From Wikilontar to Wikisami: How Regional Partnerships Power Community-Led Growth in Bali
This **TED-style Duo Talk** follows the evolution of a community partnership model in Bali, from **Wikilontar**, a local manuscript digitization effort, to Wikisource Loves Manuscripts (**WILMA**), and now to **Wikisami**, a community-led initiative expanding Balinese knowledge preservation through global GLAM collaboration.
Presented as a dialogue between **Sakti Hendra Pramudya**, Senior Partnerships Manager for ESEAP at the Wikimedia Foundation, and **Carma Citrawati**, a community organizer from Bali, the session explores how sustained, trust-based regional support enables local initiatives to grow in scale, confidence, and institutional reach. What began as technical and strategic accompaniment for a small cultural preservation project has evolved into structured engagement with international memory institutions, including emerging collaboration pathways with Leiden University Libraries and the British Library.
Rather than focusing solely on outputs, this session examines **the partnership architecture behind community growth: long-term mentorship, bridge-building between local volunteers and global institutions, phased capacity strengthening, and accompaniment that extends beyond grant cycles**. This approach reflects **Liberté** through community agency and self-determination, **Égalité** through communities engaging global institutions as peers, and **Fiabilité** through building credible, trusted knowledge infrastructures.
The Bali experience demonstrates how regional partnerships can operationalize equity within the Wikimedia movement, transforming communities from beneficiaries of support into equal partners in knowledge production and heritage stewardship. Participants will gain practical insights for designing partnership pathways that strengthen community ownership while unlocking GLAM relationships otherwise inaccessible.
