Dear African Wikipedians, 

Anthere and I have great pleasure telling you that the Wiki Loves Africa 2015 has been granted funding by the Wikimedia Foundation. In short - full speed ahead!! 

Sadly, they will only support 8 focus countries. This means that the competition for focus countries is fierce. If you haven’t already submitted your countries’ proposal, then there is little chance it will be considered now. We will be going through the proposals and get back to those who have submitted their proposals by the 31st August. 

We should also have the marketing materials and information by then. 

Just thought you would like to hear the good news!! 

warmest regards
Isla
On 17 Aug 2015, at 12:32 PM, Isla, WikiAfrica <isla@wikiafrica.net> wrote:

Dear Wikipedians in Africa

We have sent this to many individuals, but we might have missed someone - excuse the cross posting if you get this twice.

A while back, Anthere and I sent a request for country proposal from teams across Africa to participate in the Wiki Loves Africa 2015 competition. We need you to upload this proposal by the 30th August. Do not send the proposal by email. Write it up on meta and add a link here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa#Proposals_from_countries_that_wish_to_participate_in_2015 

If you have already sent it, then thank you. We have uploaded it and linked it. Please check that it is there.

If you haven’t, and you do wish to be involved, please can you upload the proposal directly to META, and link to the page above. The competition starts on the 1st October, the last day we can accept proposals is the 30th August. The theme this year is Cultural Fashion and Adornment. It will be an exciting and interesting theme. 

If you missed it, you can read the earlier email here:
Anthere and I are busy working with the WMF to get the grant proposal accepted - and are very interested in having new groups and countries on board! We would be very keen to consider you joining the group of sponsored volunteer groups, however this year we are wanting the teams to be proactive about their participation. Please see the information below that we sent out to last year’s organisers. If you would like to discuss these ideas among yourselves and get back to us by the end of this month, that would definitely give us an idea of who will be part of the project this year.

Anthere and I have applied to the WMF for Wiki Loves Africa 2015: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Africa_Centre/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2015


This time we are hoping that 10 countries will host events, and for this reason have tried to establish criteria for involvement so that it will be clear who can be part of the project. 

If you and your groups are keen to be involved, this year we are going to choose the groups based on their engagement plan. The plan should consider the following:
  • a cohesive plan of events over the two months of the competition - 
  • an event and communications budget that should not exceed the 820 USD (700 event, and 120 communication material) allocated to each country
  • a list of the core team members (including email addresses)
  • a list of possible partners and targets for local funding (in-kind or monetary)
  • an idea of how to encourage quality submissions, e.g. an alliance with local photography groups, etc.
For events, please consider the following:
  • a press launch, if you feel it is necessary 
  • an event aimed at introducing Wikimedia projects to a new audience that could potentially contribute and add to the user group team - a hub, interest group, school/ university, etc.
  • a quality photography demonstration by a local photography group before a wikitakes event
  • a collaboration with local designers or fashion event, or fashion and adornment heritage institution.
I look forward to seeing your proposals posted up by the 30th August!!

warmest regards
Isla and Anthere




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Isla Haddow-Flood
Project Manager
WikiAfrica at the Africa Centre               

tel:       +27 21 418 3336
skype:  islahaddow