Wikimedia email addresses to help publicise. As our intended recipients would be outside the UK, we were keen to maximise our reach and ensure that the suitable candidates were informed on this opportunity. We received many applications, from a broad range of countries, emphasising the success of our promotional efforts. In addition, 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?

International bank transactions proved challenging and time consuming. We underestimated the lengthy process involved and did not have an efficient way of gathering our recipients' bank details. This led to some recipients receiving their grants late, and some transactions having higher bank charges than anticipated.

• What would you do differently next time?

We would request online payment details at the application stage asking for paypal or other online payment systems. This would not only simplify the transaction process, but would also prevent us from using significant funds on bank costs.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

£2547.45 was spent in total for scholarship grants and Wikimania related events. The breakdown is as follows: £1162.92- total in scholarship grants awarded £236- international bank charges £1148.53- Wikimania meetups- catering, event merchandise

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Of our original grant money of £2,750, we have £202.55 remaining.

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, and with the help of this remaining funding, we would like to launch several focus groups with communities in the UK who are currently underrepresented in our UK based Wikimedia community. 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.

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.