Outreachy report #52: December 2023
Highlights of 2023
I’ve worked hard to improve our decision-making processes this year. I’ve tackled diversity of subjects and situations, facilitated some sometimes very difficult meetings, and have been tirelessly working on improving our communications internally and externally. I’ve been training and primarily mentoring Tilda since August.
As of April 2023, I’ve become a B1/B2 American visa holder. That may seem a small feat for American citizens, but this is the most difficult, invasive, and expensive visa application process I’ve experienced in my life. It required me to disclose (and carry around) an immense amount of very sensitive personal information about my life and my family, to travel to the Federal District to visit the American embassy in Brasília, to spend days just waiting because you can’t schedule both appointments on the same day.
I’m currently the only Outreachy organizer from the Global South who’s able to travel to the United States for the next ten years. Additionally, as a Brazilian citizen, I have visa-free or visa on arrival access to 170 countries and territories (which almost four times more countries than Nigerian citizens can travel to on a visa free or visa on arrival basis, unfortunately). That has allowed me to represent Outreachy on several occasions and conferences, especially if they take place in the Global North or in South America (where Brazilians have freedom of movement within Mercosul countries).
More importantly, I attended CZI’s LatAm Open Science meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina and helped Sage organize our 1000 interns celebration in Portland, Oregon during FOSSY. I had the privilege of meeting Karen and Sage in person for the first time after almost 5 years of collaboration with Outreachy, and almost 6 years after my internship with the Wikimedia community. It felt so special to take a picture by the same stairs that have witnessed so much of Outreachy’s early history!
We attended our very first State of Software Freedom meeting this year. I was extremely happy to talk about software freedom in more general, global, systemic terms. It allowed me to reconnect with my motivations to use free software in the first place, and later on, to pursue a career in free software.
I’ve started to promote Outreachy in Brazil again. I’ve been distributing flyers, giving talks at larger and smaller conferences, working on making people more aware of what the program can offer. In a conversation with a professor at my university, I talked about how Brazil used to be one of the top 3 countries in the program, but that changed in the last 4 years — a time period that corresponds to the years of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. In a way, I saw myself becoming less vocal during that time, fearing harassment from his supporters. “We all went into hiding“, my professor said. “Now it’s time to reclaim our spaces.”
Beyond Brazil, I’ve expanded my reach to more Portuguese speaking countries. In particular, I’ve become closer to lusophone African leaders thanks to LinkedIn connections — I participated in a podcast with the Angola Open Source Community and have received inquiries about the participation of lusophobe mentoring organizations in Outreachy. It’s incredible to be able to connect with people in other countries in my native language. It means a lot to me, as I’ve grown so accustomed to English-first spaces.
Goals for 2024
For the second year in a row, we’ve established yearly goals for each one of us. In retrospect, my 2023 goals were too vague and expansive in scope; for 2024, I’ve tried to establish goals that are less abstract:
- Finish the data analysis of the 2019 longitudinal study. Come up with a framework to create and analyze future longitudinal studies.
- Pick and deploy our documentation platform. Export existing files, revamp documentation map.
- Create critical processes checklists. Create documentation that identifies and guides decision-making in stressful situations.
- Mundane process automation. Create reproducible Espanso scripts.
- Improve the intern documentation on our website. Focus on more structural elements.
In less than a month, I’ll be traveling to Brussels to attend FOSDEM for the first time. I’ll have the immense privilege of meeting Karen, Sage, Omotola, and folks from Software Freedom Conservancy once more. I’m grateful for the opportunity of working with such great minds, and I’m looking forward to having more incredible experiences next year!