Wikimedians of United Arab Emirates User Group/About us

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MISSION

Background

The Beginnings

It all started when two members of the Emirates Literature Foundation traveled to Morocco for the WikiArabia conference 2019 to learn how we could launch a literary project in Wikipedia. And it was during this trip, that we discovered Wikipedia is entirely written by volunteers who believe in free information being available to everyone, everywhere!

Unfortunately, this culture of information sharing did not exist widely in the Arab world’s literary scene, and there was a significant gap in information-sharing of the Arabic literature on Wikipedia.

Kateb Maktub

“Fostering the culture of information: Arabic Literature in Focus”

The Kateb Maktub team believes in the power of literature. We all know that literature has the power to change and empower people. Despite this, there is little information available to the public about Arabic books and authors, either offline or online. The desire to read any given book begins with the knowledge that it exists!

The Kateb Maktub project was launched on 15 December 2020 by the Emirates Literature Foundation, a non-profit organization. This project is dedicated to raising awareness of not only authors and books, but also the critical importance of high-quality information. Therefore, the Team is encouraging schools, universities, and individuals to get involved and collaborate in order to increase and enrich Arabic content online.

Awareness

We are keen to connect the dots in the Arabic publishing ecosystem, so emphasizing the importance of quality information to industry stakeholders and reaching out to schools and universities is critical. We also send regular updates to our extensive press network about authors whom we have gathered information and who deserve to be known by a larger audience.

Training

We provide training sessions for anyone interested in learning how to create Wikipedia pages. These sessions also emphasize the importance of reliable, accurate, and specific information, which is critical for those who assist in data collection and articles’ creation.  

The Wikimedians of UAE User Group

“We want to start a movement in the UAE and grow beyond what we are doing”

The UAE User group was formally created by the joint efforts of three Wikimedians in 2019.

In 2021, the Kateb Maktub took over the Wikimedians of the UAE User Group and became the User Group’s official organizers. We wanted to start a movement because we believe we can go beyond what we are doing in the UAE! We are a group of individuals who are passionate about our project and User Group, and we have received our first grant to implement our strategy to grow our UAE Wikimedians community in 2022!

We believe that User Groups are important in the Wikimedia movement because it empower and engage people around the world to collect, develop, and disseminate education content effectively and globally.

Objectives

The Wikimedians of UAE User Group has a clear vision of what they aim to achieve and as the group expands our objectives grow more, we have three main objectives:

• Enriching the content gap in Arabic Wikimedia projects.
• Increasing Participation and cultivating sustainable communities of Emirati content creators and researchers, who move on to teach others about the importance of this cause and bring in more volunteers into the wide space of Wikimedia projects.
• Increasing awareness of the importance of freely accessible and reliable data in Arabic and easing the process of reaching quality information without having to be of a certain level of status.

To achieve these goals, the UAE User Group developed a plan that consists of five main Programs:

Education and Digital Literacy

• Form collaborations with universities in the Arab World to train students and develop their skills to contribute to various Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia and recruit interns to support the enriching of Arabic content.
• Train specialists and develop their skills to contribute on various Wiki projects.
• Build partnerships both locally and internationally with reliable sources of data.

Community Outreach

• Organize multiple edit-a-thons and translate-a-thons per year in different locations across the UAE’s cultural centers.
• Organize competitions to incentivize the community and the beginners to Wikimedia projects to participate. These competitions can be in a specialized field or different fields.
• Organize meetups and local and international conferences to engage more contributors and to raise awareness about free accessible knowledge.

Media Outreach

• Contribute to opinion pieces and articles in major Arab newspapers to talk about the importance of data sharing and open-source information sharing.
• Host media gatherings to give visibility to our User Group initiatives and activities.
• Send out regular p1ress releases and announcements of milestones achievement and new initiatives.
• Engage journalism students to contribute to awareness tools provided by Wikimedia projects including Wikinews and Wikipedia.
• Create Social Media engagement campaign on most social media platforms to increase awareness and build a UAE community.

Research Program

• Allocate a research fund that will focus on specific subject areas including all GLAM projects.
• Ensure that the research plan covers both Arabic and English.
• Use this research as a foundation for all volunteers to create content on Wikimedia projects.

UAE Identity Projects

• Organize Wiki Loves X UAE contests in May and June.
• UAE in Lens project: We will develop at least two photography competitions or campaigns to promote significant visual content about the natural and cultural heritage of the UAE to be uploaded on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
• Connect different monuments or museums to Arabic Wikipedia articles through QR codes as well as building collaborations with different cultural and historical sites.