Wikimedistas de Ecuador/Reportes/2019

Annual Report 2019

Education

This year has been powerful for us in the education field. We got to expand our projects through talks and meetings with teachers, directives, students and more. We started full of hopes with our on-going projects in PUCE -which makes us really proud- and looking forward for new partnerships.

Projects in PUCE

This year we had our two edit-a-thons (Editatonas) at PUCE as usual. But we reimagined the perception of this project within its academic environment, making us go further in our work, involving more volunteers, finding out new potential editors and possible volunteers for Wikimedistas de Ecuador. A lot of new teachers heard about this project and are willing to participate next year as part of the organizing team.

In March, we had the opportunity to create more articles, as our volunteers gained more skills and we learned from the previous year how to organize ourselves to cover as many classrooms as we could at the same time. In short terms, we had a running Edit-a-thon (Editatona) in three different classrooms during two days, in three different hour sessions. Even though during the whole process our last three years our Educational Projects Manager, Vahid Masrour, was present and really close to the development of this project, this was the first year he was absent; it turned out Wikimedistas de Ecuador developed more capacity and volunteers already had a system to help during the edit-a-thons.

User:Mikaelashamrock explaining students what is Wikipedia before the edit-a-thon.
User:Tanuyeiro leading a group of women editors during the edit-a-thon
Users Edjoerv, Rotu-sama dacnis, Tanuyeiro, Maritzafigueroa9, Mikaelashamrock and Madamemina after the edit-a-thon.
User:Rotu-sama dacnis explaining the Five Pillars to a group of students at PUCE before the edit-a-thon

In November, a different group of volunteers was present in the edit-a-thon (Editatona), but we had a greater impact. This time, we noticed how the University finally recognized Editatona PUCE as a project abroad all faculties in its main campus. PUCE also was thrilled to bring Prof. Zach McDowell to share a lecture on social communications before the Edit-a-thon, while also supporting the mission of Editatona PUCE, so he was available to be part as a volunteer and led a group of students to make some articles in the english Wikipedia about ecuadorian women.

We had interesting press and social media coverage, and for the first time a tweet from PUCE showing our work at the edit-a-thon (Editatona), a publication on Primicias EC, as well as some others.

Over all, in these two events we had 60 new articles about women, 238 edited articles and around 130 editors. It has been the best time for us in advancing our mission on helping new women editors to contribute and also improve women biographies' coverage on spanish Wikipedia.

Projects in other universities

In November we welcomed back our former Educational Projects Manager, Vahid Masrour, who had a brief visit to Cuenca, where he shared a talk on TIC EC 2019, a congress about new technologies in education in Ecuador that had around 500 participants from different universities around the country.

Days later, in Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Wikimedistas de Ecuador had a talk/workshop on Wikipedia's educational uses. 12 people (among teachers and students) gathered to find out what is going on behind the curtains on Wikipedia editing, led by Vahid Masrour, César Cabrera and Juan Francisco Beltrán.

Vahid Masrour explaining educational uses of Wikipedia.
César Cabrera and Juan Francisco Beltrán, wikimedians of Cuenca, explaining edition on Wikipedia.

Outreach

In January we celebrated Wikipedia's 18th birthday in five different cities of our country. We held gatherings in Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Portoviejo and Riobamba, and reached out to 130 people around the country.

Example of the talks for Wikipedia Day in Quito
Wikipedia Day in Cuenca
Wikipedia Day in Portoviejo
Wikipedia Day in Guayaquil
Wikipedia Day in Quito
Wikipedia Day in Riobamba

Editatonas

We had a great year for Editatonas in Ecuador. We held one in Guayaquil in March called "La Mujer Escribe la Historia", which gathered 10 women that learned how to edit Wikipedia to contribute with articles about other notable women in our country. The same way in November we had "#WikiMujerEC" which was held in Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca at the same time.

Women at La mujer escribe la historia Editatona in March.
User:Rotu-sama dacnis explaining Wikipedia at Quinta Editatona PUCE #WikiMujerEC
Facilitators and participants of the Editatona #WikiMujerEC in Guayaquil

Press coverage for editatonas

El grupo Wikimedistas de Ecuador cumple actividad en Cuenca, en Diario El Mercurio.
Wikimedistas de Ecuador cumplieron actividad en Cuenca, en Diario El Tiempo.
Biografías de 70 ecuatorianas se sumarán a Wikipedia, en Diario Primicias EC.