I don't know much personally about women's participation from Iran, but
I have a couple tidbits to add: Regarding the fundraiser, Iran is a
special case due to the U.S. embargo. Although we actually get a decent
amount of traffic from Iran, we do not run banner ads in Iran, nor do we
accept donations due to the embargo. We also can't give travel
scholarships to people in Iran, so there probably weren't any people
from Iran at Wikimania last year, which is where most of the appeal
interviews happened. It would probably be possible for a non-U.S.
chapter to cover some of these gaps, but unfortunately the Foundation's
hands are tied on the matter.
Regarding articles on women from Iran, I did notice that en.wiki has no
article on Nooshabeh Amiri, the journalist and political dissident.
Otherwise, I would say en.wiki's coverage of Iranian women (and related
articles) is better than average for that area of the world.
One person that might be good to contact is User:Mehran on English
Wikipedia. He is active on both fa.wiki and en.wiki and speaks both
languages well. He might be able to act as a liaison.
Ryan Kaldari