Outreach Oceania: Micronesia

Outreach Oceania is an outreach program being organised by several members of Wikimedia Australia. The initial focus of Outreach Oceania will be on Micronesia, with a goal introducing students to Wikimedia Foundation projects and assisting them in learning how to use them. The other focus will be on contacting local cultural institutions and letting them know about the potential benefits of sharing knowledge on Wikimedia Foundation related projects. This will be done through meeting with library and museum staff, or providing WikiWorkshops. Once we successfully trial this in Micronesia, we will extend it to other regions of Oceania.

Purpose

Engage under-represented region and population in terms of participation and content focused around a geographic area.
Establish relationships with local GLAM organisations.
Network to provide additional contacts for LangCom.
Create materials in local languages to contribute to language preservation efforts.
Improve news coverage of the region on Wikinews.
Improve image coverage of the region on Wikipedia and on Commons.
Develop a framework for similar outreach in other islands in Oceania.

Local benefits

Work towards creating a resource for materials in local languages.
Provide students with training that can be useful for jobs in marketing, tourism, education and journalism.
Provide GLAMs with contacts to help improve their visibility and possible research being done related to their collections.
Inform locals about possible WMF related grant opportunities.
Have articles created that could be used to help increase visibility of the region, provide news from the region and assist with possible tourism related efforts.
Develop a substainable community on local language Wikipedia to help encourage native language usage.

Organisers