CIS-A2K/Events/Facilitating User Group's Partnerships in West Bengal

Background

The West Bengal Wikimedians User group invited CIS-A2K's Partnerships officer to support in the collaborative activities for the growth of Wikisource and GLAM projects in West Bengal. A2K is collaborating with User group for the projects in the North East region. We have been working in Arunachal Pradesh on RIWATCH project and in Meghalaya on Cultural GLAM project.

Visit report

A2K member Subodh Kulkarni visited West Bengal from 24 to 31 July to facilitate the West Bengal Wikimedians User group in partnerships. In these visits, three WBG members and one member of Santali Wikimedians User Group participated in meetings with various organisations.

The first visit was made to Viswa-Bharati University in Santiniketan on 25 July to revive the proposals submitted just before the pandemic. The Wikimedia projects orientation and discussions were held with Dean, Bhasha Bhavan and other language department heads. After discussing the possibilities of integrating academics with content creation on Wikimedia projects, it was decided to organise a workshop on Wikidata and Wikisource for the faculty. The proposal will be submitted jointly by CIS-A2K and WBG. We also met the Director of Rabindra Bhavan to discuss the possible GLAM projects. The proposal will be submitted to the Registrar for perusal.

On 26 July, we visited the various projects run by Ghosaldanga Bishnubati Adibasi Trust founded by Dr. Boro Baski. The community based organisation has developed a Museum of Santal Culture, which displays Santal community cultural and social aspects. We visited an innovative primary school run by Ghosaldanga Adibasi Seva Sangha. Boro Baski explained the history behind the genesis and unique methodology of education. WBG is planning a photo and video documentation of this museum and school. The Santali Wikimedians will also be involved in this activity. We also discussed the potential project on collaborative documentation of the Santali food festival to be held in December.

The visit to the Suchana organisation working on education and community development was an inspiring one. They have created innovative educational resources in several underrepresented languages. We discussed on different aspects of language and possible projects. The Wikimedia session was also conducted for the volunteers.

The meetings with key officials of School of Cultural Texts and Records  and Department of Linguistics were conducted in Jadavpur University on 30 July. We learnt about the ongoing projects and discussed the future opportunities for collaboration.

Apart from the institutional visits, we also had extensive meetings with eminent Bengali wrier Tapan Bandyopadhyay and biodiversity expert Silanjan Bhattacharyya. In these meetings, relicensing of literature and content partnerships were discussed.

Subodh also participated in the Wikisource meet-up organised by the User Group and shared his experiences of relicensing and digitisation partnerships in Maharashtra state. The proposed event in Silchar to promote relicensing and digitisation was also discussed.

Follow-up

The collaborative project proposals on Santali forest food documentation, Small language documentation with Community engagement and Bhasha Bhavan workshop will be developed with mutual interactions. The clarity on roles and responsibilities will be achieved through regular meetings and technical sessions.

Gallery

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  Meeting with Bhasha Bhavana officials in Visva-Bharati University
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  Discussion with Boro Baski about Santal Culture museum and school
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  Boro Baski explaining museum artifacts
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  Wikimedia session at Suchana organisation
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  Free knowledge session at Suchana, Khanjanpur
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  Meeting in School of Cultural texts and records, Jadavpur University
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  Wikimedians' discussion with biodiversity expert Silanjan Bhattacharyya
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  A2K member presenting in Bangla Wikisource meet-up at Kolkata