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Wikimedia CH

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Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens – Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libres – Associazione per la promozione della conoscenza libera


Wikimedia CH

Switzerland
Location Switzerland
Country codeCH
Legal statusnon-profit organization
Founding dateApril 14, 2006
Official language(s)
Other language(s)
Websitehttps://www.wikimedia.ch/en/
Mailing listWikimediach-l
Libera.Chat#wikimedia-chconnect
FacebookWikimediaCH
Chapters (37)
Thematic organizations (2)
Wikimedia user groups (153)

Wikimedia CH is a Swiss non-profit organization, whose mission is to disseminate and promote free knowledge for a smarter and more open society. It supports free content projects and in particular the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects in Switzerland.

The association was founded on 14 May 2006 in the restaurant of the train station in Olten, and reunites authors and users of Wikimedia projects of all Swiss official languages (German, French, Italian and Rumantsch) as well as the Alemannic dialects and English.

It is recognised as a local chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation. However, it remains a financially and legally independent entity with its own rules and leadership. Wikimedia CH does not host any of the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects and has no editing rights over them.

Wikimedia CH focuses on five strategic impact directions: GLAM, Education, Community, Outreach and Innovation. To support these efforts, the association relies on the organisational enablers of communication, fundraising, technology and know-how, diversity, inclusion and equity.

Support for the community

The content on Wikipedia and its sister projects is entirely created thanks to the efforts and engagement of volunteers. It is central for Wikimedia CH to support their work, and it does so by providing a wide range of services.

  • Reimbursements and scholarships: Wikimedia CH pays for travel and accommodation expenses when you participate to events related to Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia CH also awards numerous scholarships every year, even for major events such as WikiCons or Wikimania. Application deadlines and conditions are always communicated in advance. For more information on the guidelines and the specific procedure for application, see WMCH's Scholarships policy. Check out WMCH's General reimbursement policy as well for more details.
  • Microgrants for your project or activities: if you are a volunteer currently active in one of the Swiss languages (German, French, Italian or Rumantsch) and you need financial support for your own project, which has an impact on Wikimedia projects, you can turn to Wikimedia CH for a microgrant (from 1 to 1’000 CHF). A committee composed of staff, members and board members will review your application and decide whether you will be granted the financial contribution. Here’s to the microgrants page on Meta: Wikimedia CH/Micro-Grant .
  • Project grants: if you are planning a bigger project (for example a Wikipedia workshop, an edit-a-thon or an open-source hackathon) that requires a bigger financial support, you can apply for a Wikimedia CH grant (from 1’001 CHF). Your activity needs to improve one or more of the planned activities of Wikimedia CH (connected with its programs Education, GLAM, Community, Outreach and Innovation), and should pursue clear outcomes and impacts. Here you can find more information: Wikimedia CH/Grant .
  • Volunteer certificate: if you need a certificate that confirms your volunteer work, with information about the nature and extent of your commitment in the Wikiverse, you can ask Wikimedia CH to provide such document. Please contact the responsible Community Manager in your region.

Programmes and activities

Wikimedia CH is active in the following areas:

Community

Support and promote the work of volunteers who add content or give visibility to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and other sister projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikimedia CH follows 4 basic principles: no influence on content, respect of personal rights, neutral point of view, embracing diversity.

Here you can see what the community is currently up to: Wikimedia CH/Calendar and the WikiProject Switzerland on Wikipedia.

GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums)

Help Swiss memory institutions share their curatorial knowledge, collections and resources in a digital manner, on global platforms, making Swiss cultural heritage more accessible to the world.

Education

Support the development and adoption of effective educational practices in a digital world through activities on media and information literacy (MIL), teaching about web technologies and contributing to Wikimedia projects. The focus is on students and teachers at all levels of education, but also on other interested parties in a lifelong learning perspective.

Innovation

Provide an experimentation space for creative ideas, tools and models around various focus areas (e.g: climate change, education, GLAM, etc.). WMCH aims to play a role in technological innovation and topics of open source and open software through flexibility, creativity and proactivity.

Outreach and communication

Advocate for issues such as copyright and net neutrality by actively participating in working groups and coalitions to advance digital and open-source themes in society and politics, in line with the political direction and stance of the Wikimedia Foundation and other chapters. WMCH also supports civic action groups with expertise about the Wikiverse.

Fundraising

Collect donations for the aforementioned programmes and general operations of the association, in accordance with its bylaws.

Organisation

  • The Board of directors is elected once a year by the General Assembly and consists of a President and four to six other members. See the current board.
  • Since 2016, the association has neither a headquarters nor a physical office. Its team members work from home and are based all over Switzerland. See the current staff.

Bylaws and policies

The bylaws of the association, as well as all other important documents such as current policies and annual reports are to be found on Wikimedia CH’s website: wikimedia.ch/en/about/basic-information.

Languages

In Switzerland, Swiss German is the most widely used language on the workplace (over 60%), followed by standard German (over 30%), French (nearly 30%), English (20%) and Italian (nearly 10%). Over 2/3 of people over the age of 15 regularly use more than one language.[1]

That said, more than 25% of people living in Switzerland don't speak a national language as mother tongue. Portuguese is the most commonly spoken foreign language in Switzerland, followed by Spanish, Serbian, Croatian and Albanian.[2]

In this context, Wikimedia CH uses four languages: English, German, French and Italian. For everyday work, the staff communicate mainly in English. Official documents are always produced in all four languages. People are free to also reach out in Romansh or in Swiss German, but the answer will be in one of the four mentioned languages.

Reports

The current reports of all chapters are listed here.

See also

  1. ↑ Language – facts and figures
  2. ↑ en:Languages_of_Switzerland
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