WikiArabia 2019/Program/Knowledge in the time of Crisis (Build Solidarity for Survival with the Wikimedia Projects)
- Submission no. مداخلة رقم
- Title of the submission عنوان المداخلة
Knowledge in the time of Crisis (Build Solidarity for Survival with the Wikimedia Projects)
- Author(s) of the submission صاحب المداخلة
Mina Theofilatou
- Username اسم المستخدم
- E-mail address البريد الإلكتروني
saintfevrier
gmail.com
- Country of origin بلد الأصلي
Greece
- Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc. .الانتماء، إن كان (مجموعة، مؤسسة الخ
Wikipedia & Education User Group
- Type of session نوع الجلسة
Talk
- Language of session لغة الجلسة
English
- Length of session مدة الجلسة
30 min, مداخلة معتادة
- Theme of presentation موضوع الجلسة
- Abstract ملخص
Background
Throughout the 11 years I have been active on the Wikimedia projects, my emphasis has always been on "people value" rather than "stats". I started in 2007 as an educator at a school for second-chance learners on a Greek island, and our first theme was renewable energy sources. In 2010 the notorious Greek financial crisis entered our lives, and slowly started eating away at the fabric of Greek society. We responded by shifting our focus to projects with emphasis on survival: in hard times we must first and foremost tend for our sustenance, so we looked back at how people survived starvation in WWII to draw inspiration for our Wild Flora project.
This project was built into an Android app in English as well, to inspire other educators to explore biodiversity in the Mediterranean Region.
But I didn't stop there: if "healthy" individuals are being affected by the crisis, and if they can gain value from the WM projects, why not explore what we can do to help the ill? Wikitherapy was born out of this idea, and now the concept has been piloted in two countries with interest expressed from several more. This led to even more thinking about how the Wikimedia projects can help communities in crisis, and inevitably I ended up working on medical content, which is hugely lagging in Greek Wikipedia. With the help of James Heilman, I started translating into Greek the Wikidata items of the most important medical articles, and the WHO List of Essential Medicines is now available on Greek Wikipedia (the only instance of the list on all of the Greek Internet). What is interesting is that the Wikipedian who helped me most in the process was an Arab, and together we have discussed ways of expanding collaboration into other fields.
My presentation
In my talk I will highlight the most important points of my journey on Wikimedia, with emphasis on the role of knowledge in the time of crisis. Case studies, photos, videos and perhaps even a live demonstration of a custom-coded app for the conference (if conditions allow) will be used to show how knowledge builds solidarity, and how solidarity is the key for survival in these interesting times.
- What will attendees take away from this session? ماذا سيستفيد الحضور من هذه الجلسة؟
- For Educators: ways to use Wikimedia editing in the classroom as a skill-building tool for the new generation (critical thinking, importance of reliable sources and sparking creativity in conjunction with other open-source/cc-licensed educational platforms like AppInventor, while at the same time developing digital literacy)
- For Health Professionals and/or Wikipedia trainers: how training disadvantaged individuals to edit the Wikimedia projects can bring value to their lives, and to the WM projects
- For Everyone: How we as Wikimedians can work together to combat the effects of crisis... and build solidarity for survival with hope for a better world :)
- Will you attend WikiArabia if your submission is not accepted? هل ستحضر لويكي عربية إذا لم يتم قبول مداخلتك؟
Depends on scholarship
- Special requests طلبات خاصة
wifi connection for live demonstration of app on Android device using MIT AppInventor
- Is this Submission a Draft or Final? هل هذا الطلب مسودة أم نهائي؟
Final
Interested attendees مهتمون بالحضور edit
If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest.
إذا كنت مهتمًا بحضور هذه الجلسة، فرجاءا قم بإضافة اسم المستخدم أدناه. سيساعد هذا المراجعين على تحديد ما هي الجلسات ذات الاهتمام الكبير