GLAM/Newsletter/August 2025/Contents/Brazil report
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Expanding Cultural Heritage in Brazil: School communities, Wikisource course, GLAM-Wiki Impact and Wiki Takes Alcântara
My School, Our Heritage: Expanding Cultural Documentation in School Communities
My School, Our Heritage is an educational and cultural initiative that aims to integrate free knowledge and the appreciation of local heritage into the daily life of Brazilian schools. With a focus on training students and teachers, the project encourages the documentation, photography, and georeferencing of schools that are themselves heritage sites, using collaborative platforms such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and OpenStreetMap. Carried out by members of the Wikimedia Brasil community and funded by the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform Activity Fund, the project promotes heritage education, digital culture, and the pedagogical use of open technologies and platforms.
Activities took place in the end of July 2025 in five schools across the Brazilian state of Bahia, resulting in the amount of 2,160 openly licensed images already shared on Wikimedia Commons, produced collectively by students, teachers, and school communities.
Instituto Nossa Senhora da Piedade – Ilhéus (BA)
The first school to join the project was the Instituto Nossa Senhora da Piedade, a private school of great historical and cultural relevance in Ilhéus, a city in the south region of Bahia. Activities with 11th-grade students combined lectures on heritage, copyright, and open tools, followed by a guided tour of the heritage-listed building. Students received basic training in photography techniques and carried out a systematic photographic survey of the school. Local professionals, including museologists Vitória Bispo Carvalho and Juliane Bento, enriched the discussions on cultural preservation. The effort produced 1,095 images documenting the school's architecture and spaces, now freely available to the public.
Colégio Estadual Ypiranga – Salvador (BA)
At the Colégio Estadual Ypiranga, located in Salvador, the project engaged both high school and technical tourism students. Workshops explored the educational use of mobile devices, open licenses, and documentary photography practices. Students conducted photo walks throughout the school, documenting both its interior and surroundings. A highlight was the integration with the tourism curriculum, sparking discussions on heritage as a driver of local development. The participants contributed 580 images in total to Wikimedia Commons.
Colégio Estadual Central da Bahia – Salvador (BA)
At the Colégio Central da Bahia, also in Salvador, activities involved tourism students and provided a space for in-depth reflections on heritage education, collective memory, and the decolonization of knowledge. In addition to photography practice, students discussed the role of images in constructing narratives about their territories. Guided tours, indoor and outdoor photo documentation, and critical debates highlighted the impact of tourism on heritage sites. The initiative resulted in 391 images enriching the school's presence on Wikimedia Commons.
Colégio Estadual Azevedo Fernandes – Salvador (BA)
Situated in Pelourinho, the Colégio Estadual Azevedo Fernandes had no prior visual presence on Wikimedia platforms. In a single afternoon, middle school students documented architectural and environmental features of the campus. Despite the limited time and mixed-age groups, the activity produced 63 images, marking the school's first step toward building an open digital heritage record.
Escola Municipal João Lino – Salvador (BA)
Another school located in Pelourinho was the Escola Municipal João Lino, hosted the project with a focus on empowering teachers and strengthening the school's institutional visibility. As the Colégio Estadual Azevedo Fernandes, this school also had no prior documentation on the Wikimedia platform; The July activities marked its first open contributions. Teachers received training on digital culture and open educational resources, complemented by a guided visit to the renovated facilities. The school's initial contribution was 28 images, forming its first digital heritage collection.
Overall Impact
In addition to the near 2,160 images already uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, the project has produced over 3,000 additional photographs that are, during August and September, being organized and prepared for upload, which will further expand the documentation and visibility of Bahia cultural heritage.
Throughout its implementation, the project also faced challenges such as unstable mobile connectivity, restrictions on cellphone use in classrooms, and initial difficulties with account creation for new contributors. These were addressed through collaborative strategies, including device sharing among students, adapting field activities, and direct support from the Wikimedia community, which provided guidance and temporary permissions to facilitate participation.
More than numbers, the initiative has sparked meaningful reflections on preservation, digital culture, and citizenship, fostering the leadership of teachers and students in producing free knowledge about their own communities and strengthening the connection between schools, local heritage, and global collaborative platforms.
Photographs are still being uploaded since the events. Other activities on this project are currently being developed. Keep updated clicking here.
Course: Introduction to Wikisource for Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Other Memorial Institutions
During the month of August, professionals from libraries, archives, museums and other memory institutions participated in "Introdução ao Wikisource para bibliotecas, arquivos, museus e outras instituições de memória", a training program designed to introduce Wikisource as a tool for open access, heritage dissemination, and collaborative networking. Organized by the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Gestão e Preservação do Patrimônio Cultural das Ciências e da Saúde (PPGPAT/COC) and the Instituto de Letras da Universidade Federal da Bahia (ILUFBA), and supported by Wikimedia Brasil, the course combined theoretical lectures with hands-on activities, enabling participants to engage directly with the platform.
Over the three sessions, the program covered the history and principles of Wikisource, its integration with the Wikimedia ecosystem, and its potential for use by cultural heritage professionals. Participants learned how to insert and organize works and documents, edit metadata, and practice collaborative transcription and revision of digitized texts, using selected collections from Fiocruz. The course also highlighted the role of Wikisource in building collaborative networks, with special attention to initiatives such as the MOOC Paleografia na Rede Wiki.
By the end of the course, attendees were able to recognize the strategic importance of Wikisource in preservation and access to historical documents, explore its applications in institutional and educational projects, and strengthen connections with the wider community of users dedicated to free knowledge and cultural heritage. In total, 43 people subscribed to the course.
Brazilian National Archives: Reaching 1 BILLION views!
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In May, Wikimedia Brasil announced the release of a new tool for measuring reach and impact of GLAM-Wiki initiatives. After some months of testing and fixes, we relaunched the tool, just in in time to announce that the GLAM-Wiki partnership between the Brazilian National Archives and Wikimedia Brasil has reached an staggering amount of 1.009.870.057 views in just shy of 8 years of partnership!
The medias uploaded through the partnership illustrate more than 12 thousand pages in Wikimedia projects, being the photograph of Michel Foucault, taken in 1974 by an unknown photographer during a series of lectures by the French philosopher at the Hospital das Clínicas of the State University of Guanabara, the most visualized of the collection available in Wikimedia Commons, with 28.8 million views since its upload.
We congratulate every volunteer involved in the upload, maintenance and enhancement of metadata on this and other collections Wikimedia Brasil helped upload and disseminate.
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Michel Foucault, 1974, with 28.842.181 views so far -
Maracanã Stadium, 1950, with 24.481.717 views so far -
Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque at the Festival Internacional da Canção, 1968, with 16.808.580 views so far -
Golden Law, 1888, with 11.358.935 views so far -
Jânio Quadros awards Ernesto Guevara with the Order of the Southern Cross, 1961, with 9.828.385 views so far
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Wiki Takes Alcântara
Wiki Takes Alcântara was an initiative to increase the amount / quality of information about the small city of Alcântara, settled in Maranhão, available in Wikimedia projects in Portuguese. Alcântara is a city in Maranhão that has been considered a National Heritage Site by IPHAN since 1948. In addition, in 2004, it was recognized for its cultural, historical, landscape, urban, and archaeological value. Walking through the streets of Alcântara is like strolling through an open-air museum, passing by architectural complexes that include old churches, ruins that represent the grandeur of the constructions that once existed there and housed the Maranhão export elite, and recognizing characteristic elements of the colonial period with its strong Portuguese influence, highlighting the city’s former economic importance as reflected by those who once lived there.
Another important point to highlight is that Alcântara is home to more than 200 quilombola communities, making it the municipality with the largest number of such communities among Brazilian cities. This is reflected in Alcântara’s culture, which can be observed in its festivities, cuisine, beliefs, handicrafts, and more. The city also carries Indigenous influence, as the territory once belonged to the Tupinambás people.
Recognizing the historical and cultural importance of Alcântara, the initiative Wiki Takes Alcântara was held in the city, aiming to increase both the quantity and quality of information about the municipality within Wikimedia projects. The activity took place within the context of the Wiki Loves Maranhão campaign, a project that seeks to shed light on the historical, cultural, and natural wealth of this great state and to improve its representation within the Wiki environment.
Between August 27 and 31, members of the professional team and volunteers from Wikimedia Brazil were present in the city to establish different connections and carry out various activities in order to showcase to Brazil and the world the beauty and richness of the municipality. There were conversations with cultural and heritage leaders, interviews with community members, filming sessions and dialogues with quilombola women who carry out a unique and centuries-old work with ceramics, as well as an immersion into everything Alcântara has to offer—its history, its culture, its mysteries, and its cuisine.
The activities of Wiki Takes Alcântara took place between August 29 and 31, covering a weekend. Hosted at Museu de Alcântara, which belongs to IBRAM (Brazilian Institute of Museums), Wiki Takes brought together museum staff, members of other institutions such as the Department of Culture and IPHAN, as well as members of the local community. All participants proved to be engaged, passionate about Alcântara, and open to learning more about Wikimedia projects in order to use them as tools to spread knowledge about the city.
During the event in Alcântara, the following activities took place:
- Photographic walk, covering both well-known sites in Alcântara as well as ruins located slightly beyond the usual tourist routes.
- Wikimedia Commons workshop, where participants were taught how to upload their images to the platform, including the photos taken during the walk.
- Wikipedia workshop, explaining the platform’s guidelines, rules, and pillars, enabling participants to use the tool effectively and correctly.
- Collection digitization workshop, where the Portable Museum Kit was presented, highlighting its ease of use and importance.
- Georeferencing of the municipality’s streets and roads.
- Discussion circles.
With the number of participants ranging from 12 to 15 in each activity, everyone involved showed curiosity and interest in better understanding how Wiki tools work and in learning how to share their knowledge and passion for the city and culture of Alcântara on the platforms, contributing accurate and truthful information, as well as photos captured through the eyes of those who live and breathe Alcântara.
The outcome of the event was highly positive and rewarding, further enriching Wikimedia Brazil’s experience in organizing this type of activity, always paying attention to and respecting the characteristics of each chosen city, as well as its community and the functioning of its institutions and daily life.
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Tiles of Museu Histórico de Alcântara -
Boats in Alcântara -
Collection digitization workshop -
Festa do Divino -
Carmo Church -
Wikipedia Workshop -
Cuxá rice, a tradicional dish -
Divino's House -
Mirititiua Fountain -
Matriz Square
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Partnership with Museu de Alcântara
On August 26, 2025, a partnership was signed between Wikimedia Brazil and Museu de Alcântara, a federal public institution linked to the Brazilian Institute of Museums (IBRAM). Located at Praça da Matriz in Alcântara, the Museum comprises three mansions that are part of Alcântara’s architectural complex.
Ranging from ceramics, furniture, fabrics, tools, to tableware, the Museu de Alcântara has more than 2,000 cataloged items. The Technical Cooperation Agreement signed between the two institutions aims at implementing the “GLAM of the Museu de Alcântara”, in order to upload the Museum’s media and metadata onto Wiki platforms, as well as to create the Museu de Alcântara's GLAM page. This will help disseminate its collection and facilitate access to it at both national and global levels, while also serving as a memory repository for the Museum.
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