My Journey as a Volunteer with Wikimedistas de Bolivia: Experiences in Collaboration, Memory, and Climate Justice

My Journey as a Volunteer with Wikimedistas de Bolivia: Experiences in Collaboration, Memory, and Climate Justice

Since mid-2024, I have been collaborating as a volunteer with the Wikimedistas de Bolivia team—a profoundly enriching experience both personally and collectively. In less than a year, I’ve had the opportunity to engage in community-based and educational processes that reaffirm the power of local knowledge and the transformative role of free knowledge. This participation has helped me gain a deeper understanding of the inequalities in access, representation, and circulation of knowledge, and to support initiatives that aim to bridge these gaps from Indigenous, decolonial, and territorial perspectives.

Collaborating Through Quechua: A Gateway to Free Knowledge

My connection with Wikimedistas de Bolivia began through my involvement with Atuq Yachachiq, a Quechua-language publishing collective that creates and promotes educational content in Indigenous languages. Within that framework, I collaborated in releasing Quechua materials on Wikimedia Commons, which was my first encounter with the Wikimedia ecosystem. I received training on open licenses and the publication of open resources, which sparked a deep interest in the free knowledge movement and its commitment to non-dominant languages like Quechua. This initial experience inspired me to continue learning and to collaborate more actively.

Memories of Huaraz: Climate Justice, Indigenous Voices, and Wikimedia

I also participated in the Conference on Climate Justice, Indigenous Voices, and Wikimedia Platforms, held from November 8–10, 2024, in Huaraz, Peru. The event, organized by the Wiki Acción Perú and designed by the Climate Justice and Wikimedia Projects Working Group, was the first of its kind in the country. There, I had the chance to learn firsthand how different Indigenous groups from Latin America—including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru—have developed strategies to resist the multiple impacts of climate change.

The event not only created a space to share projects focused on cultural preservation and raising awareness of the climate crisis, but also integrated Andean cultural practices and ancestral knowledge, such as immersion in Chavín culture and rituals of gratitude to Pachamama. It was a moving gathering that brought to light structural tensions between communities, governments, media, and corporations, while emphasizing the urgency for the Wikimedia movement to promote epistemic justice, narrative autonomy, and real accessibility for historically excluded communities.

Wikimixtura in the Chaco: Guaraní Communities Document Their Culture, Territory, and Collective Memory on Wikipedia

As part of the Wikimixtura Tarija edition, the Wikimedistas de Bolivia team organized a series of collaborative workshops in the Chaco regions of Caraparí, Villamontes, and Yacuiba. These activities, co-organized with the Guaraní People’s Assembly (Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní – APG Yaku Igüa) and the National Protected Areas Service (SERNAP), aimed primarily to share tools and guidelines for editing Wikipedia and releasing photographs on Wikimedia Commons. Beyond the technical aspects, these educational spaces aim to open pathways for Indigenous communities to manage their own narratives, document their everyday lives, and safeguard and share key elements of their collective memory.

I had the opportunity to participate as a volunteer in this edition, which allowed me to closely accompany collaborative processes, learn alongside the participants, and contribute to strengthening local capacities for the production and circulation of knowledge from a community-based perspective.

During the contest, 147 photographs of the Chaco were uploaded—a valuable photographic record showcasing the cultural and ecological diversity of the region. These images are now part of the open collection on Wikimedia Commons and can be used to highlight the knowledge, landscapes, and ways of life of the Guaraní people across various digital and educational spaces.

Free Knowledge as a Path Forward

Volunteering with Wikimedistas de Bolivia has been a transformative experience that allowed me to learn from collaborative, territorial, and deeply human processes. Inspired by this journey, I plan to establish and strengthen an active community of Quechua-speaking Wikipedians in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and to continue contributing to Wikimedia Commons by releasing educational, cultural, and linguistic materials in Quechua.

Finally, I aim to support the development of open educational resources in various Indigenous languages of Bolivia, helping to train Indigenous editors so they can tell their stories in their own voices. I hope to link Wikimedia work with community-based processes of memory, art, and technology. I believe in free knowledge as a political and collective act of resistance—a way to revitalize knowledges and languages marginalized by centuries of inequality.