Wikimedia user groups/Reports/Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska/Annual 2017
DEAR READERS,
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Annual 2017 |
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In front of you is the annual report of the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska for 2017. This report holds all activities of the Wikimedia community of the Republic of Srpska realized in the period from January 1 to December 31, 2017.
For us, the 2017 started festive. Already at the beginning of the year we celebrated the 16th birthday of Wikipedia. It was a decisive introduction to a very progressive year filled with numerous challenges. The Wikimedia Community in the Republic of Srpska has been trying to implement global Wikimedia standards, but also contributes to innovation and new trends with its activities. In a very short period, we managed to build the infrastructure and implement a diverse range of projects.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that our work is possible only thanks to the support of our members and financiers who contribute to the rationalization and success of our projects.
Thanks to everyone who was, in one way or another, with us in 2017!
THANK YOU!
Retrospective
editOur primary goal in 2017 was the development of legal infrastructure. After a year and a half of the community existence, the first large two-year strategy was based on the thorough analysis of the community. On the basis of the strategic plan, a one-year work plan was prepared, with special attention given to the needs of volunteers for the implementation of a particular project on the one hand and how these projects will be accepted and implemented to the general public on the other. The Statute has been adopted and work has started on various policies.
In addition to the success in the internal field, a great improvement was made in the area of financing projects where we successfully applied for APG funds. Significant progress has been achieved in the project-program part. Apart from traditional photo projects and educational activities, for the first time, the internship programs - Wikipedian in Residence and GLAM cooperation - started.
We continued with the successful realization of competitions in Wikipedia and with the cooperation in the CEE region.
Celebration of the Wikipedia 16th Birthday!
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In January, now traditionally, we celebrated the birthday of Wikipedia. It was a great way to mark this significant day for the Wikimedia movement, which also provided us with a chance to talk about our future work in the Wikimedia world. Idyllic winter we decided to preserve through a mini photo-tour and thus record the landscapes of the Republic of Srpska blanketed by ice and snow.
In the end, a birthday event resulted in a series of serious strategic meetings and capacity building activities.
Trace of Soul 2017
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Our most complex photo project, which combined WLM and WLE into one event, has so far attracted 340 participants, who made incredible 6000 photos. Before this project, the monuments were not even listed, and the number of their photographs was at the level of statistical error. Three years later, we photographed over 40% of the monuments and hundreds of thousands of bytes have been written in more than 500 articles
A special part of this project are photo tours that we organized 7. They were a great way to collect photographs and other information about monuments and natural resources, and to involve new people in our community as well.
The success of this project and its coverage is also expressed by more than 100 media announcements. Community members participated in television shows, radio pieces and special news reports were issued as well.
We organized 5 solo exhibitions, two of which were during 2017. According to the data of the institutions in which the photographies were exposed, about two thousand visitors had the opportunity to get acquainted with the cultural and natural heritage of the Republic of Srpska.
Trace of Soul 2017 competition took place in three phases which included the preparatory phase, the competition phase with the accompanying project activities as well as the preparations for the exhibition and the exhibition itself, featuring victorious photographs and awards to the winners.
Preparations
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In order to bring the competition closer to both professional photographers and amateurs, website for the competition was brought up to date and also adapted. Apart from the basic information in the instructions related to the competition and participation in the competition, the site contains tips and tricks which should help in creation of quality photos. Special attention was paid to the safety of the participants themselves, as well as natural habitats and cultural sites. Special attention was paid, on a separate page, to the mined areas. In addition, in order to draw attention of the large number of potential participants towards the competition, we made a promotional video placed on our YouTube channel, and then distributed and shared through social networks. Also, in order to facilitate the process of uploading photos to the Wikimedia Commons, we created two instructions - one in the form of a "Step by Step" instruction, and the other in form of a detailed video tutorial posted, also, on our YouTube channel, site and social network. The preparatory part also included negotiations with partner organizations and institutions, writing and sending announcements to the media, as well as the preparation of related project activities - photo-tour and editing workshops.
Competition and project activities
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The day before the official opening of the competition, a press conference was held and used to present the project. All major media companies notified the public about the competition. For the duration of the competition, our team was at the disposal of participants regarding assistance and answering participants via e-mails or telephone calls, in addition to promoting the event via social networks (especially on the Facebook website and Instagram profile).
Along with the competition, the accompanying project activities took place - three photo-tours and one editing workshop were realized.
Photo tours were realized in Banja Luka, Bijeljina and Rogatica. They were realized in cooperation with local Tourist Organizations with whom a cooperation agreement was reached. In addition to the monuments within urban areas, we also visited surrounding villages and countryside so we could photograph some monuments which had no photographs at all. We are especially proud of the photo-tour in Rogatica, given that, thanks to the establishment of cooperation with the Tourist Organization, the Municipality and the local mountaineers association, we were able to visit two caves which are usually of limits for the civilian population. Thanks to expert guides and speleologists, our team entered deep into the heart of the caves and made incredible photos. Due to the inaccessibility of the terrain, these photographs have a special value.
In addition to the photo-tour, one editing workshop was held in Rogatica, where articles on the natural and cultural-historical heritage of the Republic of Srpska were written. Our hosts provided use with the Rogatica Municipality assembly hall for the purposes of the event. In addition to the local, the workshop also had an international character. An agreement was reached on cooperation with Wikimedia Ukraine, GLAM Macedonia User Group and Mohammed's Wikimedia. At the same time, these partners organized workshops in their countries, and in their native language wrote articles about the monuments of the Republic of Srpska for their own Wikipedias. A total of 21 articles were written in Serbian, 13 Macedonian, 5 Ukrainian, 2 in Arabic and 3 in Catalan.
Exhibition
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The final part of the project was preparing for the exhibition and exhibition of photographs that presented the winning photos of this year's competition. Upon completion of the competition, an expert jury composed of eminent experts in the field of photography, architecture and mass communications examined the photos, evaluated them and selected the 20 most beautiful ones. Among them 6 were awarded (three from both categories - natural heritage category and category of immovable cultural and historical heritage of RS). For the purposes of evaluation, the jury used tool attained from Wikimedia Austria, adapted and translated into Serbian. The exhibition was held at the Museum of the Republic of Srpska, which is a special kind of satisfaction for us, given it is very difficult to reach this institution, and this fact alone can serve as a certain indicator of our progress in the local community. On that occasion, for numerous visitors and in festive atmosphere, the winning photographs were presented together with the results of the project. Prizes were awarded to the award-winning participants. All other participants, whose photos entered the top 20, received a symbolic reward - certificate and a T-shirt with a sign of the project. Also, on this occasion, the director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of the Cultural and Historical Heritage of the Republic of Srpska addressed visitors with words of praise and support for our project, which is also of some importance to us. The event was followed by media.
- Top 10: Natural heritage
- Top 10: Cultural heritage
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Wiki Semberija
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Wiki Semberija is a GLAM project that was began at the end of 2016 with the aim to bring the Wikimedia spirit to GLAMs from Semberija, the geographical region in the Southeast of BiH, and to release and create free content with the joint forces.
Five editing workshops and one photo-tour were organized in cooperation with the National Library Filip Višnjić from Bijeljina. Thanks to this project, based on the available material, 44 new articles regarding the culture of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were posted on Wikipedia and 4 were extended. During 2017, two editing workshop was realized in cooperation with the National Library Filip Višnjić in Bijeljina and we continue on.
Wiki Ambassadors
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When we were considering what new project to introduce into our annual work plan, we sought to achieve closer relations with the community and institutions. We quickly decided to implement the Wiki ambassador project concept. It turned out to be a good decision because the project was almost immediately accepted by the GLAM Institution as well by educational institutions, too. Given the low availability of literature and sources of information, such kind of institutions were a great source of information necessary for writing articles. Experienced Wikipedians, in the role of Wiki in Resident, had an obligation to bring the home institution closer to the idea of Wikimedia and encourage the use of their resources in the realization of the set goals.
During 2017, the first part of the Wiki ambassador project in the Republic of Srpska was realized, and cooperation with two institutions was established - an educational one and one GLAM institution. These are the National Library of Pale and the Vuk Karadžić Primary School from Visegrad. Having in mind the good results, the internship project proved to be highly prospective for future implementation, both through the involvement of new institutions, and through qualitative development and lifting of the project to a higher degree of realization.
Ambassador in Educational institution - Elementary school “Vuk Karadžić”
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Five workshops and one editing marathon were organized in the elementary school "Vuk Karadžić". During these events students participated in the creation of articles. The workshops were aimed at creating thematic contents that were in correlation with the curriculum, and focused on the topics that are not represented in Wikipedia. An agreement on securing the necessary literature was reached with the City Library and the school library. Prior to each workshop, in cooperation with teachers, the preparation included a selection of topics to be worked on for that particular workshop. In addition to content related to literature and history, students worked on the creation of articles in the field of biology - Wikipedia was enriched with very valuable articles about mushrooms that can be found on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, a topic for which it was very difficult to find literature.
In educational activities, 16 pupils participated, 7 of which were male and 9 female. 113 new articles were created at these workshops. Expressed in bytes, this is 580988.After a series of editing workshops, a edit-a-thon was held, attended by students who had undergone the necessary training and participated in the workshops. A total of 15 students participated in the marathon, 7 of them boys and 8 girls. The jury, comprised of three experienced editors on Wikipedia, selected three students with the best results after the competition. Winners were awarded symbolic prizes - first place - tablet, second place - encyclopedia and third place - webcam. Also, all the participants were given an acknowledgment of their participation. During the marathon, 37 new articles were created, their size in bytes amounting to 326,359 bytes.
The evaluation of the project involved development of individual case studies. Their comparison has determined that students of this age can successfully, under the guidance of teachers and persons qualified to work on Wikimedia projects, create more complex content in Wikipedia using the Wikimedia Commons for the completion and illustration of articles. Also, on this occasion a short film, detailing the educational system of the Republic of Srpska and the possibility of implementing the Wikimedia projects in the same was created. The conclusion is positive - there are a number of options for linking emerging content with some of Wikipedia's projects and for using Wikipedia as a teaching tool. The film is placed on Wikimedia Commons and is available in Serbian and English.
Ambassador in GLAM institution
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In parallel with the educational activities, GLAM institution activities of the project were realized as well. Two representatives of the community - Wiki ambassadors conducted 6 visits to the library, which, in collaboration with associates from the library, led to creation of articles based on available literature. On that occasion, attention was given to the selection of thematic content for which literature is hard to obtain. Through the collaboration with the library, a total of 57 new articles were created, which in the bytes is 198,279. All activities were promoted through press, blogs and social networks.
The project has made a positive impact on the educational and GLAM institutions and the public in the Republic of Srpska. It has affected a significant media interest, which is very good for the community, which is in the development phase. Beside the public interest, it is important to point out that there was a lot of interest in the project and project activities by side of participants. Cooperation with representatives of institutions - associates was at a satisfactory level.
You can read more on this project in separate project report.
CEE Spring 2017
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Our community, in this year, in attempt to connect better with the CEE region, took part in the CEE Spring 2017 project. The CEE spring 2017 in Wikipedia in the Serbian language was conducted from March 21 to May 31, 2017 in a joint collaboration of the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska and Wikimedia Serbia. The work on this project was very demanding and included the preparatory part, monitoring the course of the competition and the final part related with the evaluation and announcement of the winner. During the preparatory work, the organizational team of our community, an equivalent to the Management Board at the formal level of community functioning, divided the responsibilities and selected the project coordinator. After that, a series of activities such as creating a template, preparing articles for proposals, writing and sending press releases, reporting through our social network, site and blog followed. Also, the rules of competition were defined.
- Any registered user can participate, except for the members of the jury
- Articles shall be created between March 21, 2017 0:00 CET and May 31, 2017 23:59 CET
- It is not allowed to copy or in any other way transcribe articles already existing on the Wikipedia editions of related languages.
- Articles not in line with the theme of the competition will not be graded.
- Each article will get from 0 to 2 points, but then the sum of points will be multiplied by the number of added bytes of written or improved article (whether the articles are written in Latin/Cyrillic, we will take in consideration Cyrillic version).
- Jury are composed from three experienced Wikipedians.
- Applications are opened during the entire competition.
Awards are provided for participants with the biggest sum of points:
- First prize: Tablet
- Second prize: External hard disc
- Third prize: Bluetooth speaker
- Appreciation: Book
- Appreciation: External battery
A template was used to indicate articles that were written or supplemented during the competition. During the competition, 592 articles were written, while 68 were expanded and improved. The total number of entered bytes was 8,063,640.
Meet Srpska 2017
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During 2017, we worked on motivating the Wikipedian community through various activities on Wikipedia. Thus, at the end of 2017, more precisely on 13th November, a large article writing competition was organized with on Serbian Wikipedia with topic being Republic of Srpska. The competition is part of a project which, for the second time, is held in the organization of our community and bears the name Meet Srpska. In addition to the competition on Wikipedia, one editing workshop was held in cooperation with the Main Library of East Sarajevo. Also, another photo-tour activity is planned, which will be held in January 2018.The realization of the project was carried out on three levels: preparatory part, competition and accompanying project activities with evaluation and announcement of the winners.
The preparatory part of the project included the creation of a work page on Wikipedia, preparation of a promotional campaign, negotiations with partners, preparation and selection of topics for possible use during article creation, selection of jury members, purchase of prizes, monitoring the flow of competition itself and communication with participants and potential participants through media and social networks in order to provide help and answer questions related to the competition itself and the rules. The competition part lasted until December 13th. During the competition, 243 articles on topics related to the Republic of Srpska were written, which makes the achievement of the set target at percentage of 121.5%.In addition to the competition, in 2017, one editing workshop was held in cooperation with the Main Library of East Sarajevo. The workshop was thematically focused on creating content about the Republic of Srpska. Participants in the event took 10 editors, 4 female and 6 male. 12 articles were created and supplemented. Upon completion of the competition, the expert jury made by the experienced editors of Wikipedia has processed the data and declared three of the most successful competitors.
The event was appropriately followed by media. Also, our team conducted a promotional campaign through social networks.
According to the plan of activities, in January 2018, a photo-tour will be held within this project with the aim of enriching the Wikimedia Commons with photographs of motifs from the Republic of Srpska.
Edu Wiki
editThe educational program of our community is intended for all educational-scientific institutions in the country (schools, faculties, institutes) and aims to spread the free and all available knowledge, as well as to raise awareness of its significance.
In addition, the basis of the educational program of the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska is the idea of improving and modernizing the teaching process through Wikimedia projects. The program was launched at the end of 2015, and since then 20 editing workshops have been implemented in cooperation with 11 educational institutions.
In the course of 2017, it was aimed at improving programs and extending the scope of activities to as many educational institutions as possible. In addition, a lot of attention has been paid to creating a network of associates in educational institutions. We have succeeded in establishing excellent cooperation with the representatives of the institutions with whom we have carried out the activities in the field, and we are trying to maintain positive communication and cooperation on future projects with the same associates. Also, our community is making a lot of efforts in the sphere of education to overcome the gap and decentralization. It is very important for us to cover as many towns in the Republic of Srpska as possible and to get coworkers in each of them. So far, we have managed to implement Edu activities in 9 cities in 4 regions in the Republic of Srpska and establish cooperation with educational institutions. During 2017, 9 editing workshops and one editing marathon were realized in cooperation with 5 educational institutions - one primary, two secondary schools and two faculties. A total of 75 students have been trained to work on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons, of which 50 is male and 25 female. 99 new articles were created and 48 already existing articles were added.
For the purpose of notification of our community and the public, pages were created on the official website of the community intended for the educational program and educational activities. In addition, a special section on the site is dedicated to monitoring results through case studies. Also, on Outreach was created a page dedicated to the educational program of our country, so that the international community was informed about our activities.
As part of the planned annual program within the planning and submission of applications for the APG grant, our community envisaged the activities that will take place within the Edu Program of the Wikimedia Community of Republika Srpska. The above plan envisages the realization of 8 editing workshops to a minimum of 5 educational institutions. During 2017 two editing workshops were realized in two cities and in cooperation with two educational institutions - two faculties. As the plan foresees the realization of these activities by the end of March 2018, the remaining activities will be realized in 2018, in the indicated period. Workshops were held at the Faculty of Philosophy in Pale and at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in East Sarajevo.
Editing workshop at the Faculty of Philosoph Pale
editAt the end of November 2017, a editing workshop was held at the Faculty of Philosophy in Pale. Through communication with the existing associate at the mentioned faculty, the realization of the workshop on the micro and macro plan was outlined. Our community has prepared a presentation of the Wikimedia projects, a material for work, and a work site on Wikipedia designed for the workshop. Collaborators from the Faculty of Philosophy have formed a group of students interested in participation and work. Also, a member of our community in charge of public relations promoted events by sending press releases, blog posts, posting on social networks, uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons before, during and after the workshop.In the workshop, 12 students took part, 3 of which were female and 9 male. A total of 9 new articles were created, and 2 were added. The students were very motivated and interested in work.
Editing workshop at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering East Sarajevo
editIn East Sarajevo, on December 15th, 2017, an editing workshop was held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. This workshop is very important for us because this faculty is highly appreciated in our country as a faculty within University of East Sarajevo. We are very proud that we managed to establish cooperation with this faculty and that we managed to hold a workshop there.
Before planning the workshop on the micro-plan, a letter was sent to the faculty in the form of a call for cooperation in the organization of the editing workshop. In a very short time, we got affirmative answer. The faculty provided us with the space and the representatives of institution who worked with us on the planning and realization of the workshop. The organizational team of our community has prepared a presentation, a material for the work, a working page on Wikipedia designed workshop, a press release, blog posts, social network posts. The student response was satisfactory. Students were interested and motivated to work. The workshop was attended by 9 participants, of which 3 are female and 6 male. A total of 8 new and 3 already existing articles have been written. The event was followed by local media. Our team promoted events through social networks before, during and after the workshop.
Free content
editIn line with our mission and long-term goals, the community continued to work on finding ways to realize as many activities as possible that would positively influence the public in the Republic of Srpska and would attract potential partners and associates. Also, the community used every convenient moment to spread the idea of free knowledge in various ways - from organized lectures and activities, to random talks and marginal meetings with specific target groups. Also, the community tried to continuously carry out various activities, thus finding ways to implement the aforementioned activities in spite of lack of finance in the first part of the year. Thus, in 2017, in accordance with the everything said, three activities aimed at releasing content and extending Wikipedia with new articles with an emphasis on overcoming the gap in terms of covering non-represented or lesser-represented topics in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. In relation to this, one editing workshop and one photo-expedition in Rogatica were held. Additionally, in 2017, it continued to expand and work on the Wiki project: Women, which began in 2016 in collaboration with the Wikimedia Argentina.
Two day activities in Rogatica
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On April 22 and 23, 2017 in Rogatica, two-day activities were carried out - editing workshop and photo-expedition. On the first day, a photo-expedition was held, during which photographs of famous places in the territory of Rogatica municipality were created.
The following day, during the editing workshop, photographs created during the photo expedition were placed on the Wikimedia Commons, and then used for the illustration of articles on Wikipedia created during the workshop. On this occasion, the community attained very significant partners who helped in the realization of the mentioned events and with whom positive cooperation was achieved on that occasion. The realization of the event was supported by the Rogatica Tourist Organization which helped organize, geolocate and plan the photo-expedition route and provided guides; Municipality of Rogatica, which provided space for the realization of the workshop, two vehicles and drivers for the needs of the photo expedition; The National Library Rogatica, which provided the necessary material for creating articles, as well as providing technical support - gave computers and a projector for the realization of the workshop; Association of photo-amateurs Rogatica who formed a group of interested photographers who participated in these activities; Rural tourism Zilicina which provided lunch and refreshment for our team during the realization of these activities. Our community strives to maintain positive relationships with existing ones, in addition to gaining new partners, in order to facilitate and improve the implementation of some future projects. 20 people took part in these activities. The workshop was attended by 9 participants, and in the photo-expedition 11 participants. During the workshop, 9 articles were created and completed, and during the photo-expedition 240 images were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons!
The event is adequately followed by the media outlets. In addition, promotional activities were carried out on our information providing outlets - site, blog and social networks.
Wiki Women
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Wiki Women is a wiki project of editors aimed at improving the coverage of wikipedian topics related to women. The project originated as a result of cooperation between the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska and the Wikimedia Argentina, and was launched in 2016. The project deals with the insufficient representation of content on Wikipedia related to women. It also deals with women's works, such as paintings painted by female painters, books written by women, scientific discoveries made by women, or organizations that were founded by women. Launch of the project alone caused great attention and interest of the Wikipedians. In the period from June to December 2016, there were 88 articles written about famous Serbian women, and in 2017, 65 by 23 editors. As the project was launched in the form of a pilot project and given it garnered approval and interest of the community, we realized that the above topics had the potential for more serious upgrading and growth with partial focus of our community on topics related to women due to insufficient representation of content regarding women as well as generally speaking regarding number of editors of Wikipedia who are of female gender. Therefore, a project plan was approved in 2017 within our APG grant application. The community will try to form a group of editors, a small sample group, and train them for work on Wikipedia. The project will be implemented in 2018.
Participation in (public) events
edit[GLAM]: Professional Conference of the Librarians of the Republic of Srpska
editIn order to promote Wikimedia projects and acquaint certain target groups with appropriate programs, our organization took part in the Professional Conference of the Librarians of the Republic of Srpska, which was held on April 20, 2017.
During this event, our community held a lecture within which participants were introduced to Wikimedia projects, with special emphasis and accent on the GLAM projects that are being realized and which can be realized. The participants were introduced to the numerous possibilities for improving library work through the support and implementation of the Wikimedia projects and GLAM project models. The gathering was attended by representatives of all libraries from the Republic of Srpska, eminent officials from the world of science and culture of Republika Srpska, as well as representatives of some libraries from Serbia. To participate, it was necessary to fill in the application and submit a summary one and a half months prior the event. Our team professionally undertook this task, made a summary and presentation and applied for participation in the seminar as a lecturer in the subject area: “Library, physical, virtual and legal space for user services”. In the forthcoming period, we were informed that our proposal was approved. Participation in this gathering was very important for us, because it is an overture for our librarians seminar which will be held in March 2018.
Trace of Soul 2015-2016 photographies exhibition
editThe Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska took part in the regional event, The 8th Trebinje days of photography, within the framework of the Trebinje Cultural Summer. Our community, in cooperation with the Photo Cinema Club Trebinje and the Cultural Center Trebinje, organized an exhibition of photographs from project Trace of Soul. On this occasion, 40 photographs created and collected during the photo competition "Traces of Soul” in 2015 and 2016 were presented to the public. The exhibition was opened by the head of the department for social activities of the City of Trebinje, and besides the representatives of our community, the guests were addressed by the master of photography, president of the photo-cinema club Trebinje with whom we have good cooperation for the second year in a row. The event caused much attention from local media. In total, 20 media outlets mentioned the exhibition. In addition to the media, the exhibition was of great interest to the local population and tourists who stayed in that period in Trebinje as well. The opening was attended by 70 officials. The exhibition was open for 14 days, and according to the experts from the Cultural Center Trebinje, it was seen by about 500 people. Visitors' reactions were very positive.
International Wiki Meetings
editAs a part of the CEE region, we are making significant efforts to work with the CEE region members. In 2017, in addition to the active participation at the CEE conference, we had joint project activities with local chapters - Macedonia and Ukraine within the project Traces of Soul 2017 and CEE Spring 2017 in cooperation with the Wikimedia Serbia. Also, in order to enrich our knowledge and acquire new skills, our community is trying to take part in as many international conferences as possible and develop momentum. In this regard, our community took part in the Wikimedia conference in Berlin with two representatives of the community, as well as at the CEE conference held in Warsaw, which was also attended by two representatives of our community.
Internal Infrastructure
editIn 2017, one of our most important goals was to define our mission and vision, which we were supposed to transform into a multi-year strategy and a one-year work plan. Together, with our volunteers and partners, we wanted to position ourselves as a responsible and complex organization (although still informal) and a strong partner in acquiring knowledge and information. However 2017 was also the year when we first faced the phenomenon of bottlenecks and a lack of finance that limited us in the realization of some ideas.
The Strategy was created on the basis of an analysis of the results of the work for the period 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 and analysis of current needs and possibilities of internal and external environment. By the end of 2019, the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska will be based on the development of the community itself in terms of increasing the number of members and the number of activities. The focus will also be on expanding partnerships with as many relevant institutions as possible in a wider geographic area. We will work on the establishment of clear structures within the community itself in order to create a good foundation for the formation of a chapter in the future which will have capacities and necessary resources for operation and functioning. The long-term goal is to create a quality organization that will be able to deal with larger projects and which will be an attractive partner both locally and internationally. The community is aware that this is a long and hard road, but it is ready to make the necessary efforts. As a relatively young group that is still learning and improving, we have planned to gradually work on expanding the scope of work in accordance with the current capacities and real possibilities of the community.
Based on this fundamental strategy, our first one-year work plan for the period of May 2017-2018 is conceived on a series of organizational and program activities. We are already within the third quarter and are looking forward towards publishing our final reports. According to the preliminary results, we managed to achieve all the metric goals in a shorter time period than planned.
In addition to strategic and program documents, the community worked hard on drafting the Statute. Having in mind that this is a legal document, special efforts have been made and great attention has been paid to satisfying, on the one hand, all domestic laws and legal provisions, and on the other, the goal of the mission and vision of the Wikimedia Movement.
In order to better present our plans and our work to a wider public, all documents have been translated into English.
Community
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If there was no volunteer support, none of this would be possible. That is why we are very proud of our members who, in various ways, provided support for spreading the Wikimedia Spirit in the territory of the Republic of Srpska. So far we have gathered 70 members, of which 46 are active members. We are especially proud of diversity: about 30% of members are women!
Together in 2017 we organized 1 capacities building, 3 live meetings and 48 on-line meetings.
Bearing in mind that the community is the main driving force and that without a coherent community there can be not successfully plan or activities, we tried to maintain positive relations within the community in 2017 and motivate our members. In addition, we paid special attention to volunteers and new members of the community. Volunteers represent one of the most important community resources. During 2017 we worked on extending the community by including new volunteers in community activities. In addition, existing volunteers who showed willingness and enthusiasm for work received mentoring - members of the Organizational Team trained them in the field of labor organization, planning at macro and micro level, as well as coordination of the project implementation.
Media about us
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Since the very establishment and gathering of the Wikimedians in the Republic of Srpska, each activity has generated significant media attention. From mid-2015 to the end of 2017, we had over 300 media mentions, we organized three press conferences, participated in 20 reportage. In 2017, 167 times media mentioned our organization. They mostly reported on Trace of Soul competition.
A special kind of media communication is done through a blog where we published 28 blog posts in 2017. On the other hand, our social networks, as a representation of the promotion of our ideas and work, number a total of 1444 followers.
Local and International partners
editDuring 2017, our community managed to keep existing and gain new partners for cooperation. We are particularly proud of the fact that we managed to establish contact and agree on cooperation with several eminent institutions that are very difficult to reach. We were persistent and our persistence eventually paid off. It is very important for us to build attractive reputation in the local community, to have attractive partners in the Republic of Srpska. In this way we get positive references in the local area and it is easier for us to get new partners for future projects. During 2017, our community has established cooperation with 11 institutions, 9 organizations.
Local Partners
- Museum of the Republic of Srpska
- Touristic organization of Bijeljina
- Touristic organization of Banja Luka
- Touristic organization of Rogatica
- Rogatica Municipality
- Portal “Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina - through epochs and destinies”
- Public institution High school center “27th January”.
- Faculty of Philosophy Pale
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering in East Sarajevo
- Republic Institure for protection of cultural-historical and natural heritage
- SECS “Prosvjeta”
- Touristic organization of the Republic of Srpska
- Photo Cinema club Trebinje
- Elementary school Vuk Karadžić from Višegrad
- Main Library of the City of East Sarajevo
- National Library Filip Višnjić Bijeljina
- DIS theatre Banja Luka
International partners
In addition to local associates, in 2017 we have established cooperation with several international partners: Wikimedia Ukraine, the Wikimedia User Group GLAM Macedonia and the Wikimedia User Group from Morocco. The cooperation was realized during the implementation of the editing workshop within the project "Traces of Soul 2017" during which the articles on the monuments within the Republic of Srpska were written. The mentioned collaborators organized, in parallel with our workshop, editing workshops in their country where they translated and wrote articles on the monuments of the Republic of Srpska on their native Wikipedia. In addition, we collaborated with the Wikimedia Serbia on the CEE Spring 2017 project.
