Our best skill is collecting, collating, and sharing knowledge, we have connections deep into communities and countries across the globe.

In a small way we have networks and we could get limited support medically to a handful of volunteers, in some ways that will have made feel as if we have done some to help then we can go back to our meetings, our events, our adding a few more articles.

Perhaps its time we took our big stick and put the right knowledge where it can be found quickly, turn over the main pages to Wikimed get more useful support information about reducing transmission risks. We can use our resources to get knowledge about how bad it is to wider audiences, importantly link our volunteers into other organisations and help this knowledge with support to wherever ground zero is. We can put our skill sets to translations and knowledge distribution so everyone can learn.

On Sun, 25 Apr 2021 at 02:38, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

Personally I feel, insuring individuals against COVID-19 or helping people to get vaccines or sending other supports can be better handled locally by local affiliates (or local committees as proposed by Tito, whichevers seems fit) instead of a central organization like WMF. Local affiliates have better information about the vulnerable section of the community, government orders concerning the available vaccines, local market value of insurance premiums, vaccines, disinfectants etc. Sometimes they even have the money and/or the intention to extend this kind of support too, all they need is just a permission from the donor i.e. WMF Grants team.

The more I think about this, the more I come to think that we should at least attempt it.

It might be unusual for a nonprofit to provide this kind of support to its volunteers, but this is a truly exceptional situation. And while the entire world is struggling with Covid, the nature of the struggle is deeply different in most wealthy countries compared to what India is going through now. And India will probably not be the last nation to see its healthcare system not just threatened but entirely overwhelmed.

Of course the WMF is not going to be able to start airlifting Wikimedia-branded vaccines or oxygen supplies, but there must be some form practical help that can be given to support Wikimedia volunteers.

Regards,

Chris
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