I'm sorry to hear about this. We all lose out when a multi national event excludes large parts of the world.

This has come up in the past several times and some partial solutions have been discussed. 

We need to build in enough time in the process for people who need visas to get them after they know they have a place at the conference.

We need to prefer venues that are in countries with relatively open borders (the first Wikimania I attended was in Argentina).

If we must sometimes hold events in hard to enter countries such as the UK and US we should try to alternate them with more open countries such as Argentina and Mexico - I think we've also held Wikimania in Egypt and Taiwan.

It would be good if the WMF were able to prioritise scholarships for people who were unable to take up a scholarship the previous year due to visa problems.

The cost and difficulty of getting visas needs to be high in the evaluation criteria of different potential venues.

Regards

WSC


On Tue, 16 Aug 2022 at 13:05, <wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
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Today's Topics:

   1. Reflections about Visa situation for Wikimedians (Anass Sedrati)
   2. Re: Reflections about Visa situation for Wikimedians (Mardetanha)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2022 12:13:09 +0200
From: Anass Sedrati <sedranas@gmail.com>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Reflections about Visa situation for
        Wikimedians
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
        <CALH7XPvFP03Qb=jTAJZrRYY2JDjn53PKueef29acuHUh_jpHRw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="000000000000f4dad705e65900a7"

Hello all,

This might not be relevant for all, but since we are a global movement
striving for equity between all humans, I would like to share a reflection
regarding the situation of some of us, and the challenges that are
unfortunately not yet solved, although we are familiar with them since
years.

As you know, the Wikimedia summit is happening soon, and our user group
(Wikimedia Morocco User group) had a member invited to attend it in person.
As soon as he knew about his participation, our member started preparing
his documentation and went to book a time at the German embassy. To his
surprise, the first appointments were until October (while the conference
is in September). This resulted in this member not being able to attend the
summit in-person, as well as all our user group (as this is not
person-dependent, but systemic, so anyone living in Morocco and applying
for a visa will not get it before October).

Unfortunately, this issue is not an exception. It is almost the rule. In
every Wikimedia conference, there are people not able to attend because of
Visa issues, yet it is not properly addressed.

Many of the challenges in our movement are addressed or at least discussed
in different forums and strategies. However, it feels that the equity in
participating in-person for Visa required participants is not a priority.
Usually, invites come at a time that does not really allow a good
preparation of the documentation (and embassy appointments), and there is
no support with the embassies, so inexperienced volunteers are left to
themselves dealing with very official instances, who just simply reject
their applications or give them appointments within months from now.

I am sharing these personal reflections after witnessing several problems
that happened to many members through time with the same issue. I would
like to know how this can be better solved in the future? Can conferences
prepare documentation 6 months before they start? Can the WMF give official
support and help contacting embassies? Is there any way to address this in
a good manner?

I feel really sad that there is no equity in this matter. I know that it is
naïve to think about a world without borders, but isn't our Wikimedia
movement supposed to support everyone? How can we be better at this?

P.S: This post is not about myself or situation, but rather a reflection
after talking with many people facing this issue in my region, and who
missed so many events because of Visas. I don't want them to miss events
again in the future! Is it possible?

Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I wish you a good
Tuesday!

Best regards,
--
-----------------------------------------------------
*Anass SEDRATI*
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:39:18 +0430
From: Mardetanha <mardetanha.wiki@gmail.com>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Reflections about Visa situation for
        Wikimedians
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
        <CAN6NyNq=BU8cMD9a3Bahn+P_xGYsM15DfHdbE8y1Wox1mhN2-w@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="0000000000004d172805e659c864"

Thanks anass, I am sympathetic to this occurrence, as I have suffered from
this issue for a long time, I urge all event organizers to take this into
consideration and plan as early as possible.

Mohsen
Mardetanha


On Tue, Aug 16, 2022 at 2:43 PM Anass Sedrati <sedranas@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> This might not be relevant for all, but since we are a global movement
> striving for equity between all humans, I would like to share a reflection
> regarding the situation of some of us, and the challenges that are
> unfortunately not yet solved, although we are familiar with them since
> years.
>
> As you know, the Wikimedia summit is happening soon, and our user group
> (Wikimedia Morocco User group) had a member invited to attend it in person.
> As soon as he knew about his participation, our member started preparing
> his documentation and went to book a time at the German embassy. To his
> surprise, the first appointments were until October (while the conference
> is in September). This resulted in this member not being able to attend the
> summit in-person, as well as all our user group (as this is not
> person-dependent, but systemic, so anyone living in Morocco and applying
> for a visa will not get it before October).
>
> Unfortunately, this issue is not an exception. It is almost the rule. In
> every Wikimedia conference, there are people not able to attend because of
> Visa issues, yet it is not properly addressed.
>
> Many of the challenges in our movement are addressed or at least discussed
> in different forums and strategies. However, it feels that the equity in
> participating in-person for Visa required participants is not a priority.
> Usually, invites come at a time that does not really allow a good
> preparation of the documentation (and embassy appointments), and there is
> no support with the embassies, so inexperienced volunteers are left to
> themselves dealing with very official instances, who just simply reject
> their applications or give them appointments within months from now.
>
> I am sharing these personal reflections after witnessing several problems
> that happened to many members through time with the same issue. I would
> like to know how this can be better solved in the future? Can conferences
> prepare documentation 6 months before they start? Can the WMF give official
> support and help contacting embassies? Is there any way to address this in
> a good manner?
>
> I feel really sad that there is no equity in this matter. I know that it
> is naïve to think about a world without borders, but isn't our Wikimedia
> movement supposed to support everyone? How can we be better at this?
>
> P.S: This post is not about myself or situation, but rather a reflection
> after talking with many people facing this issue in my region, and who
> missed so many events because of Visas. I don't want them to miss events
> again in the future! Is it possible?
>
> Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I wish you a good
> Tuesday!
>
> Best regards,
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------
> *Anass SEDRATI*
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------------------------------

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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 570, Issue 3
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