Wikipedia for Peace 2016
| Wikipedia for Peace | Participants | Program and Ideas | Article lists | Results |
A peace project in Jenbach, from 10-21 August 2016! We think that Wikipedia needs more and better content on social movements, justice and peace in general. So we started up Wikipedia for Peace, which is a community project organised by Wikimedia Österreich and Service Civil International Austria. The project is organised as a "workcamp", where people from different backgrounds come together for about two weeks to write and edit content about topics related to peace on Wikipedia. The project took place for the first time in 2015 in Vienna (for more info see Wikipedia for Peace 2015). 2016 it is organised from August 10-21 in Jenbach (Austria), with 15 participants from all over the world and with a special focus on environmental justice. So we will spend our time in the Austrian Alps writing and editing articles about activists engaging in movements for environmental protection and social justice around environmental issues.
What is Service Civil International?
Service Civil International (SCI) is a peace organisation and is one of the biggest non-profit networks of volunteering organisations. The first SCI workcamp was organised in 1920 close to Verdun (France) by the Swiss pacifist Pierre Cérésole. Through workcamps SCI wants to increase international understanding and wants to create awareness for people with fewer social opportunities, global inequalities, sustainability and a responsible use of resources. In SCI workcamps people from different countries, cultural and social backgrounds work together between two and four weeks for a local non-profit initiative. The Austrian branch was founded in 1947, is based in Vienna and is almost exclusively run by a bunch of motivated volunteers.
How is it funded?
Wikimedia Österreich supports the project with 2.700 EUR, which is used for food, accommodation, internet access, an excursion and maybe other small project-related costs. We got an additional funding of 250 EUR from CCIVS as one of 50 "Raising Peace" camps in 2016. Participants pay their own travel costs to the project venue. SCI workcamps are usually low-budget projects, in which we intentionally try to live a simple and sustainable lifestyle with simple home-made cooking and simple accommodation (usually we sleep in bunk beds in scouts centres).
I like the idea. How can I support it?
There are a lot of different ways to support the project:
Participate!Unfortunately the camp is already full this year, but it would be great to see you participate in 2017!- Contribute from afar: Our participants will write in a lot of different languages (Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Polish, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Turkish, English) and it would be great for them to have feedback from people working in the Wikipedias of these languages. You can also contribute by working together with us on improving/writing the articles we want to focus on this year (see our Article list for 2016).
- Start up your own Wikipedia for Peace camp: In 2017 we would like to see the project happening in more parts of the world and around more topics (e.g. gender equality, civil rights, demilitarization, refugee movements, LGBT rights, etc.). If you would like to organise one of these, get in touch with User:Shikeishu who is the coordinator of the project and can support you in your organising process. Teaming up with your local chapter of Wikimedia and Service Civil International will definitely help as well.