Women for Sustainability Africa joined Wiki Women in Red @8 _ Empowering Women with Digital Skills through Wikipedia—Part 1
In a world where women’s voices are crucial for creating a more inclusive and sustainable future, prioritizing women’s participation in the tech space is essential. Empowering women with the tools, skills, and support they need to engage actively is imperative. This responsibility extends to the Wikimedia ecosystem, including Wikipedia and its sibling projects. Currently, only 9% of Wikipedia editors are women, highlighting a significant gender gap that impacts the diversity of information available on Wikimedia platforms. The systemic gender bias is evident, with fewer than one in five biographies featuring women. Additionally, only 20% of articles about women include photos.
As part of the Wiki Women in Red @8 campaign in 2023, we collaborated with various organizations, such as the University of Professional Studies Office of the Women’s Commissioner and the former Women’s Commissioner for the University of Ghana to conduct a series of workshops and trainings. These workshops educated and empowered women especially with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons skills. We hosted 2 in-person events and 4 virtual training and office hour sessions. Here are some highlights:
Workshop 1
The first workshop was hosted for women from the Women for Sustainability Africa Community. We hosted a five-hour bootcamp workshop for our community and was attended by 20 participants, of which 18 were women. The training focused on Wikipedia editing, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. The majority of the participants were newbies whom we guided on how to make edits to existing Wikipedia articles and also showed them how to upload photos on Wikimedia Commons as well as create article on Wikidata.
Workshop 2 with University of Professional Studies SRC Women’s Commission
The second training was held in collaboration with the SRC office of the Women’s Commission on Sat 1st Dec 2023 which trained about 34 students 20 of which were women. The training was very interactive, as students ask a lot of questions. Awards were given to participants who were able to contribute example create Wikidata items, upload an image or edit and existing wikipedia article. Students were eager and almost all of them had something to go home with which was really fulfilling.
Link to Video Testimonials of participants after the event – https://youtu.be/K4_BQPGTgKw
