Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia UG Georgia/2020/First sAPG for Georgian UG

Program story

Each and every activity implemented during the first sAPG for Georgian UG was in full correlation with aims and targets of the Annual and Strategic Plans of Wikimedia UG Georgia.

The funds received during the First sAPG were targeting achievement of four main goals: 1) Content Gap, 2) Increasing Participation, 3) Community Support, Development & Promoting Wikimedia, 4) Collaborate with GLAM, Universities, Educational Institutions and other Wikimedia and Non-Wikimedia organizations.

Photo from the 19th birthday of Wikipedia in Tbilisi.

All of these programs were designed to develop Wikimedia projects in Georgian and other Wikimedia languages.

Despite restrictions of COVID-19 pandemics, Wikimedia UG Georgia actively promoted Wikimedia projects in Georgia and to aimed to create a coherent, sustainable and open Wikimedia community in Georgia. The implemented projects took full advantage of digitalization happening now. We were able to fully transform the way of operation as well as planned activities to be in full compliance with COVID-19 regulations and restrictions. This approach proved to be satisfactory, since we were able to achieve all the main goals and targets, but unfortunately demonstrated overall weakness of fully digital approach resulting in tremendously decreased in-person communication.

One of the main goals of Wikimedia UG Georgia in 2020 was to increase the content of Wikimedia projects (most crucially, Wikipedia) in Georgian language. To achieve this goal, Wikimedia UG Georgia held various competitions (Article Contests, Photography Contests, Wikimarathon) on Georgian Wikipedia. Contests were both international and local.

Improving the content of Wikimedia projects and especially Wikipedia, Wikidata and Commons is a strategic task and challenge for us. To address different gaps that we witness in Wikipedia, we implemented sevarl contests: Women in Wikipedia; CEE Spring; Georgia Democratic Republic; Tematic contest; Wiki Loves Caucasus; Wikipedia Asian Month and implemented a number of workshops to enhance quality of content the entire year.

A key activity of Wikimedia UG Georgia is to attract new volunteers, editors and people to the initiative of the Wikimedia movement, to develop and improve Wikimedia projects. The increase of the number of participants in Wikimedia projects, primarily in Georgian language, we designed and implemented a number of activities, and WikiClubs is one of our most valued flag-sheep projects.

Wikimedia UG Georgia currently has two active WikiClubs created in two regions of the country, from where one is also a tool for integrating national minorities of Georgia into the community, since it was created in the region of Georgia, where the sensible part of the population is an ethnic minority.

We can also be proud that with these projects we are attracting more female contributors and by this we develop and increase the diversity in our community.

No face-to-face meetings were implemented due to the spread of pandemics since summer, but we are proud to have fully been able to move to digital meetings and digital planning. This allowed us to increase engagement at different meetings related to the orgnaization - since some members live in regions, and it was not easy to plan meetings often due to logistical issues, digitalization allowed to us to increase number of online meetings and fully utilize potential of Wikimedians living in regions.

An important part of our work was promotion of Wikimedia projects using media (Social, Online media and etc.). In 2020 we signed a contract with one of the leading online media in Georgia, thus contributing a lot to break the negative narratives existing among Georgian public about Wikipedia and Wikimedia movement.

The Wikimedia UG Georgia is looking forward into the future and plans lots of different projects to implement our mission - collect, develop and disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or other licenses that allows everyone to freely use the knowledge, and to distribute and modify said content for free.