Wikimedia Indonesia invited Arief Rahman, Banjar Language Wikipedia pioneer and volunteer contributors to come to Jakarta to have a discussion of possible project in Banjar Language Wikipedia and to identify local resources with the hope that this effort will contribute to a healthy and sustainable growth to Banjar Language Wikipedia in the future.
This effort is introduced and passed by the WMID Board of Executive meeting decision with approximately USD 600 budget.
Arief (referred to as volunteer contributor) lives in Samarinda and a University student majoring in IT and just begin his undergraduate degree in 2011.
Arief supported Banjar language, however indicate that native speaker of this language lives in Banjarmasin, about 500 kilometers away from Samarinda, where he currently lives. According to Arief it's a 16 hours ride by road and cost around 36 USD dollar, or a 30 minutes ride by air (using Batavia Air) and cost around 60 USD dollar to go to Banjarmasin from Samarinda.
The only reason Arief speak Banjar is because he is originated from Banjarmasin and then move to Samarinda (bigger city), according to him there are one more Banjar language Wikipedia contributors that actually lives in Banjarmasin.
Arief aren't sure whether Banjar as language is actually taught as a University Major, unlike Sundanese or Javanese who had a major specifically in the University for learning the language. He did know that Banjar language is taught in elementary school, however Arief didn't want elementary students contributors weighing the writing quality of this contributors.
According to Arief internet access in Banjarmasin are mostly done by PC through internet cafe, therefore a cooperation or incentive through an internet cafe is preffered comparing to incentive by giving modem in Banjarmasin.
While he was in Jakarta for three days, Arief is taught on how to make budget, activity report, and given a proposal sample.
According to Arief, based on the information given he will explore in September - December 2011 and try to identify contact and possible cooperation to do Banjar Language Wikipedia Competition. If resources and best case incentive to sustain this language wiki are identified, there's a possibility that Arief would like to do Banjar Language Wikipedia competition in the beginning or mid year of 2012 to do five months competition.
Wikimedia Indonesia manage to identify, invite and funded Banjar Language Wikipedia pioneer and very active contributor: Arief to Jakarta for introduction, discussion, and project training.
Arief acknowledge the possibility of cooperation in the future, however careful about committing as he would like to think it through.
Based on the trainer input, Arief identify as smart, care about the language, willing and in the same time cautious, therefore would be the right person to do intervention project should he chooses to do so.
Opportunities and technical barriers in local resources are identified, solution to overcome this are currently explored.
Banjar language Wikipedia volunteer striving to find partner contributor one person at a time
It is too early to tell whether asking Arief to come to Jakarta would fall as a fail or a success since he requested time to think it through. However email receive on October 10, 2011 one month after his trip to Jakarta he wrote to inform us that he currently looking for partner to do cooperation in Banjarmasin and he will update the progress as soon as there's one. Another follow up email on December 25, 2011 he is currently training a friend to become a partner in supporting Banjar language Wikipedia.
