Wikimedian in residence in Aruba reflects on the project: transcript

Key points

• The project began in January of the previous year as a pilot started and funded through Wikimedia Netherlands, with local partners in Aruba.
• Workshops were held at the national library and the University of Aruba, covering Papiamento Wikipedia and uploading photos of Aruba to Wikimedia Commons.
• More than 300 people took part in activities such as Let's Wiki sessions, lectures and social events.
• Wiki Loves Monuments Aruba brought more than 150 submitted photos of monuments and historic buildings.
• Building an active editing community takes time, but more people and institutions are now connected and more Aruban heritage is visible online.
• She hopes participants will keep running workshops and making Aruba's culture more accessible.

Chapters

1. 0:05Origins of the Wikimedian in residence pilot project
2. 0:38Workshops and partners in Aruba
3. 1:47Results: events, participants and Wiki Loves Monuments
4. 2:41Personal experience and connecting people
5. 3:14Future hopes and giving people the right tools

Full transcript

0:05Okay, my name is Ginely Kuant and I'm the Wikimedia in residence of Aruba. I started with this project last year, that was in January, is where we started. And our goal was to engage with the community to help them and inform them how to use all of the Wikimedia platforms that is available. This is a transcript. So Wikimedia Netherlands is actually the one who started this project, is the one that actually got the fund also to do this pilot project.

0:38And together with the local partners here in Aruba, they created this pilot project which we are just doing the execution of it as in Wikimedia in Residence with my colleague Ricardo. So what we did was execute and we also worked with the University of Aruba, for example, this is external partners. But together with them, what we did was collaborate on how we can get the community coming in and learn about Wikipedia. So what we did was doing workshops. So we did a lot of workshops here at the national library, but also we did workshops at the university, for example.

1:14So it was all about facilitating the need for people to come and learn, and also facilitating giving them the information that they need. To learn and to use Wikipedia, for example, which is the PAP Wikipedia that we have in Papamento, but also Wiki Commons to upload photos of Aruba. So all of that is what we did. It's all about facilitating for people to get the knowledge that they can use. As project coordinator, I supported the organization and communication around the activities.

1:47We organized BAM Wiki sessions, which literally translate to Let's Wiki sessions, workshops, lectures and also just social events. More than 300 people took part in this project activities. We also organized the Wiki Loves Monuments Aruba with more than 150 submitted photos of monuments and historic buildings. Building an active editing community takes time but this project created an important beginning. More people now know what Miki Media is, more institutions are now connected and much more Aruban heritage is now visible online. My experience as a project coordinator of Wikipedia on Aruba was excellent. I got the opportunity to present a very important part that was missing in Aruba which is uploading and making Aruba's knowledge visible to the whole world.

2:41So this is what we focused on and also just bringing people together to share their stories, share their knowledge. This is what I like the most. Overall, it was a great experience and I would highly appreciate the opportunity to continue on focusing on these important aspects that are still missing and keep sharing Aruba's story with the world. I'm very happy to have contributed and also helped with connecting with people and also facilitating how to use these platforms like Wikipedia, for example, Wikidata and Commons.

3:14And I see that a lot of more people in Aruba now has maybe some basic knowledge, but they keep developing themselves through the project and also the information that we gave. so I'm very happy to have contributed to this and I hope all of the people that I got in touch with can also continue themselves on facilitating more workshops and help make Aruba's culture and heritage more accessible on Wikipedia but also globally on all of the online platforms.

3:46This project was not only about putting Aruba on Wikipedia, it was about giving people in Aruba the right tools to share their stories and share it with the world thank you for being part of Wikipedia on Aruba

Source and licence

Recording: File:WoA Reflection Interview June 2026 WEBM.webm by Ginelly.Q (2026-06-18), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.