This is excellent, and Jimmy's advice is wise.
Let's try to get this thing rolling first, as Abbas said, by beefing up the project plan with facts and figures, making sure we're comfortable with the technology, and preparing good outreach material. This last point is important: do you have local Wikimedians who are comfortable delivering general lectures on topics such as How Wikipedia Works or The Importance of Free Knowledge?
The Foundation and other chapters can help in several ways -- 1. sharing presentations and talk outlines that are known to work (for you to modify, edit, and customize, of course!) 2. providing outreach material (e.g. the Bookshelf project -- http://bookshelf.wikimedia.org) 3. providing funds for printing/producing outreach material. 4. providing general advice and support.
Let's keep the project planning on Meta (for maximal access to everyone, including people like Jimmy or Foundation staff not on this list), but we do have this new wiki dedicated to (the future) Wikimedia Kenya, for any sensitive discussions (for example, ones mentioning names of politicians or phone numbers etc.)
Cheers,
Asaf
On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Abbas Mahmoud abbasjnr@hotmail.comwrote:
Hi folks,
I've got some exciting news: I've been in contact with Jimmy Wales, the Founder of Wikipedia and he showed some interest in our upcoming project. Below is the thread that we had:
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:54:15 +0800 From: jwales@wikia-inc.com To: abbasjnr@hotmail.com CC: jwales@wikia.com; jwalesassist@gmail.com Subject: Please forward the text
How exciting!
Because I usually power through emails when I am offline (on a plane, etc.) it would be helpful to me if you could send me the text of the page that you reference, rather than just a link.
In general, I think the most effective thing that I can do is lend publicity support. What we could do is have me thoroughly study what you are proposing to do, when it will launch, and then we can ask the Foundation to assist with outreach to local media (although you will be better situated to do this directly I think, they can assist with supporting materials for the press, etc.)
Additionally, if you need help getting an audience with a high-level minister, then it is often possible for me to organize that, setting up a phone call in which I would be the "bait" to get them to accept the call but you or another WM Kenya representative joining the call to give the actual substance of the proposal.
And of course, a personal visit from me usually generates a lot of press headlines and awareness, and I would be eager to do that, as I have never visited Kenya. However, due to the extreme demands on my time, it is unlikely that I will be able to come to Kenya anytime before next summer at the earliest. So we should add this to a "wish list" but proceed with other plans first.
--Jimbo
On 10/25/10 6:55 PM, Abbas Mahmoud wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
How are you doing? Remember me, the Kenyan/Swahili Wikipedian that you interviewed in Poland?
Anyway, I'd like to inform you that there has been a small, but relatively motivated bunch of Wikipedians here in Kenya that decided to start up a Wikimedia Kenya chapter. See: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Kenya. We've managed to achieve impressive progress so far, drafted the bylaws and submitted them to the Wikimedia Foundation Chapters Committee for approval. However, we decided not to just sit and wait for the committee to approve us. We therefore have been discussing an upcoming Wikipedia Project targeted at primary and secondary schools in Kenya. Please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Kenya/Project_for_Kenyan_Schools for more details. (I know that this proposal is abit of a skeleton at the moment, but we're still gathering some facts and we'll beef it up in due course.)
Is there any form of support that we could get from you?
Warm regards, Abbas Mahmoud.
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