WikiClubs: guarantee for sustainable development

In 2015–2016, members of the Georgian Wikimedia community visited Armenian Wikipedians several times and became familiar with their working style. At the WikiCamps they held, they often hosted representatives from WikiClubs across different villages, which also drew the interest of Wikimedia Georgia. We thought that a similar practice would be useful for Wikimedia Georgia as well, and that sharing such experience would also be important for the Georgian Wikipedia. In 2019, as part of informal education, we created a club at Surami Second Public School, where we taught children about wiki-technologies and used Wikipedia in the learning process.

The history of WikiClubs in Georgia began in 2020, when the first WikiClubs opened in two cities in eastern Georgia—Surami and Marneuli. Soon, WikiClubs opened across Georgia as Wikimedia Georgia sought to establish clubs in villages and cities nationwide. In this way, we opened WikiClubs in Baghdati, Senaki, Rustavi, Arali (Adigeni Municipality), Samtredia, Tbilisi (two), Khidistavi (Gori Municipality), and Kaspi. Currently, 8 WikiClubs are active.

The clubs were mostly established through schools, and students from those schools actively joined them. Their main activity became working on Wikipedia. Several WikiClubs also worked on Wikisource, and as a result of their active work, the project—which had previously been in the Incubator—was launched as an independent project in May 2024 and now contains more than 6,750 articles. During Wikimedia Georgia’s organized WikiCamps, teachers and students received training to strengthen the WikiClubs.

In 2021, the WikiClubs operating in Georgia wrote a total of 3,628 articles; in 2022, this figure was 1,408; in 2023 — 882; in 2024 — 1,860; and in 2025, an all-time record was set, with the clubs’ contribution totaling 5,089 new articles on Wikipedia.

This high figure in 2025 is due to several reasons. First, the number of WikiClubs in Georgia increased (8 clubs were active in 2025). Second, and most importantly, Wikimedia Georgia’s strategy proved effective: through WikiCamps, we strengthened existing WikiClubs.

The new WikiCamp strategy will further strengthen WikiClubs, and we expect even greater achievements in this area.

For Wikimedia Georgia, WikiClubs are essential to sustainability. For us, a WikiClub is a permanent point on the map where motivated students are already developing Wikimedia projects. This is exactly what the 2025 results show—when the number of clubs increased and we worked deliberately to strengthen them. The regional diversity of WikiClubs makes knowledge more multi-voiced and sustainable.