Wiki World Heritage User Group/Whindanger/Monthly reports/August 2021

Monthly targets

Launching the training of trainers in Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen and completing 50% of the sessions in Afghanistan.
Launching photography contests in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

Key activities

Preparation of training sessions material

The month of August was mainly dedicated for the training of trainers. For each session, a presentation was created in order to highlight the main points and set a background for discussion. Material was created in both Arabic and English in order to adapt to the different teams.

Session	Overview	English presentation	Arabic presentation
1st meeting	Presentation of the project, sessions calendar and details
Session 1: Overview of Wikipedia	Concept and principles of Wikipedia
Session 2: Editing	Editing tools, with focus on visual editor
Session 3: Content creation	Encyclopedic content principles and tips for writing
Session 4: Organizing editathon	How to organize an editathon, tools and best practices

Conducting training sessions

In each country, volunteer trainers were selected by the local partners (3 in Afghanistan, 5 in Libya and 6 in Yemen).
The sessions started in Libya and Yemen. As to Afghanistan, the training of trainers has been postponed until further notice, because of the current political circumstances.

Training team

NANöR & Nassima Chahboun.

Sessions calendar and remarks

Country	Session 1	Session 2	Session 3	Session 4	Assignments	Comments
Afghanistan	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	-	Postponed due to the political situation
Libya	07.08	10.08	21.08	30.08	Program on the Outreach Dashboard	Training was completed successfully during August (earlier than expected), and the volunteer trainers have a previous experience in leading volunteer initiatives
Yemen	20.08	23.08	TBD	TBD	Program on the Outreach Dashboard	Training was successfuly progressig. However, the sessions 3 and 4 have been postponed due to electricity problems in Yemen.

The small number of trainees (5 to 6) allowed us to develop a very friendly atmosphere, and to be able to assist them individually when needed, especially for the assignments. Besides the training sessions, we organized individual sessions with the trainees and ensured continuous follow-up on communication channels.

Preparation of advertizing material for the photography contest

In order to reach out to local photographers in the target countries, an advertizing campaign on Facebook and Instagram is going to be launched in September. Therefore, advertizing material for the two platforms was prepared (posters, cover photos, etc.). The goal is to present and advertize each site separately in both English and the local language(s) of the country in order to guarantee an equitable participation for all the sites.

Bamyan, Afghanistan
Jam Minaret, Afghanistan
Ashur, Iraq
Hatra, Iraq
Samarra, Iraq
Cyrene, Libya
Ghadames, Libya
Leptis Magna, Libya
Sabratha, Libya
Tadrart Acacus, Libya
Sana'a, Yemen
Shibam, Yemen
Zabid, Yemen

Preparation of the contest pages and campaigns

Pages

A contest page per country was prepared in both English and the local language(s):

Afghanistan: English, Dari and Pashto.
Iraq: English and Arabic.
Libya: English and Arabic.
Yemen: English and Arabic.

Furthermore, domaine names "www.whindanger-countryname.wiki" were purchased in order to make the contest pages more accessible: www.whindanger-afghanistan.wiki / www.whindanger-iraq.wiki / www.whindanger-libya.wiki / www.whindanger-yemen.wiki

Campaigns

Templates and categories were created by the team members.
Campaign pages bycountry were created by Nehaoua and NaNör after requesting Upload Wizard Campaign editors rights.

About Afghanistan

Due to the current political situation in Afghanistan. Some changes were introduced in response to new challenging circumstances:

Challenge	Response
Unability to each out to the local partner	Many international organizations started launching calls for action for Afghan Heritage, therefore we have been exploring collaboration possibilities., and found an international partner for the project (ARCH International) that has members in Afghanistan.
Afghan Heritage is exposed to new dangers	Expanding the photography contest to include all Heritage sites in Afghanistan, through adding a special category "Other Monuments"
Uncertainty and difficulty for the trainees to commit for 4 sessions	Postponing the ToT, and thinking about the alternative of organizing a series of mini-editathons instead, and also targetting the Afghan diaspora.