Inspiring women that inspire women and girls through knowledge.
Did you know that very few African women are represented in the media, on the news, and in online information sources, like encyclopaedias? Do you often find your experiences are not being reflected when you look up something on Wikipedia? Do you work in the gender-equality sector? Or do you work in heritage, the arts and cultural sectors and want more representation of the African female leaders online?
The Wiki Loves Women’s Event Toolkit is designed to help you gather a community to work on articles that celebrates notable local women or foregrounds a gender-focused subject on Wikipedia and other global education projects. Read more about Wiki Loves Women on the WikiProject page.
Host a Wiki Loves Women Event
Since its launch in 2016, Wiki Loves Women has hosted hundreds of events in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda (and even in India). By using this toolkit, you can host one too! The toolkit is designed to allow anyone who is interested to create, manage and train a group of eager enthusiasts to edit Wikipedia articles about subjects relating to women.
The quick way : the Check List
If you know what you are doing and have hosted a Wikipedia-based event before, here is the link to a quick check list to keep you on top of those tasks!
The thorough way : Step By Step
The step-by-step guide will walk you through all the fun (and not so fun) parts of planning an event. It covers what to do before the event, during the event and not to forget the tasks after the event is over and the computers are switched off. It will also provide some key guidelines for training the people attending your event in how to edit on Wikipedia.
Why Wiki Loves Women and Closing the Gender Gap is important
On Wikipedia, African subjects are not covered with nearly as much depth and layers as those from the “global north”. At the same time, subjects about and relating to women are similarly under represented. When it comes to subjects that relate to or discuss African women, the gaps become an abyss. These gaps perpetuates the “single story of Africa”. This means that the realities of millions of people are not reflected back to them when they go online. By not seeing their realities reflected, millions of people are alienated from these knowledge sources. Few understand that it is within their power to change this. If each communities across Africa ensures that their inspirational and notable women are represented, and their issues heard, this will change. For more information see the article on Mind the Gap.
Women in Red (create missing biographies about women in English)
Les sans pagEs (create missing biographies about women in French)
Art and Feminism - Art and Feminism (stylized as Art+Feminism) is an annual campaign improving coverage of cis and transgender women, non-binary folks, feminism and the arts on Wikipedia. Art+Feminism is a do-it-yourself and do-it-with-others campaign teaching people of all gender identities and expressions to edit Wikipedia. They have created and compiled a host of helpful resources. Art+Feminism is generally held once a year, in March, all around the world. In 2020 the Art+Feminism team put together an excellent collaborative resources guideline to hosting online events.
WikiGap is a global campaign held across the world by Wikimedia volunteers in collaboration with the Swedish Embassy and other gender civil society groups in each country. Single events are held around 8th March.
Wiki4Women, organized by UNESCO and Wikimedia Foundation at spaces around the world during March, focusing around International Women's Day.
#VisibleWikiWomen, organized by Whose Knowledge. Whose Knowledge has also put together this excellent GLAM guide for organisations wishing to donate the images (and other content) they have to Commons.
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