Achievement unlocked! The Wikimedia Bolivia-Japan Friendship made historical past – Diff

During May and June, the Bolivian neighborhood set to work bettering content material on bilateral relations between Bolivia and Japan and enriching content material associated to Japanese tradition in Bolivia. These actions have been a part of the Wikimedia Bolivia-Japan Friendship, a marketing campaign coordinated between the consumer teams of each nations to strengthen neighborhood ties and enhance content material about each nations on Wikimedia tasks. To study extra concerning the origins of this friendship, we invite you to learn this put up and this put up.

Cameras prepared!

During the entire month of May, volunteer photographers from the Bolivian neighborhood visited a number of dojos in La Paz to seize the rising curiosity that Japanese martial arts have been producing in Bolivia for many years. They additionally photographed bonsai timber and cosplay occasions, the place they caught the joy and fervour of the cosplayers. Bolivia, in any case, is a rustic that really loves Japanese tradition.

Most of those visits have been carried out by blended groups: skilled volunteers, newcomers, and members of the Wikimedistas de Bolivia User Group crew. The extra seasoned photographers guided the freshmen, not simply on technical facets, but in addition on how one can acknowledge what makes a picture encyclopedically related for Wikimedia Commons. Meanwhile, senseis and martial arts college students gave it their all in entrance of the cameras. Later, the mentors helped the newer photographers decide the very best photographs, edit them, and add them to Commons with correct titles, descriptions, and classes.

The skilled photographers have been invited as a result of they’ve been a part of the Bolivian neighborhood for years and have received a number of contests organized by Wikimedistas de Bolivia. The apprentices, alternatively, come from the Photography and Visual Narrative Workshop, which has been coaching enthusiastic new volunteers in El Alto (Bolivia’s youngest metropolis) for 3 years now.

The consequence? Dozens of high-quality photographs, which you’ll browse here. It’s additionally price highlighting that the dojo senseis themselves helped write the descriptions, so these photos aren’t simply technically stable; in addition they include expert-reviewed captions, which is one thing we not often get to do. Take a take a look at this image as an awesome instance.

The youthful volunteers additionally took cost of overlaying cosplay occasions, just like the Marchas Friki in La Paz and Oruro. User NikoBitre, a self-proclaimed otaku and Bolivian volunteer, led the picture protection of the Marcha Friki in La Paz. Here’s what she needed to say:

As a fan of Japanese tradition and anime, I received to mix my love for images with my ardour for this world. I actually loved main the Marcha Friki as a result of I may acknowledge virtually each cosplay there, and I may additionally assist my teammates determine them. It additionally means loads to me that a few of my photographs at the moment are on Wikipedia. It’s good to suppose that by means of them, different individuals would possibly uncover and respect a neighborhood that retains rising and expressing itself with a lot vitality.

User Ale RaFlo, a long-time volunteer, shared her ideas on mentoring the newer era:

Aside from capturing photographs myself, I additionally had the possibility to mentor different newbie photographers. I helped them curate their photos and guided them in recognizing the precise second when {a photograph} can actually inform a narrative. It was a really rewarding expertise, not only for the shared studying, however for the satisfaction of contributing to free information about Japanese migration and its affect in Bolivia.

Making historical past

Thanks to this marketing campaign, a big share of Wikimedia Commons photos associated to martial arts now come from Bolivia. In the Aikido by country category, as an illustration, most photographs are Bolivian. Search for Iaido, and virtually all the pictures are from Bolivia. In Karate, there’s now a great variety of coaching photographs, that are particularly priceless, since martial arts are largely about apply, not simply competitions.

The very first photo of a bonsai tree from Bolivia on Commons got here out of this marketing campaign, and what’s extra, it’s of a local Bolivian species. The first good-quality cosplay photographs from Bolivia additionally got here from this marketing campaign, which is kind of stunning, contemplating cosplay occasions occur virtually each month within the nation.

As we talked about, Bolivia is deeply into Japanese tradition. You see an increasing number of road meals stalls promoting Japanese meals, extra outlets catering to anime followers, and extra cosplayers going all out to deliver their favourite characters to life. But none of this was documented on Wikipedia or its sister tasks till now. That means we’ve simply taken a historic step; we’re lastly giving protection to one thing that issues loads to our society.

The companions who made all of it potential

An enormous a part of these achievements wouldn’t have occurred with out the collaboration of the Japanese Society of La Paz. They linked us with martial arts dojos and bonsai specialists, and so they additionally opened their doorways to us. We held a Wikipedia modifying workshop with them, and on June 27, we ran our in-person edit-a-thon proper at their amenities, with 24 individuals attending. That identical day, we visited the Historic Center of Japanese Migration to Bolivia, the place a number of Nikkei neighborhood members shared their experiences of dwelling between two cultures.

78 new articles about Bolivia in Japanese

And whereas all of this was unfolding in Bolivia, Japanese volunteers have been busy bettering, creating, and translating dozens of articles about Bolivia into Japanese. By the time the marketing campaign wrapped up, 78 articles had been created on the Japanese Wikipedia, together with some which are important to Bolivian historical past, just like the entry on the Cerro Rico of Potosí.

But they didn’t simply edit. They additionally went out to strive salteñas, drink mocochinchi, and study extra about Bolivian tradition, proper there in Japan.

We can confidently say that this friendship went past creating content material on Wikimedia tasks. It was about constructing actual connections and collaboration between each communities. It gave us an opportunity to grasp one another higher, regardless of the huge distance separating us.

We’re deeply grateful to our Japanese mates. We by no means imagined this friendship would attain this far. Arigatou gozaimashita, mates from Japan!

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