We left a piece of our hearts at Arhavi
The Wikimedia Community User Group Türkiye (WMTR) organized a 2-day camp in Arhavi, a little town in the northeast of Türkiye, 30 km away distance from the border of Georgia, for the students from the Wikipedia Student Clubs of Turkish universities. This was the first time the group organized this kind of activity. The Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia is more experienced in organizing wiki camps for students and collaborated with the Turkish team. The group also joined the event in Arhavi by sending 8 high-school students from Georgia each representing the Wikipedia Clubs of their high schools.
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For two years, WMTR has supported the starting of Wikipedia Student Clubs at universities; 4 clubs have already been founded; the clubs are now slowly starting to organize some events at their universities and have been collaborating. There are initiatives to start clubs in some others. WMTR wanted to organize a wiki camp to bring those young Wikimedians who are the initiators of Wikipedia clubs, help them build their wiki skills and organizing skills, and grow the wiki spirit.
Upon the suggestion of a member of the user group, his birthplace Arhavi, a town of natural beauty but not a very touristic one, was selected as the camp place. Arhavi is very close to the Georgian border, which brought the idea of hosting the Georgian students in the camp as well. So, two wiki camps were organized at the same place and same time: one for improving Georgian Wikisource and Wikipedia by Georgian high school students; and one for Turkish university students. Two groups came together during breaks, opening and closing.
The venue was the Arhavi College, a 170-student high school in the town. The teachers and administrators were very excited about having Wikimedians in their school. Wikmedians used the conference room and library of the school for this event; and had their lunches in the school. The teachers and some students of Arhavi College also joined the all sessions from beginning to end.
The two-day event was organized on Friday and Saturday. The sessions were from 10:00 to 16:00 followed by excursions to natural places. The audience included Wikimedians at different levels: from beginners to very active contributors. Therefore, planning of the program was a tricky one. In the end, the program included pieces of training on editing at Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Commons projects; an introduction to OpenStreetMap and understanding the basics of Artificial Intelligence; a discussion on the Gender Gap problem at Wikipedia, a panel about activities and future of the Wikipedia Student Clubs and an edit-a-thon about Georgia and Arhavi related topics. The trainers were the members of the user group, the academicians invited from the universities the students are coming from. The edit-a-thon provided the participants more experienced in editing an opportunity to share their wiki skills with others.
On the evaluation session of the first day, Nicolos, the youngest participant simply put those lines which melted the hearts of the organizers: “It was the most beautiful day of my life.” And the end the participants from both Georgia and Türkiye, as well as the members of the two user groups organizing the event all left a piece of their heart at Arhavi.