My CEE Youth Group Prague Meeting 2023 notes

Between 24-25 November 2023, the Wikimedia CEE Youth Group, coordinated by Wikimedia CEE Hub, held a meeting in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Y. Caner Özyayıkçı (User:Kurmanbek), who attended the meeting from Türkiye, explains his notes about the meeting as follows:

The day before the meeting, we played a game around the historical buildings of Prague, where we progressed by finding clues. First of all, we started the game by choosing the name of the Sheeps team given to us as Hungry Sheeps, with my suggestion. Throughout the game, we were asked to provide interesting information about historical buildings and photograph them. We found this information generally from Wikipedia articles, uploaded it to the system, and continued. We were also very happy to be the first team to reach the finish point at the end of the game. At a dinner where all the participants met after the play, I told the people around me about our activities such as the student clubs project in Türkiye and listened to them about the activities in their own countries. I also stated that we could collaborate between communities on student clubs and youth projects.

The next day, we went to the Wikimedia Czech Republic office where the meeting would be held. We started the day by leaving various sweets and souvenirs we brought from our own countries at a table reserved for us in the office.

First, as participants, we got to know each other better and had fun with a warm-up game called icebreaker. Afterward, we listened to the CEE Youth Group’s goals for 2024 together. After a short break, we moved on to the work groups activity where we used our productivity.

In this event, they divided us into three groups: Youth related contest; Joint Project: project application writing; Soft skills; and Internships. Among these three groups, I joined the group called Joint Project. In this group, we all brainstormed and came up with various ideas. These ideas; consisted of topics such as joint projects with other communities, the use of social media, youth camp, joint task forces, competitions and collaborations between Wiki clubs. Afterwards, participants voted for their favorite among the ideas hung on the wall.

At the next event, we talked about how we could connect the CEE Youth Group with work in our local communities. Afterward, we wrote on pieces of paper what we wanted to see, what we wanted to learn at Wikimania 2024 Krakow, and things that make us feel welcome and pasted them on the board. I stated my various ideas, such as that I wanted to see energetic Wikimedists and communicate with them, and that I wanted to get detailed information about how we could realize new collaborations between communities.

Afterward, we divided into various groups of 3 people and creatively presented the things we could do as the CEE Youth Group at Wikimania 2024 Krakow. For example, we have produced and presented various ideas such as Wiki-Standup, Wiki-GYM, Knowledge Exchange Corner, Handmade Workshops, Soft-skills Training, and Wikimentor Platform. I can say that our most interesting ideas among them are Wiki-Standup, Wiki-GYM and Handmade Workshops.

At the end of the day, we came up with ideas on topics such as task sharing and future projects within the CEE Youth Group and talked about them. In addition to all this, I gave a few ideas about the activities we can do as the CEE Youth Group at the CEE Meeting to be held in Istanbul in 2024. Then, we completed the meeting by listening to a summary of the work we did throughout the day.

Thanks

I would like to thank Barbara Klen, Klára Joklová, Toni Ristovski and Lucie Schubert, who formed the CEE Youth Group and organized such a nice meeting. I have full confidence that this initiative will bear fruit as joint projects, success stories and new collaborations for us CEE young people. I would also like to thank Tomáš, Jan Beránek, Jan Myšák and the Patriarch for showing us around Prague and introducing us to the city.