Project talk:Wikimedia Strategy 2017/Cycle 2/Healthy, Inclusive Communities

These are the main questions we want you to consider and debate during this discussion. Please support your arguments with research when possible.

1. What impact would we have on the world if we follow this theme?
2. How important is this theme relative to the other 4 themes? Why?
3. Focus requires tradeoffs. If we increase our effort in this area in the next 15 years, is there anything we’re doing today that we would need to stop doing?
4. What else is important to add to this theme to make it stronger?
5. Who else will be working in this area and how might we partner with them?

1. Focusing on healthy Inclusive communities is fundamental to everybody's wellbeing. If people can access accurate, up-to-date information at the time they need it then people's lives can be drastically improved and communities can be empowered.

• For example, if I have a friend having a mental health crisis and needs help now. I could call overstretched services who would not be able to attend immediately and end up hanging around feeling a bit useless and scared. Or I could make that call and then access an authoritative wiki article "First aid in a mental health emergency" with simple things I could do. Hence the person feels supported and I feel armed with knowledge to make a difference.

• Even simple things like "Removing a splinter from a child" - not serious enough to go to a doctor but definitely causing pain and distress. I don't want to buy an expensive gadget but I want to take my crying child to school now. I need a wiki article that helps now.

• People often need accurate information to make informed decisions. These ought to be reliable and non-profit motivated when it comes to health.

2. This theme is super important as without health, everybody suffers e.g. somebody else has to care for the person, other people are affected by their illness. A lack of understanding about disability for instance can lead to that person becoming isolated and marginalised. Fragmented communities cause crime, despair and poverty.

3. Trade-offs may not be necessary. People are highly motivated to act for the common good and make a difference to help others. Additional volunteers are more likely to come forward for a specific project in this area. Especially students.

4. We could partner with development charities, medical charities, public health organisations. Decide on areas where we could make an effective difference and prioritise these. For example, how to sterilise water if your child has diarrhoea. So many children die because of a lack of clean water needlessly. We could link to a water charity to get accurate information. Ensure we are accessible to users perhaps in parts of the world with low access to an intermittent internet - easy to load page etc. Also, ensure access to users who may speak another language e.g. use graphics with a small file size. Graphically show getting water, boiling it for 10 minutes and waiting for it to cool.