CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop of river activists at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Rajasthan

Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS) is an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India. The documentation of rivers on Wiki was started by it’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of CIS-A2K. After realizing the potential of this concept, TBS has decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajsthan. This was the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 for 34 participants from eight states of India.

Background edit

CIS-A2K is collaborating with different organisations working on water & river issues. The process started after the River Dialogue organised by SANDARP & INTACH in Yashada, Pune. The initiative to document river issues on Wiki was taken up by Jal Biradari, Sangli. The parent organisation of Jal Biradari is Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS). TBS is running a movement called Jal Jan Jodo across India to connect people with the rivers to rejuvenate them. Looking at the potential in the concept, after the pilot in Sangli, TBS decided to take this methodology across India. The capacity building program is chalked out to train activists in different states. The first workshop in this series was organised in December 2018 at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. To create awareness and curiosity among citizens, we have collaborated with this initiative to facilitate knowledge resource building in Wikimedia Projects.

Objectives edit

To build open knowledge resource on Water related issues in all Indian languages
To document the River Basins of India
To train the volunteers working in this sector to work in Wikimedia projects
To plan for Open Street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river
To bring free content on Commons & Wikisource projects

Event details edit

Dates :22-25 December 2018
Time : 10am to 7pm
Venue : Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, District Alwar, Rajasthan, India

Participants (Usernames) edit

Earth Unit
Gaurav streethouse
sanneeri
Ashutoshrapatwar1
Rjt20
Komal297
Sindal
Vanquisher002
NityaRai09
Vinni Munjal
Mahaveer prasad vaishnav
रागिनी
नलिनी मिश्रा
राजु राम
Mithilesh Kr.Gupta
Bhojpuri2018
Amanwalia2020
DeepakShrote
Sreehari Pendor
Indu94
Ananyavid
Simantabharati
Mrityunjay1010
Akshayshree
आपकी आवाज
KPSINGH 1964
bkrmunda2269
Bharat kumar tbs
Santosh.pawar1991
vgarg653
Gopal Singh Dewat
Shashankbharatsingh
Sohanibi
GopalSinghudawat

Facilitators edit

Dr Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya
Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K

Agenda edit

Preparation of schematic maps of river basin
Mapping the location details from origin to confluence with major river
Listing of water bodies, villages, stakeholders in the river basin
Learning editing in Wikipedia, working in sandboxes,
Article structure, manual of style, references
Copyrights, Uploading media files on Commons
Content donation to Wikisource
Working with Open street maps and OSMAnd app

Report edit

The national level iteration of Jal Bodh was conducted between 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan for activists of Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan from eight states. The 34 participants were trained in this four day workshop. They started contributing in various languages. The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.
After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline & online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. Tarun Bharat Sangh has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA.

Feedback edit

Rivers are very basic essence of existence of life in land. Thus, keeping sanctity, health and preservation of rivers are utmost important. The Wikimedia workshop during December in TBS on inclusion of river science, it's genesis and awareness to protect it through Wikipedia was really worthwhile. It provided wing to individuals like me to pendown more on revival of rivers because of present river pollution issues. The Wikipedia as an open forum can put an intense and long standing impact by including river as portal because mainstream can easily get the zeitgeist of problems, ways to tackle and sometimes use society as a whole to respond for revival of rivers. - Username:Mrityunjay1010

The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of commonning the Knowledge for the common good. The workshop gave me an another lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Again, Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop. Practical learning to edit the Wikipedia throughout the workshop has boosted my confidence and enthusiasm to create new pages on Wikipedia to devote myself in gap fulfilling for knowledge building and preservation (majorly documenting the local knowledge). The increase in cyber literacy and growing usage of smartphones have increased the context and significance of Wikipedia in recent times. I believe this campaign is worth devoting our time and concern. - Username:Simantabharati

Links edit

Outreach dashboards for Hindi & English Wikipedia.

Gallery edit

Workshop of river activists in progress