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CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop of river activists at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Rajasthan

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Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS) is an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India. The documentation of rivers on Wiki was started by it’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of CIS-A2K. After realizing the potential of this concept, TBS has decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajsthan. This was the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 for 34 participants from eight states of India.

Background

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CIS-A2K is collaborating with different organisations working on water & river issues. The process started after the River Dialogue organised by SANDARP & INTACH in Yashada, Pune. The initiative to document river issues on Wiki was taken up by Jal Biradari, Sangli. The parent organisation of Jal Biradari is Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS). TBS is running a movement called Jal Jan Jodo across India to connect people with the rivers to rejuvenate them. Looking at the potential in the concept, after the pilot in Sangli, TBS decided to take this methodology across India. The capacity building program is chalked out to train activists in different states. The first workshop in this series was organised in December 2018 at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. To create awareness and curiosity among citizens, we have collaborated with this initiative to facilitate knowledge resource building in Wikimedia Projects.

Objectives

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  • To build open knowledge resource on Water related issues in all Indian languages
  • To document the River Basins of India
  • To train the volunteers working in this sector to work in Wikimedia projects
  • To plan for Open Street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river
  • To bring free content on Commons & Wikisource projects

Event details

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  • Dates :22-25 December 2018
  • Time : 10am to 7pm
  • Venue : Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, District Alwar, Rajasthan, India

Participants (Usernames)

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  1. Earth Unit
  2. Gaurav streethouse
  3. sanneeri
  4. Ashutoshrapatwar1
  5. Rjt20
  6. Komal297
  7. Sindal
  8. Vanquisher002
  9. NityaRai09
  10. Vinni Munjal
  11. Mahaveer prasad vaishnav
  12. रागिनी
  13. नलिनी मिश्रा
  14. राजु राम
  15. Mithilesh Kr.Gupta
  16. Bhojpuri2018
  17. Amanwalia2020
  18. DeepakShrote
  19. Sreehari Pendor
  20. Indu94
  21. Ananyavid
  22. Simantabharati
  23. Mrityunjay1010
  24. Akshayshree
  25. आपकी आवाज
  26. KPSINGH 1964
  27. bkrmunda2269
  28. Bharat kumar tbs
  29. Santosh.pawar1991
  30. vgarg653
  31. Gopal Singh Dewat
  32. Shashankbharatsingh
  33. Sohanibi
  34. GopalSinghudawat

Facilitators

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  • Dr Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya
  • Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K

Agenda

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  • Preparation of schematic maps of river basin
  • Mapping the location details from origin to confluence with major river
  • Listing of water bodies, villages, stakeholders in the river basin
  • Learning editing in Wikipedia, working in sandboxes,
  • Article structure, manual of style, references
  • Copyrights, Uploading media files on Commons
  • Content donation to Wikisource
  • Working with Open street maps and OSMAnd app

Report

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The national level iteration of Jal Bodh was conducted between 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan for activists of Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan from eight states. The 34 participants were trained in this four day workshop. They started contributing in various languages. The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.
After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline & online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. Tarun Bharat Sangh has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA.

Feedback

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Rivers are very basic essence of existence of life in land. Thus, keeping sanctity, health and preservation of rivers are utmost important. The Wikimedia workshop during December in TBS on inclusion of river science, it's genesis and awareness to protect it through Wikipedia was really worthwhile. It provided wing to individuals like me to pendown more on revival of rivers because of present river pollution issues. The Wikipedia as an open forum can put an intense and long standing impact by including river as portal because mainstream can easily get the zeitgeist of problems, ways to tackle and sometimes use society as a whole to respond for revival of rivers. - Username:Mrityunjay1010

The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of commonning the Knowledge for the common good. The workshop gave me an another lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Again, Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop. Practical learning to edit the Wikipedia throughout the workshop has boosted my confidence and enthusiasm to create new pages on Wikipedia to devote myself in gap fulfilling for knowledge building and preservation (majorly documenting the local knowledge). The increase in cyber literacy and growing usage of smartphones have increased the context and significance of Wikipedia in recent times. I believe this campaign is worth devoting our time and concern. - Username:Simantabharati

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