CEE Hub/Working Groups/Community Capacity Building

Community Capacity Building is a working group within CEE Hub. It helps communities become more capable of running their own projects by identifying gaps in knowledge, providing targeted training, and sharing expertise to improve local decision-making and program outcomes.

Sources

Wikimedia CEE Hub/Minority languages - List of minority languages in the CEE (with own wiki), recognized minority languages per country, How to start to work with a minority language? from TRistovski-CEEhub (9 December 2025)
Wikimedia CEE Hub/Community Mapping and Data - Mapping active Wikimedia CEE community members per language community/project (24 July-31 August 2023)
Capacity development for underrepresented communities - a project aimed at reaching out to underrepresented communities in order to get them involved in the Wikimedia movement (1 June 2022 to 31 January 2023)
File:Studying barriers of smaller affiliates and communities in CEE Region and ways to create more engagement and connections, based on their context and needs.pdf - Research project by Violeta Frimu September – December 2023

Contact

Steering Committee (SC) contact: Pinky sl
Employee contact: KGruszczyk-CEEhub, Community and Communication Specialist

If you are interested in this working group or would like to participate in upcoming meetings, please send an email to Pinky sl and/or KGruszczyk-CEEhub.

Members

Current members (as of October 2025) of the CEE Hub Community Capacity Building working group:

Pinky sl (SC member)
ToniSant (SC member)
Papuass (SC member)
Geraki
M.D. Shahinyan
KGruszczyk-CEEhub

Ex-members: Papuass (SC member)

Updates

April 2026

The WG held its fifth meeting, focusing on the selection process for the CEE Wiki Peer Learning Exchange:

Due to limited capacity not all applicants were selected for support.
Confirmation and rejection letters are scheduled to be sent.

March 2026

The WG held its fourth meeting to coordinate thematic initiatives and the rollout of the Peer Learning Program:

Thematic Meetings Initiative: Reviewed the action plan for organizing four online thematic meetings (e.g., research). The Hub has already implemented one thematic meeting, in collaboration with Wikimedia Europe – EuroMixer:Comms.
Community Check-in meetings: A dedicated Meta page was established for 1:1 community meetings.
Peer Learning Exchange Program launched on 25 February 2026. As part of the application support process, an Online Application Clinic (Q&A session) takes place on 10 March at 5:00 PM CET. The session was intended to provide guidance and answer questions from prospective applicants. The application deadline was 24 March 2026.

Februar 2026

The WG held its third meeting:

Reviewed CEE Hub community categorization and tiers.
The 1:1 community meetings agenda: discussed methods to improve community check-in meetings
Formally approved the Peer Learning Exchange Program documentation, including the Handbook, Mentor Policy, and FAQ. A date was set for the first online Application Clinic, allowing the project to proceed to the public launch phase. A date for the first online Application Clinic was established to support interested mentees.

Januar 2026

The WG held its second meeting, establishing operational guidelines and refining the structure of the Peer Learning Exchange Program:

Our working rules: Formalized internal rules for collaboration, including a one-hour meeting duration, agenda distribution in advance, and a decision-making protocol allowing absent members 48 hours to provide feedback before finalization.
CEE Wiki Peer Learning Exchange Program: The WG is currently developing a new program to help CEE communities grow by learning from each other. The goal is to pair experienced communities (mentors) with newer or developing ones (mentees) for direct knowledge sharing. We welcome "on-demand" pairings where communities have already found a partner, but the WG will also facilitate matches for those who need it. We are currently finalising the program rules and all necessary documents. The timeline will be officially announced once all documents are confirmed.

December 2025

On 5 December 2025, the WG held its first meeting to define its foundation and upcoming projects:

Purpose: Our core focus is helping CEE communities run their own projects more effectively. We aim to identify knowledge gaps and provide targeted training to improve local decision-making and project outcomes. The focus is primarily on supporting less developed communities.
Communication: The group agreed to use e-mail as the primary communication channel for now, as no urgent matters requiring instant messaging are currently expected.
2026 initiatives: We discussed upcoming plans for community mapping and "thematic online meetings" (a new initiative suggested during the CEEM workshop).
CEE Peer Learning Exchange: We agreed to develop the "CEE Wiki Peer Learning Exchange Program using available CEE Hub funds. Pinky sl will prepare the initial draft of the program rules and structure to be reviewed at our next meeting in January 2026.