Wiki Loves Women/Focus Group
- Wiki Loves Women : Focus Group
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Wiki Loves Women Focus Coaching programme
The Wiki Loves Women Focus Coaching programme is a practical, action-oriented, mentored online training programme that provides skills and knowledge transfer that is specifically designed to support community leaders as they create gender-equity programmes and drives within the Wikimedia and Open movements. The Focus Coaching programme will provide ideas, guidance, skills transfer and mentorship as each Focus Group Member plans a gender-equity programme within their community, and gathers the resources and skills to implement this programme.
The initiative is related to the Wiki Loves Women project. Wiki Loves Women contributes towards the UN’s SDG 5 Gender Equity: achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Within the 2030 Wikimedia Strategy, the Wiki Loves Women project works towards resolving several recommendations, and in particular Invest in Skills and Leadership Development.
The Focus Coaching programme is part of a multilayered strategy to ensure that gender-equity is at the heart of open movement community programmes across the continent. The new strategy is aimed at providing volunteers from within the open movement and aligned organisations the skills and knowledge to make these programmes sustainable and successful. Additional Wiki Loves Women programmes being implemented are:
- The global online SheSaid Drive end of 2021, 2022 and 2023.
- Release of the Organisers Event Toolkit: an online resource with step-by-steps, checklists and everything gender-equity partners need to host their own events within the gender active space.
- The development of the Gender-Equity Wikimedia Mooc (this is in development): for Wikimedia organisers wishing to start gender programmes in their community; focus theoretical, meta subjects - information, visibility, knowledge transfer)
- Release of the Inspiring Open Podcast in 2022
- The ISA Tell Us About Her campaign in March 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Key points
- Vision board on jam board
- The group membership is made of 18 women from 10 African countries and France (in 2023).
- The main goal of the Focus Group is skills transfer and also to raise awareness of and action to counter the lack of representation of women generally, and more specifically on online platforms such as Wikipedia (or Wikiquote). There are many important and contentious issues within the Gender space, however the group is not aimed at unpacking those. Rather it is aimed at transferring vital skills towards women and men – digital, technical, researching, writing and leadership – that allow them to access information in order to make up their own minds within their cultural specificity. The group will operate through training, mentoring, online learning, peer-to-peer support..
- To plainly and practically experience the skills transfer, all members of the WLW Focus Group have agreed to participate to the #SheSaid drive, an initiative that celebrates women leaders and will take place in Fall-Winter 2021 and 2022. Members are invited to join #shesaid again in 2023.
- This initiative will help grow participation in each local community.
- The #SheSaid drive is aimed at improving the visibility of women in creating new or improving already existing Wikiquote entries related to them. It aims to getting women’s voices heard.
- The impact of the #SheSaid campaign on Wikiquote has been remarkable, with over 7,721 new articles created or edited in 11 different languages across the last three editions.
- For further information visit, the post on diff about #sheSaid (English) as well as this article in French for further background.