By Thivanuya Chandramohan in Norwegian
The main task of the Lokalhistoriewiki (Local history wiki) is to explore different local traditions that are not known by everyone. A working group at Lokalhistoriewiki.no has taken a measure on Tamil culture and history. In fact, there are students at the Annai Poopathi Tamil Cultural Center in Rommen in Oslo, as volunteers sitting and planning articles.
On 21st October 2021, the working group for the project «Et mangfold av historier: norsk-tamilenes historier» (A diversity of stories: Norwegian-Tamil stories) arranged the first wiki workshop at the National Library of Norway at Solli Plass in Oslo. The youngsters who participated in the first wiki workshop planned a grassroots approach together with the working group that led to the wiki workshop at Annai Poopathi Tamil Cultural Center in Rommen.
On 21st November 2021, the working group, in collaboration with the cultural center in Rommen, had an opportunity to give the students a taste of the entire project. Around 36 students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades at the culture center were divided into 6 groups. Each group elected a leader and participated in a collective digital group work where they planned articles. The group assignment was based on finding three different topics that should be local or transnational and historical. Then they were to plan the structure of the articles and how they could find suitable images. At the end of the day, they had their group work presented to each other.
The aim of the group work was to initiate the writing of lexical articles in Tamil culture and history. So that the other cultures in Norwegian society get an insight into the Tamil perspective. There were many interesting topics in the output of the workshop. The working group was impressed and surprised by the effectiveness of the young people who planned three articles in around 20-25 minutes. The working group looks forward to keeping in touch with the youngsters to get their plan to finished written articles. The day was also a social gathering with food and drink. The working group looks forward to establishing cooperation with Tamil schools and organisations around the country to arrange more wiki workshops in the future.
It was evident in this wiki workshop that young people are ready to contribute to valuable work for the present and the future. Their job of writing history helps to save stories that are about to be lost. DiasporA Tamil Archives happily conveys its love and greetings for their interest, time, dedication and collaboration.
புதுப்பிப்பு│Update: 11.01.2022
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