In November Wikimedia Armenia received a collaboration offer from Armenian Educational Foundation. It is a non-profit organization based in Glendale, California. Founded in 1950, it renders financial assistance to Armenian educational institutions, and assists students of Armenian parentage to study in Armenian Higher Education Institutions.
The scholarship recipient students have an obligation to do a volunteer work during a year and for diversifying the students choice the organization has decided to apply for a volunteer opportunity where the students can invest their intellectual abilities. The parties agreed to involve students in editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Therefore AEF announced about the volunteer work which interested around 50 students. It was a new and interesting experience for the organization. After an introductory workshop 25 students continued volunteering for WMAM until July 1.
The students have translated articles from Russian and English Wikipedias. Those students who did not have translation skills had proofread works of Armenian classic writers in Armenian Wikisource. The working process was coordinated mostly online via emails. The students have worked in their Sandboxes and after checking the translation quality, the articles were created in the Main Space.
As a result of the collaboration 104 articles were created or improved in Armenian Wikipedia and 150+ pages proofread in Armenian Wikisource. The most active 15 students have been awarded with Certificates.
Wikimedia Armenia gave feedback to the Armenian Education Foundation summarizing the results of our collaboration and received a positive reply from our partners who emphasized their highly appreciation of our educational-scientific activities which was closely related to their ideaology. Both parties have expressed willingness to have a continuous collaboration.
Lilit Tarkhanyan, WMAM Education Program Coordinator
