Let's Connect Newsletter/Archive/2023/Issue 21

Let’s Connect Newsletter Issue 21

What is happening in Let’s Connect this month

Welcome to December's issue of the Let’s Connect monthly newsletter. It’s been a few months since we last connected, and we’re excited to return with a fresh update and some exciting news! As we close out 2024, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the journey so far, share what we've been working on, and look ahead to the next couple of months. Whether you have clicked into our learning clinics or Connectathon, we’re grateful to have shared space with you over the last few months.

Let’s dive in!

Did you miss Learning Clinics - no worries!

What Learning Clinics can you start getting excited about 2025?

January Learning Clinics

[January 16th] - Sub Saharan Africa region: How do you measure success?

February Learning Clinics

[Date to be discussed] Introduction to WikiLeann

March Learning Clinics

[March 15th] Wikimedians and internet outages

Other learning opportunities in the Movement

The Wikimania 2025 Scholarship is open and the deadline for submission is Sunday, December 8, 2024. Find the video recordings of Wikimania and Wikimania Scholarship Process Orientation Sessions available on the Wikimania 2025 Scholarships page.

The announcement for scholarship applications for the Central Asian WikiCon 2025, taking place on April 19–20, 2025, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, are now open. Scholarships are available to support active contributors from Central Asia and the surrounding regions. Deadline: December 30, 2024

Story from Let’s Connect

We want to take you on a journey over the last few months on the conferences the Working Group members have attended. We hope and plan to attend more so that we can invite organisers like yourselves to lead learning clinics with us there and also share our sessions live. If you were at any of these conferences, we would love to hear your experience! In the future, if you have attended any regional events or conferences, we are happy to share your experiences with photos if you have any.

Let’s Connect at Wikimania 2024

The Let’s Connect Working Group members, Chinmayee Mishra, Bukola James, Gorana Gomirac, and Lucy Hinnie, hosted 3 in-person learning clinics and 1 in-person connectathon at Wikimania in Katowice. We also partnered with Andi Inácio and Jan Bart de Vreede who were our partners in 2 of the learning clinics.

This Wikimania was the first time at least half of the team got to meet each other in person for the first time. We were grateful to have been able to share space with those of you who were there with us in our sessions.

Let’s Connect during the 3rd Wikimedia Technology Summit (WTS 2024)

Our working group member Chinmayee Mishra from South Asia based in India participated in the 3rd Wikimedia Technology Summit (WTS 2024) held on 4th & 5th of October 2024.

She briefly oriented the participants in an un-conference space about what the Let’s Connect peer learning program is about and where the relevant information can be found. Why is peer-learning vital for wikimedians? How Let’s Connect is gradually increasing its impact and introducing the resources that have been created so far and being utilized by several affiliates across the world.

Let's Connect at WikiConference Nigeria 2024

Bukola James, our liaison for Sub-Saharan Africa based in Nigeria, attended the WikiConference Nigeria 2024 and led a Let’s Connect session to share its experiences and learnings. The session covered an introduction to Let’s Connect, highlighting its global impact and specific achievements in Nigeria, including regional implementations led by Barakat Adegboye and Musa Umar.

The session also included a panel discussion where regional leaders (Barakat Adegboye and Musa Umar) shared their experiences, challenges, and recommendations for future implementations. Key takeaways from the session include the need for expanding regional implementation to other parts of Nigeria, increasing funding, and organizing more physical learning clinics and connectathons.

Lets Connect at the Wiki Indaba 2024 Conference

Bukola James and Communications lead Justice Okai-Allotey, our second Sub-Saharan Africa working group member, hosted a session at WikiIndaba 2024 to share its impact and experiences with emerging communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. While technical difficulties prevented the planned panel discussion, the session evolved into an informal conversation among African Wikimedians.

The session highlighted Let’s Connect’s global and regional impact, particularly in Nigeria and Tanzania, where numerous learning clinics and regional implementations have been organized. Attendees discussed challenges, successes, and future directions for Let’s Connect, including expanding its reach to other regions and providing more support to new affiliates. Despite the technical hiccups, the session was successful in generating interest and fostering valuable discussions among the participants.

Let's Connect at Wiki Arabia 2024

Serine Ben Brahim, our MENA liaison, Farida El Gueretly, Regional Partnerships Consultant - Middle East & North Africa, and Cassie Casares, Community Development team member and Let’s Connect Program Lead, co-lead a learning clinic and a connectathon. The learning clinic/panel discussion - Knowledge is identity: MENA contributors who come from conflict areas/war zones, featuring User:Batoul84 from Wiki Palestine and Rashad Al-Khmisy from Wikimedians of Yemen User Group. Serine and Cassie informed the audience that this learning clinic was not a traditional one and that the topic might bring up a lot of emotional feelings and discomfort. They also made sure that the audience were not to ask personal questions to the panelist or comments. The purpose of the discussion was to bring awareness about the lived experiences some of our MENA Wikimedians go through -while still contributing to the sister projects of Wikimedia. The audience of this learning clinic received the highlight of this topic well and were appreciative of us holding the space to talk about a topic that is usually never discussed in Wikimedian spaces.

As a relaxed way to connect, Connectathon: Candies and Cultures - a gathering of anyone who was interested in bringing their favourite sweets from their country. To their surprise, most participants of the connectathon ended up bringing traditional wedding and party deserts from their country. Each person went in front of the room to show which sweet they brought and where it was from. They all bonded over all the sweets while learning about each other's culture.

WikiPaint at WikiArabia 2024

As a fun activity to welcome the newcomers at the conference, mostly made up of young Omani editors, Cassie who is an artist/painter outside of Wikimedia, was invited by the Wikimedia UAE User Group to lead a WikiPaint session. It was a space to be able to connect with one another away from blue screens and digital spaces.

WikiPaint allowed the conference attendees to create something physical that was related to WikiArabia. Cassie split the room into two groups and to make sure participants didn't get intimidated by a big white blank space of canvas, especially for those who do not play with art often, Cassie divided the canvases into a grid. The smaller square spaces allowed for the groups to fill a smaller space vs a large space. By the end of it, the two groups presented their art pieces to each other and described their art pieces related to WikiArabia 2024.

Resource to check out:

Have you checked out the Let’s Connect resources page on Meta. It has all resources shared from our Learning clinic’s so far.

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