Hi,

Here is the text of a contribution to a Janusz Korczak Seminar in Geneva on May 2015 on the topic "Childhood Protection and Participation"

It was about Childhood Participation, which is stated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in words to which the Wikimedia's vision and mission statements are surprisingly close.

I hope it can draw the attention especially to Vikidia in English (and Vikidia in Spanish) which, although behind fr and nl, already have some valuable content and a significant audience!

Vikidia, an equivalent of Wikipedia for children and the information and participation rights Mathias Damour - contribution to the 7th International Janusz Korczak Seminar in Geneva on May 30, 2015. On the topic Childhood Protection and Participation https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/User:Astirmays/Vikidia,_an_equivalent_of_Wikiped...

-- Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]]

Le 13/02/2015 23:52, Mathias Damour a écrit :

May I give you some news on the wiki encyclopedias for children:

I have let you know nearly one year ago about the launching of Vikidia in English[1]: Vikidia in English now has 1,445 articles and 32 active users. the advantage in English is that we can pick up, choose, adapt and select some existing material, especially from Simple English Wikipedia, and from Wikijunior. Some of the first users on en.vikidia.org also come from other Vikidia language and it even gather some Dutch teenager from Wikikids.nl.

Vikidia was first launched in French and there is a similarly developed counterpart in Dutch : http://wikikids.nl/ . these wikis are 8 and 9 years old now. Vikidia in French has now more than one million unique visitors a month, with a yearly growth of audience of nearly 40 %. It's not a Wikimedia project, yet it is supported by Wikimédia France that now funds our hosting costs. Another wiki encyclopedia for children was recently launched in German, and is supported by Wikimedia Germany. See some English explanation on it here: [2]. There is some quite significant differences between the way each wiki's aims, rules and functioning are designed, which we had the opportunity to discuss between one and another teams/founders.

The guestbook on fr.vikidia show that this resource is really appreciated by children (and even older peoples), and that there is a need for such a wiki beside Wikipedia ([3] [4]). Yet nothing can be done but with a significant community, that's why your support (as individual people so as an organisation) really matter ! klexikon.de, which claim to be a content - rather than an educational

• wiki for children, directs a great part of its efforts (this is most

of the Wikimedia Germany support) on organizing meeting and workshop for wannabe editors (teachers or other - mainly - adults). What about Wikimedia UK supporting something similar? Yet it would demand some peoples to undertake it... One can also begin with one (or some) blog post about this project ?

[1] http://blog.wikimedia.fr/vikidia-in-english-opens-today-lets-build-a-childre... [2] https://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/a-new-wiki-klexikon-the-free-encyc... [3] https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Livre_d%27or [4] see also http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=wikibooks%2C%20wikiversity%2C%20vikid...

-- Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]]