The International Roma Day edit-a-thon, first launched in 2020, welcomed the Turkish Wikipedia community for the very first time in 2025 — and we were thrilled to join! This global initiative aims to raise awareness about Roma rights and culture while addressing content gaps about the history and lives of Roma people around the world. For us, it was a meaningful opportunity to both learn and contribute.
Our Achievements
We are also proud to share that Turkish Wikipedia ranked first place1 in the challenge, surpassing both the Serbian and Macedonian Wikipedia communities — a fantastic achievement for our first participation!
As part of this year’s Wikimarathon on Turkish Wikipedia, we:
- Created 37 new articles
- Improved 3 existing articles
- Developed 2 new templates
It is also important to highlight that in Turkey, there are an estimated 500,000 to 2 million Roma people, making the country one of the largest Roma populations in the world. After Spain and Romania, Turkey hosts one of the largest Roma communities globally. This made our participation in the Wikimarathon even more meaningful as we strive to amplify Roma voices and raise awareness about their rights and culture.
Collaboration and Looking Ahead
Our contributors worked on topics such as Roma history, art, music, literature, prominent figures, and social struggles, helping to enrich Wikipedia with more inclusive and comprehensive content. Beyond content creation, the event also fostered a strong sense of collaboration and solidarity within our community. Both new and experienced Wikimedians came together to share knowledge, collaborate, and experience the joy of working collectively.
We believe that making Roma contributions more visible and supporting Roma rights is essential — and events like this play an important role. As the Turkish Wikipedia community, we aim to continue our efforts in this field in the coming years in cooperation with civil society organizations working on Romani Rights.
Thank You!
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed, supported, and joined us on this exciting journey! 💙💚
- According to the article addition results of the communities as of May 2, 2025 ↩︎