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How Wikimedia Ukraine’s team works during the war

Anton Protsiuk

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  • Kyiv and other non-frontline regions are regularly attacked, but we’ve adapted & life goes on – work from office, in-person events etc.

  • Wikimedia Ukraine currently implements the vast majority of our pre-war programs (and some new stuff around wartime community support)

What the war *hasn’t* changed

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Wikimedia Ukraine’s team during a recent in-person conference (Vitalii Petrushko, CC BY-SA 4.0)

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People are impacted in different ways, e.g.

  • major life changes (some people left Ukraine & are working remotely from abroad; some relocated within Ukraine or volunteered for the army)
  • just psychologically

What the war *has* changed

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  • Two major factors impacting everyday life in Kyiv & other non-frontline regions are air raid alerts & blackouts

  • As a result, it’s much harder to plan events and work in general

What the war *has* changed

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My workplace in Wikimedia Ukraine’s office during a blackout

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  • You need to be empathetic and understanding, be able to step in another person’s shoes

  • You have to be remote-friendly
    • You have to embrace asynchronous communications

Dealing & lessons learned

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Shelter we would have to use were an air raid alert to disrupt our annual Wikiconference in 2022. Cozy :) – but small for everyone to fit comfortably. Thankfully, we ended up not needing it

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Planning is still important to try and take control of the situation, you just have to be chill about plans going awry & you needing to replan

Dealing & lessons learned