CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/WikiCamp Arhavi
- By: Basak
Two user groups from the neighboring countries in CEE region organized a wikicamp for students at a small town by the Black Sea.
Wikimedians in Türkiye collaborated with Wikimedians in Georgia in organizing the first WikiCamp for students in the country. The event was organized for bringing members of Wikipedia Student Clubs started in 4 Turkish universities in the last two years as well as active students who are in the process of starting their club and academicians supporting them.
The Wiki Camp was organized in Arhavi, a small town close to the Georgian border and the Turkish group was joined by a small group of students from Wikipedia Clubs at Georgian high schools and their teachers.The participants stayed at the only hotel of the town. Arhavi College, 170 -student school in the town opened its library, the conference room, and schools cafeteria for this event. The teachers and students of the college welcomed wikimedians with enthusiasm.
During two days the Turkish group learned a lot about editing Wikipedia, Wikidata and Commons wikimedia both from the presenters and from each other. The program also included sessions on introduction to OpenstreetMap and understanding the basics of Artificial Intelligence; discussion on the Gender Gap problem at Wikipedia, a panel about activities and future of the Wikipedia Student Clubs and an edit-a-thon about Georgia and Arhavi related topics. On the other hand Georgians group focused on editing more, and created most of the 209 articles about Turkish and Georgian villages of the region produced during the event.
In addition to attending sessions and editing, all participants “kicked horon” at the breaks (see the video), went to Mençuna Waterfall excursion, ate Laz Böreği the founder of the school cooked for the participants herself.
Those were unforgettable moments for everyone involved, a big motivation for the participants to continue their efforts to promote the Wikimedia mission in their schools. After such great start, the WikiCamps will definitely continue in Türkiye.