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Wiki Loves Women/2016-2017

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Wiki Loves Women

From January 2016-April 2017, the Wiki Loves Women conducted a proof of concept project in four countries (Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria) in Africa, with accompanying interventions online, under the support of the Goethe-Institut.

The information below provides brief details on the results of the project.

Project Goals edit

  1. Increased content by providing significant increase in the role women played and are playing in the political, social and cultural sectors in Africa by increasing the number of articles on Wikipedia;
  2. Focused participation: through the concentration on a) Women and b) Providing verified information and aggregating African content onto the world’s largest encyclopedia;
  3. Cross continental and regional skills transfer, collaboration and networking
  4. Increased visibility and understanding of the Wikimedia projects: through the project activations, events and work with the partners will have significantly raised the level of interest in, and usage of, the Wikimedia projects in the focus countries;
  5. Provided training, support and encouragement that has built the volunteer base of contributing to Wikimedia and other open movement projects; and
  6. Strengthened Wikipedia as a source of information and access point for Africa-related content.

This is done by:

  1. Skills transfer and collaboration: the project will benefit by drawing on the resources and experience of members of Wikimedia Deutschland to assist with the initial training, mentoring and mid-action workshops;
  2. Focusing on information literacy through skills transfer to activated Wikipedia editors as defined by the American Library Association http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency);
  3. Collaborative work with a broad array of institutional content partners (archives, museums, libraries, NGOs) as well as with communities and individuals;
  4. Encouraging sustainable donation by implementing a long-term strategy for information, data and media from focus-related suitable organisations (content partners);
  5. Profiling Goethe Institut libraries as being proactive in digital information literacy, and as providing meeting places for Wikipedia groups;
  6. Community development and encouraging active and sustained participation: providing support and activities to activate, galvanise, and increase the editors within the focus countries by involving content partners, network partners and working with existing editor groups; and
  7. Facilitating the process: Training, supporting and mentoring between six to twelve skilled Wikipedians in Residence (a minimum of one for each country) as facilitators to achieve the above goals.

Report summary edit

  • People in charge of implementation: Isla Haddow-Flood and Florence Devouard (and the assigned personnel of the Goethe Institut in each country)
  • Reporting period: 17/01/2016 – 31/03/2017 

Goal of the project: Encouraging the contribution of quality information on African women to be published on, and made widely available via, Wikipedia

How it is done: Gender inequality is rife across Africa. The Wiki Loves Women project focuses on bridging two significant gaps on Wikimedia projects – women and Africa – both in terms of content about these subjects and in terms of participation by people from these groups. In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, the project works to encourage the contribution of existing information from Civil Society Organisations and Gender-equality groups to Wikipedia. The donated content will specifically focus on women’s contribution to the political, economic, scientific, cultural and heritage landscape, as well as the current socio-political status of women, in each country. In addition, the project will encourage the activation and support of new and existing editors (both female and gender-sensitised male Wikipedians) in the focus countries. 
Language of implementation: French and English
Countries of implementation: Cameroon, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana 

Results in brief (local actions in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria) edit

(as per 12th June 2017)

  • Total articles started or expanded : 660 in French, 850 in English
  • Total media added: 2,081 = 1161 (content) + 920 (events)
  • Number of partners: 43
  • Number of events held or participated in so far: 97
  • Number of people participating: 1190
  Cameroun Côte d’Ivoire Ghana Nigeria
# number of partners 11 8 18 16
# events held 30 30 22 15
# events held at GI 6 3 8 10
# people participating 250 200 415 325
% of female participants 32.8% 30% 85% 100%
# in team 10 5 10 10
# of team female 5 2 6 4

Gallery of just some of the events

Tangible impacts on the Volunteer groups edit

In Cameroon:

  • Women are currently the most committed to the Wikimedia project and the edit-a-thons
  • The creation and launch of the User Group: Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group
  • Partnership with Cameroon photographers

In Cote d'Ivoire: Thanks to the project, several women from our user group renewed their involvement in the movement so that we finally decided to create a dedicated women's group that will continue to work on the Wiki Loves Women project but under a new name: Wikimousso. Mousso means woman in a local Ivorian language. We already have a workshop planned in next August on "How to contribute on Wikidata".

In Ghana: WLW created the platform that has enabled us train more female editors in Ghana than any single project. Again through Wiki Loves Women we have been able to train and mentor some female project leads who have help us execute some projects successfully and an example is Wiki Indaba. Finally WLW has help us secure a lot of partnerships than any other project or intervention.

In Nigeria: We are currently working on SHE CAN WITH ICT, a project funded by WMF. The project was secured as result of our involvement in Wiki Loves Women.   We were able to secure Two Media partnership due to our involvement in Wiki Loves Women: 

  • The first is partnership with the online Blackface Radio station,
  • The second is a new partnership with free-to-air (terrestial) radio station, called WFM 91.7

On-wiki events organised during the WLW project edit

The proof of concept phase for Wiki Loves Women was not just confined geographically to the four countries. There were three on-Wiki drives that involved Wikipedians around the world in the project and getting more articles onto Wikipedias of all different languages.

Wiki Loves Women Launch Writing Contest edit

As a launching event and to celebrate the 15 years of Wikipedia, a writing contest was organised starting 15th of January 2016, to end 30th of January. The goal was to write biographies about notable African women.

Results:

At the end of the contest,

  • 15 Anglophone teams (27 participants)
  • 18 Francophone teams (24 participants)
  • And 1 team (4 participants) from Armenian (completely unexpected ... but so very welcome!)

Produced no less than ...

See Wiki Loves Women Writing Contest for more information

The Africa Destubathon edit

The idea behind the destubathon is fairly simple: blast away as many of our 37,000 + Africa stubs as possible! Though the Destubathon was primarily intended as a general stub elimination contest to cover all topics (related to Africa), this was run in a way to complement Wiki Loves Women project. The destubathon happened between October 15 till November 28, 2016.

Results

There was a section of the African Destubathon that was focused entirely on articles relating to women. The results of this section included:

Most women articles by Users:

  • Miyagawa - 91 articles - WINNER - $200
  • Fsmatovu - 54 articles - 2nd Place - $100
  • Penny Richards - 40 articles - 3rd Place - $50
  • ssriram_mt - 20 articles - 4th Place - $25
  • IgnorantArmies - 17 articles - 5th Place - $15
  • MrLinkinPark333, Knope7 - 13 articles - 6th Place - $5 each (as tie)
    See The Africa Destubathon for more information

The #16WikiWomen Translate Drive edit

The drive was for 16 days to make available biographies on 16 notable African women, in at least 16 languages. The articles to be translated were the biographies of African women with the extra drive to translate each article into at least 16 languages.

Results

  • 116 articles were created based on translation from the English version. Out of these, 64 were a near equivalent of the master article in terms of quality.
  • 39 previously existing article versions were improved.
  • The overall number of languages involved were 44.
  • 54 people reported participating.

See #16WikiWomen Translation Drive for more information

The Response of participants and partners edit

Nigeria:

  • “I deeply appreciate this timeless opportunity and I count myself really privileged to be given this global visibility! Believe me, just as we discussed at the latest edit-a-thon meeting in our office two days ago, to think that all this possibilities emanated from your listening to my interview on radio (by chance!), it all looks so surreal. I believe God is behind it all!” -- Betty Abah, CEO CEE-Hope (WLW Nigeria partner)
  • “From the bottom of our hearts at Arise Nigerian Woman Foundation, we say a very big thank you for our participation in the Edit a Thon, it’s fired us up to look forward to the work to be done on women in politics and governance in Nigeria.” -- Abimbola Junaid, Arise Nigerian Women Foundation
  • “Thanks, Isla! You, Florence and your team, and the Nigerian team are very much appreciated for hatching such a great idea! We look forward to more reports this weekend and next week. I think the project is well received by everyone, lots of media support so far.” -- Betty Abah, CEO CEE-Hope (WLW Nigeria partner)
  • “WikiLovesWomen project is a laudable one for women like me especially who literally live online and creating content. This workshop just gave me a new technical skill and I am glad to be a wikipedian. I learnt to upload pictures on wiki common, edit articles and hope to get my hands on writing for wikipedia Igbo, my beloved language. It is quite time consuming but worth it.” -- Jenny Chisom, Blogger, Blogger-Community Organiser, Editor, Gender harmony advocate
  • It was a great time at the @WikiLovesWomen training. So much impact. Thank you @runciecwc for making this happen #womendevelopment -- PNTouchofHope @casabella, Nigeria 

Cameroun: (quoted from feedback from participants)

  • J'y ai rencontré des gens formidables!! et avides de partager d'intégrer les autres .. Merci à tous -- Marcelle Lassale Ngounou
  • C'était superbe, comme à chaque fois, et nous avons encore décelé de nouvelles problématiques que nous nous attellerons à résoudre, autant que possible -- Paul Emmanuel Ndjeng
  • Belle présentation Georges Fodouop. Merci pour ce wikimoment -- Stéphane Tchaptcha
  • Bravo Georges ! Mais où sont les Feeeemmmmes dans cet auditoire ?Go ahead, don't stop. -- Jacqueline Louviot
  • Création de contenu...!!!  Le top!!!... -- Jessica Eya'ane
  • Hum Georges je ne comprends pas le wiki...là mais du courage. -- Caroline Gnitedem
  • bravo grand.... je partage ce projet avec toi. s'il te plait parle-moi du contenu.j'ai vraiment envie de participer à ce sujet important. -- Frederic Dzoyem
  • Georges Fodouop is coming guys! Attention qualité garantie. -- Laura Maclet
  • Gars du courage t'es un pionnier. -- Bertin Tamla 

Ghana:

  • Dear Rafael, Was nice hearing you to present at the Tech need girls workshop. I like to get in touch and know more about how to be an editor on Wikipedia. -- Rosalin Abigail Kyere-Nartey, Green Growth Tourism Activist and Executive Director, Rosak Consult Limited
  • Hi Raphael, It was a pleasure listening to you today. I am very interested in knowing more about editing for Wikipedia. I have a Facebook page called The Fabulous Woman Network, please check us out when you're able to and let's stay in touch. -- Ama Duncan, The Fabulous Woman, Kumasi 

Côte d’Ivoire:

  • "Je pense que ce sont des rencontres très enrichissantes et formatrices sur l’utilisation de la plateforme Wikipédia." -- N'guessan Koto. After an edit-a-thon organized by Ivory Coast team

“Il s'agissait d'un edit'athon pour récolter des informations pour sourcer les articles sur les femmes dans Wikipedia. Ce fut un moment riche en connaissance. Il en faut de plus en plus pour intéresser les gens au projet. “ -- Carine Famien

Visibility in the media and aligned organisations edit

Coverage of Wiki Loves Women Nigeria on German TV edit

German TV channel, 3sat, covered Wiki Loves Women in Nigeria on the Kulturzeit slot, on International Women's Day, the 8 March 2017.
Access to the video

In February 2017, German journalist Tim Lienhard created a short documentary for German TV station 3sat on the work of Wiki Loves Women in Nigeria. The link to the documentary is here.

Additional coverage:

Couverture média en Français edit

Coverage in Côte d'Ivoire

Coverage in Cameroon

Links to media coverage in English edit

Some media coverage is also available on w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/News.

Articles

Radio Interviews on SAFM, South Africa:

Blogs

Coverage in Nigeria:

Coverage in Ghana:

Links to media coverage in Portuguese edit

Other links and resources edit

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