The diversity of the community as well as inviting new editors from various backgrounds became a prime mover to focus on topics related to the subject of human rights. Both Serbian and Czech chapters have that issue as a strategic priority and decided to work on its coverage together.
Human rights month on Wikipedia
In the Czech Republic, the idea of better coverage of topics related to human rights came into action as a Wikiproject and one-month-long editing contest “Human rights month on Wikipedia” with the highlight event – Human rights edit-a-thon, which was held on the 20th of June 2022 in the heart of Prague.
During the contest 54 Wikipedians edited or created 96 new articles. You can find the results here. The edit-a-thon was organized in the hybrid form, 11 local organizations active in the field of human rights joined the activity – among others Amnesty International, OPIM, SIMI, or People in Need.
World Refugee Day Edit-a-thon
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, the Wikimedia Czech Republic joined the international edit-a-thon organized by Wikimedia Serbia. Wikipedia volunteers around Europe who participated in this campaign wrote and improved articles on topics related to the refugee crisis, human rights of refugees, movies, and books about the experience of refugees, etc. Those topics are essential not only because of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe but because refugees face discrimination, xenophobia, and various forms of violence daily along their way and we wanted to raise awareness about those issues. The edit-a-thon was supported by GLAM Macedonia, Shared Knowledge, Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey, Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska, and Wikimedia Community User Group Greece.
International Refugee Day Edit-a-thon started on the 20th of June when World Refugee Day is celebrated, and it lasted until the 26th of June. During this campaign, 44 editors wrote 146 and improved 7 articles. The best results were made on Serbian and Macedonian Wikipedia. You can find more information about the results here. On the occasion of these noteworthy results, we asked Žana Gnjatović, the editor of Serbian Wikipedia who made significant contributions to this event, what the International Refugee Day Edit-a-thon represented for her:
By participating in the World Refugee Day edit-a-thon, my goal was to showcase books and publications that are dedicated to this topic. My primary goal was to bring attention to the books that can be helpful to refugees, people who are there to support and aid them, and the general public. The refugee crisis has been occurring for several years now, and it seems that it will not end anytime soon. For starters, something that we as individuals can do about this matter is to find relevant information and try to learn more about and understand all of the daily challenges and difficulties that refugees face. Writing articles about the book dedicated to refugees and refugee crisis is my contribution to this task.
Žana Gnjatović
Wikimedia Serbia and the Wikimedia Czech Republic also collaborated on the organization of a meet-up call for all the chapters and Wikimedia user groups that supported and participated in the International Refugee Day Edit-a-thon. This call presented an opportunity to Wikimedians around Europe not only to get to know each other but also to share their experience and plans for the future.
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