Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/COSV

COSV is a charity operating for over 40 years in international solidarity in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe, and is currently present in Lebanon, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

History of collaboration
The collaboration of COSV with Wikipedia began in June 2011, following its participation in the Share Your Knowledge project. COSV initially made available the texts of its website from the "Environment" section. In July 2011 it has also made available under CC BY-SA part of their photographic archive on African subjects (which goes to Wikimedia Commons) and a video documentary. Federica Besana of the COSV Communications Office told WikiAfrica details about their involvement. ''<>'' Once they decided to use and promote the adoption of free licenses, COSV also issued (or worked to release) under Creative Commons many other materials (titles in Italian):

Federica also recalled an episode in which they attempted to engage students in Mozambique for the project:''<<We had planned an event related to WikiAfrica in order to write 100 articles about the Gilé Reserve in Mozambique, and a public event to present the park and our involvement in SYK. Our collaborators had collected pictures and info about the place and its history, they had drawn GIS maps and worked with the local university on ambiental studies of the surroundings. We wanted to involve some university students who looked interested in being trained as Wikipedians and help create articles. Unfortunately this did not happen and we could not write all those articles ourselves. So the event took place, but without the WikiAfrica part.>>'' Never mind, you can always try again in the future ...
 * "Manuale sanitario dell’espatriato", by Siscos and Link2007 (which COSV is part of) – 2011, CC BY-SA
 * "Poesie scelte, Siria, Italia, Svezia", anthology about the Media and Cultural heritage in Syria project, in collaboration with associations from Syria and Sweden – 2011, CC BY-NC-ND
 * Gis maps of the Gilé Park, Mozambique – 2012, CC BY-SA
 * handbook "Italia-Marocco. Fare Impresa: guida agli investimenti nelle regioni Lombardia e Tadla-Azilal" – 2012, CC BY-SA
 * Hiking and Biking tourist map for Montenegro and Bosnia – Durmitor, Piva and Sutjeska Parks – 2012, CC BY-SA
 * catalog of the 5th International festival of Comics in Beirut – 2012, CC BY-SA
 * project Music Bridges: Interludio amongst Pacific, Africa and Europe with workshops for music artists and stakeholders and release of video and audio productions under CC licenses - 2012.

Upload of content
Federica has this to say about their contents: ''<<About the articles, they are just a few if you think of how much material we released under a free license. We focused on the pics at the beginning as they refer to areas which are usually not covered by mass media. Later we began importing some contents to Wikipedia from a research about music and African musical instruments, but that's still work in progress. But we actually felt it was also "our" project and tried to integrate it into our regular activities, that's why we are also using the CC licenses for our training courses. We love this initiative and we'll succeed in becoming Wikipedians!>>'' While it was the project tutor Michele Casanova to take care of the images, User:Em chi worked on the texts for the Italian encyclopedia.

Content Analysis
Em chi created the articles about it:chiquitsi ,it:marimba and it:m'bira. An additional reading on the topic of the 2011 Somalia drought was published on Wikiversity instead. As for the 164 pictures published on Commons, usage statistics show that at the end of November 2012 about 8% of them is currently used on a Wikimedia project. In particular they appear in entries on the Wikipedias in Dutch, Italian, Arabic, Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language, Polish, serbo-croatian and vietnamese, and from January to November 2012 they have so far totaled at least 16,000 visits. To help COSV to resume its march on it.wiki one could continue with the music researches or read for more ideas the topics by the association; related materials can be found on their official website.

From Share Your Knowledge to Music Bridges
The one with COSV is a highly successful collaboration, also because it has led to a deeply appreciated development. Share Your Knowledge was as a matter of fact the inspiration for a project related to the music world, Music Bridges, which will be implemented in the next two years. "This action seeks to build cooperation between three structures of the music industry based in Vanuatu, Mozambique, and Italy. Among others, the main activities foreseen under this project include the organisation of creative residencies for musicians of the two South countries, tours of artists and distribution of works and albums in the two countries, support to local festivals, training sessions for the various professions involved in the sector, and the creation of a promotional web site." Federica revealed that ''<>''

Main activity

 * it:Progetto:WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge/Maratona 2011 - 2011 edit-a-thon about Africa.

Other contributions

 * Wikipedia in Italian
 * it:Chiquitsi - it:Marimba - it:M'bira


 * Wikimedia Commons


 * commons:Category:Files created by COSV - 164 files, over 16 thousand visits between January and November 2012


 * Wikiversity in Italian
 * v:Emergenza Somalia

Italian version

 * it:Progetto:WikiAfrica/Istituzioni/COSV

Pagine correlate

 * it:COSV
 * WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge
 * Chiquitsi - Marimba - M'bira

Collegamenti esterni

 * Sito di COSV
 * COSV chooses CC-BY-SA