WikiForHumanRights Webinar

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COVID-19 and human rights: How to share the facts on Wikipedia webinar

"A woman with a face mask peeks out of the window of her apartment in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico," by EneasMx (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Overview

Join the United Nations Human Rights Office and the Wikimedia Foundation for a co-hosted webinar on the role Wikipedia is playing as an essential informational resource during the pandemic, and how you can strengthen Wikipedia’s coverage on the human rights dimensions of COVID-19.

COVID-19 is not only a medical issue; it’s a human rights one too. The pandemic has led to an increase in gender-based violence, prompted harmful acts of racism and xenophobia, and shuttered education systems worldwide.

To successfully respond to the pandemic — and to eventually eradicate it — requires more awareness and more reliable information about COVID-19, its social effects, and its human rights implications.

Wikipedia, the world’s largest, collaborative source of free knowledge, can help fill this need. The platform is more than just an online encyclopedia; it’s a tool for documenting and sharing knowledge about this unprecedented moment in history and the broader issues stemming from COVID-19.

Speakers include:

• Peggy Hicks, Director, Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, UN Human Rights
• Netha Hussain, Wikimedia volunteer; physician and researcher
• Alex Stinson (moderator), Senior Strategist, Community Programs, Wikimedia Foundation

Wikipedia depends on volunteers to share, update, and edit information. Hundreds of millions of people have already turned to the site to learn about the pandemic and related topics.

If you have a passion for free knowledge and human rights, please join us!

Registration is required to attend (see details below). We have a limited number of seats, but a recording of the session will be available afterwards for those who can’t attend.

Logistics

Date: Tuesday, 2 June
Time: 15:00 UTC (8:00 a.m. PDT / 11:00 a.m. EDT / 5:00 p.m. CEST)

How to attend

Registration was on the webinar page here. Registration is required to attend.

Visuals

• Social media graphic

Webinar recording

A recording of the webinar is available on the Wikimedia Foundation's YouTube channel here.

Additional resources

• Check out the United Nations Human Rights webpage with information, resources, and guidance for ensuring the human rights dimensions of the global pandemic remain at the forefront of governments and institutions’ response.
• COVID 19: health and gender edit-a-thon - On Friday, 5 June from 15:30 - 17:30 UTC, Wikimedia Sverige, the United Nations Population Fund, and UN Women are hosting an online edit-a-thon to add and improve articles about the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on women's health. Learn more about how you can join in the link provided.
• Want to learn more about how you can get involved in documenting COVID-19 on Wikipedia? Check out WikiProject COVID-19 on English Wikipedia to learn about article topics you can help contribute to and references to verify the facts.
• Reader pathway data from WMF Research and Alex Stinson, highlighting where readers are going beyond the main COVID articles
• For multilingual speakers, consider joining the COVID-19 translation taskforce to help translate Wikipedia articles about the pandemic.