User:Andrerodriguex/log/Introducing myself

Introducing myself

About me

Hello! I’m André (he/him), a 23-year-old Brazilian who was chosen as a Wikimedia intern for Outreachy’s 25th round. I will soon be graduating in Psychology and I am an aspiring front-end developer.

During the three-month period of the internship I will share and document parts of my journey here (in Portuguese, my first language, English and, whenever possible, Spanish too). I hope it can positively impact future interns or anyone who would like to dedicate themselves to contributing on projects like this one.

My core values

In a world that changes so quickly like the one we live in, it’s important to have core values that will guide how you act. Mine are: respect, mutual collaboration and meaningful work.

Aretha Franklin and I agree on this: we all need a little bit (or a lot) of r e s p e c t. To comprehend that we are all different is easier than accepting this fact, but it's necessary to preserve each other’s right to be who they are.

Another important aspect for me is mutual collaboration. There’s no me without someone else, hence, to a greater or lesser extent, we all need other people and this mutual necessity demands collaboration. Sharing experience with others brings rich rewards and what we can develop together is precious.

As human beings, we're always looking for meaning in everything we do, and that also applies to work. Work isn’t an easy task, it requires physical and mental effort, but working on something meaningful to you can definitely make things easier to achieve.

Why Outreachy?

I first heard about the project in a developer’s group and was immediately delighted with the possibility of being in an open source initiative, something I had wished for a long time but didn’t know where to start. As I said in my core values, respect — and accordingly including minority populations — is something very important to me, so when I saw that Outreachy promotes the participation of underrepresented groups in technology I was even more excited to participate.

The contribution period started and when I found Queering Wikipedia 2023, a project by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, I knew it was the one I wanted to work with during the internship and I was very honored and happy to be selected.

The WM LGBT+ User Group aims to bring awareness, strengthen our community, increase diversity, and develop content related to LGBT+ topics across projects of Wikimedia. Queering Wikipedia is an annual global event hosted by the group. The project started in 2019 but had to be delayed due to the pandemic. In 2023, QW will happen in a hybrid and trans-local manner, the first Wikimedia event in this format. I hope I can contribute with both the event execution and the community as a whole. See you in the next blog post. 👋