August 7, 2020
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Volunteer from home - join the Wikipedia for Peace: Writing about the history of SCI online project!
From 28th August to 4th September 2020
Service Civil International and the international voluntary service movement in general celebrate their 100th birthday this year. We want to use this opportunity to make the history of SCI more widely available through new and improved Wikipedia articles. This online project is part of the bigger “Wikipedia for Peace” project, a cooperation between SCI and Wikimedia. You will get to know Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and through working together with the SCI archives you will get to know the history of the peace movement better.
Type of Work: Doing research for Wikipedia articles online, writing new articles and improving existing ones. The project organizers will prepare a list of articles around people and topics that are related to SCI and that are relevant enough to have articles on Wikipedia. Every day the group of volunteers and organizers will meet on Zoom for about 3 hours (in the afteernoon, CET). And in the mornings you can work individually or in small groups. You don’t have to have knowledge on Wikipedia already.
Study Theme: There will be a big emphasis on studying in this project. Volunteers will learn how to write good Wikipedia articles. They will learn about the principles behind Wikimedia projects as well as free licences/open content philosophy in general. They will learn about the history and roots of SCI and the global peace movement. They will get to know more about amazing people that helped to establish international voluntary services and workcamps as a concept – and that contributed to peace - through your own research, through exchange with other participants and through external inputs. Here you can find the meta page of the Wikipedia for Peace projects: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_for_Peace and here is a video from a previous Wikipedia for Peace project with SCI Switzerland, to get inspired :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0sgq1wyNC8
Language: English is the main language used during the group meetings. You can write Wikipedia articles in any language you want. We encourage you to write in your native language. Most of the materials in the archives are in English, German, French and Spanish, but also in lots of other languages.
Requirements: You need to be a member of VSI in order to participate in this project - you can find more info on the membership and how to join us here. You need a laptop (smartphones or tablets won't work) and a good internet connection that works with video calls. It is crucial for us that you are motivated to participate throughout the whole project. Please send us a motivation letter stating why you are interested in Wikipedia and in working on Wikipedia articles about peace and confirm your availability during the project.
Additional info: The SCI archives, which will provide digitalized materials for us, has more than 700 archive boxes, around 80 years of history of this international peace organisation. The Archives was established in 1970s. You can find more info about the archives here: https://archives.sci.ngo/
And send your motivation letter to ivp@vsi.ie!