When a Language or Culture disappears, it is not just words that are lost. An entire world of history, culture, ecological knowledge, oral tradition, and collective memory fades with it. Preserving that knowledge is no longer a task for books and archives alone in the digital age, it means making it accessible to the world through free knowledge and digital platforms.
Wiki Warriors Training & Photowalk, Boli Cheto Foundation’s strategic programme to strengthen Wikimedia’s Knowledge Equity in India. It is a residential capacity-building programme that brings community members from historically marginalised backgrounds into the Wikimedia movement, not as subjects of documentation, but as its authors. Over 3-4 days, participants build the confidence, skills, and community to contribute to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, and related platforms in their own languages, on their own terms, about the knowledge that only they can bring.
The 2026 edition, “Wiki Warriors 2026”, a training and photowalk, was held from 16–19 April at Haritha Resort near Jannaram in Telangana’s Adilabad district, bringing together nearly 50 participants & trainers from Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The group included Wikipedians, language activists, photojournalists, researchers, tribal youth, educators, and community volunteers, all united by one goal: ensuring Indigenous knowledge finds a permanent place in the digital world. By the end of the workshop, they had earned a new identity: Knowledge Equity Champions, the Wiki Warriors.
Writing Our Own Stories
On Day 0, the participants started arriving at the venue near the Kawal Tiger Reserve forest, full of Mohua Trees(famously known for Mohua Wine), a resort managed by the Tourism Department, Government of Telangana. And yes, not all of them were able to join us on time because some of the participants from the Kolami community live inside forests; their villages have no roads, and they had to walk about 5-15 km through the forests to reach the main road, take a bus and then take an auto to the venue. This was not as easy as taking a flight from Delhi to Hyderabad.
The workshop started in the evening with an ice breaker & introduction to Universal Code of Conduct. Following that the participants started building a Knowledge Wall, a collaborative community activity in which participants from the Gondi and Kolami language communities built a wall magazine of their festivals, customs, folk traditions, artwork, ecological knowledge, and community histories through handwritten notes, illustrations, and photographs. This Wall continued being built till the final day of the workshop.
It became more than an exhibition. It was an act of self-representation. Rather than letting others document their culture, community members took ownership of telling their own stories on their own terms.
Building Digital Skills for Indigenous Languages
Day 1, Myself, Sidam Kiran & Athram Mothiram shared the current status of the projects “Gondi Wiktionary(devanagari Script)”, “Gondi Wikipedia & Kolami Wikipedia (Telugu script)” that we are building on the incubator. Followed by talks and suggestions from the community elders Sidam Arju & Athram Bheem Rao.
This day turned to practical training on Gondi Wiktionary, Gondi Wikipedia, and Kolami Wikipedia from creating Wikimedia accounts to writing articles, adding references, documenting vocabulary, and improving existing content. Community members Sidam Kiran & Sidam Vara Prasad from Gondi & Athram Mothiram & Raj kumar from Kolami have trained the participants respectively in separate groups.
Hands-on edit-a-thons gave participants the confidence to contribute directly to these open knowledge platforms, while discussions underscored the urgent need for digital documentation of Indigenous languages and the role of community participation in sustaining linguistic heritage.
By the end of the day, many first-time contributors had already begun adding content in their own languages, proof that digital knowledge production can be genuinely community-driven. And the day concluded with a feedback session by Palani & Abhilash, and the participants pasted their feedback on the knowledge wall.
Beyond Wikipedia: Expanding Open Knowledge
On Day 2, The participants then continued to learn and widened the lens to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem: TranslateWiki, Wikimedia Commons, open licensing, digital documentation, and creative storytelling through visual media.
Palani Kumar(PARI fellow & Founder at Peoples Photography Collective) along with his team taught the participants to do cyanotype printing, a chemical extraction of nature on papers through exposure to sunlight. The participants soon turned this fun activity into a cultural bliss, printing their work with Wikimedia and Boli Cheto through organizing flowers and leaves on paper.
Followed by a photography workshop led by Palani Kumar and Vinodhini of the Tamil Nadu People’s Photographers Collective showed how a single photograph, captured with context and purpose, can become an important historical document. They have shown the participants how to capture real stories through photos and the concept of photojournalism.
The evening turned darkness into fire and folk; participants from the Kolami community started playing their Demsa beats, while the Gondi community sang Rela songs. Renowned Lyricist and poet Akkala Chandra Mouli from the Telugu film industry joined us and shared his energy through the songs he wrote, honouring the language & culture of Telangana. Dr A Goapalkrishna, Assistant Professor at Government Degree College, Mancherial, added a talk on the social importance of open knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia.
Learning from Communities, Not Just Classrooms
The final day moved beyond the training hall and into the communities themselves. The participants moved in a bus, from the tiger reserves to the holy place seeking the first blessing.
Participants visited Padmalpuri Kakobai also known as Yetmasar Devata(the holy goddess of Gondi tribe worshipped during the Dandari festival famously known for the Gussadi attire of Raj Gonds), a sacred site central to Gondi spiritual tradition, learning about local beliefs, rituals, and practices. The participants clicked photos and started adding to Wikimedia commons on the way.
The group then travelled to Mattadi Guda, home village of veteran tribal activist Sidam Shambhu, to document Indigenous life firsthand, traditional houses, community practices, and nature-based livelihoods, offering insights no textbook could provide.
Upon arrival in Mattadi Guda, the entire village welcomed the team “Wiki Warriors”, the champions of Knowledge Equity from Gondi & Kolami communities with folk beats and dol(a tribal instrument), the participants shared their journey with Wikimedia and the work they have been doing and new things learnt at the Wiki Warriors 2026, this was not just an ordinary thing to do, we shared our journey of Wiki Warriors to the hearts of people to make it sound across the community.
All of us the participants, trainers and the entire village had lunch together, we sang songs, we danced, we discussed on how to take this work forward: the Gondi & Kolami Wikimedia works and the inclusion of Gondi in Schedule 8 of the Indian constitution. Rather than the usual fanfare of a closing ceremony with so-called notable guests, we chose to do something different: the certificates were distributed by the village heads and Sarmedi the head of the village-level Rai Center, a grassroots governance body of the Raj Gond community.
Later towards the end the rain blessed us on the hills of Mattadi guda, and we had to cancel our plan to document Utnoor fort and the participants started their way back to their villages carrying the story of Wikimedia to bring more Wiki Warriors towards Advancing India’s Knowledge Equity.
The field visits reinforced an important principle: documenting culture isn’t only about writing articles. It’s about recording places, people, stories, traditions, and living knowledge before they disappear.
A Collective Effort
The workshop’s success rested on the dedicated efforts of the Boli Cheto Foundation team. Board Members Sidam Kiran and Athram Mothiram led the overall organisation, while the coordination team, Abhilash Myadam, Nethi Prashanthi, Suraj Digrase, Sidam Varaprasad, Prabha and Athram Raj Kumar, ensured the smooth execution of every session. With our Advisor, Satya Sai Nath, guiding & advising us on principles of Sustainability in event management, we reduced the usage of plastic and served 100% organic food straight from the farms of Gond & Kolami tribal hamlets.
What made the workshop truly meaningful wasn’t only the knowledge participants gained, but the sense of responsibility they carried home as Knowledge Equity Champions to keep documenting, preserving, and sharing their cultural heritage with the world.
By the end of the workshop all of us collectively added about 500 content pages to Wikimedia projects, this might sound less but every word, every edit in this workshop was special, participants from Kolami (Particularly vulnerable Tribal Community), Gondi (the largest tribal community in India), contributing to Wikimedia was not as easy as someone sitting in San Francisco and running a Movement of lakhs of volunteers, because they had no access to roads, no access to technology, no access to internet, but still they came forward and Boli Cheto guarded this cause with support from Wikimedia Foundation.
Preserving Culture in the Digital Age
Language preservation is far more than compiling dictionaries. It means safeguarding songs, oral histories, traditional knowledge, customs, ecological wisdom, and lived community experience.
Wiki Warriors Training showed how platforms like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and other Wikimedia projects can become powerful tools for cultural preservation carrying knowledge once passed down only through oral tradition to millions of people worldwide, freely and permanently.
It also reinforced a simple but important idea: every language, regardless of how many people speak it, deserves a place in the digital world.
As more communities embrace free knowledge initiatives, workshops like Wiki Warriors can help spark a broader movement to preserve India’s extraordinary linguistic and cultural diversity, ensuring Indigenous voices are not just remembered but heard, valued, and celebrated across the globe.
Notes:
1)Wiki Warriors 2026 gallery – Link
2)Link to Wiki Warriors Video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv0EYl0QcxI
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