Wikimujeres/Reports/2017-18
Wikimujeres has now completed its third year. During 2017/2018, the goal of the User Group continued to be to expand the community, to develop programs and events with like-minded local institutions and international partners, as well as to continue its strategy process to fulfill its mission of correcting gender bias and reducing the gender gap, all the while increasing the quality and quantity of articles related to women in different languages. The following text is the annual report and the work highlights of the past 12 months. You can find last year's 2016/2017 report here, and a detailed, day-by-day activity list here.
Establishing our local communities edit
In this third year, Viquidones Wikimujeres working space in Barcelona has been kept and its activity has increased, as we invested more than 600 working hours. We also continue giving support to the sessions in the Basque Country. We found that having a permanent place to edit ‘offline’ is a good way for participants to be present in the community, which enables deeper and longer term commitment to the projects. This is a place where people can start editing, clearing up doubts or be encouraged to take on projects, for example. At the same time, people who decide to join a project because they believe in the movement and share the same interests also decide to stay because they feel they belong to the community. This feeling is strengthened by editing along other people. Even though it may seem contradictory, editing Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects becomes a social activity. The fellowship that derives from being part of an ‘offline’ group is not easy to create, but it is the key for people to continue to be involved in the project and attend the following meet ups.
Events edit
We have carried out edit-a-thons such as the one held on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona, or the one held on the International Women's Day, in collaboration with Art + Feminism in the Sala Apolo of Barcelona (Video on the event). Also, on Ada Lovelace Day, we participated in the Encounters/Wikithon Inspiring Girls. We also took part in the edit-a-thon on Professional Women in collaboration with the Festival Escena Poblenou, as well as in the Wiki-Data-Thon Ciutat Oberta 2018 along with Barcelona’s City Council.
We organized the conference "Girls looking for their talent" in collaboration with Spain’s Institute of Women with the participation of 40 girls aged 13 and 14 from 5 institutes of the Community of Madrid. They learned how to look up information on Wikipedia, they worked on the gender perspective, on the frequently hidden value of women in history, and they took their first steps to start editing.
Participation in the inter-national meeting of UNICEF - Latin America held in Guatemala.
Education edit
● We have worked on education projects with the Autonomous University of Barcelona in the Graduate Diploma in Gender and Equality and Graduate Diploma in Gender-Based Violence and in Summer School Barcelona-Upsala Diversity in the Cultures of Physics Summer School Barcelona. We also took part in the Higher Level Training Cycle on Promoting Gender Equality.
● We have incorporated a section on editing Wikipedia with a gender perspective in the chapter "Men and Women in New Technologies" of the Master’s degree on Equality of Women and Men: Equality Agents of the University of the Basque Country, of which one of the members of Wikimujeres is a teacher.
● We carried out a training session on Wikipedia and Wikimujeres for the members of the Marcela Lagarde Fernández de los Ríos chair. Latin America. Rey Juan Carlos University.
● We have presented Wikimujeres and the work done in Wikipedia with a gender perspective in the "Citizenship and Technology" conference at the University of Vallecas - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Journalism Program and Wikipedia edit
In 2018, Wikimujeres has considered the strategic value of incorporating professional journalists in the edition and we have started a line of work on journalism, Wikipedia and Commons.
Wikipedia, Commons, are often used as a source for the elaboration of media content. However, few journalists consider the possibility of actively collaborating by providing content. Especially with regards not so much to historical biographies as to current events. Our goal is to introduce the training to edit Wikipedia in the Faculties of Journalism of Spanish universities.
Journalists handle several sources of information, and regularly consult Wikipedia. Nonetheless, they are not aware that they can also collaborate by incorporating information and participating in the creation of collective knowledge.
For that matter, we have carried out various awareness campaigns presented by the Wikimujeres - Wikipedia - Commons project focused on its informative and journalistic value:
- in the Faculty of Journalism of Leioa from the University of the Basque Country, participation in the Congress on Women’s Visibility in the Media. Teachers from other Spanish universities who were interested in the "Journalism and Wikipedia" project initiated by Wikimujeres took part in the congress.
- In the Faculty of Journalism of the University of Valladolid, in the 2018-2019 academic year, Wikimujeres has started a steady collaborative work with teachers from the journalism department. One of our goals is to investigate possible lines of collaboration between professional journalists and projects such as Wikipedia or Commons. Wikimujeres is giving tutorials to student groups so that they learn to research and edit, referencing contents. At the time of preparing this annual report, we are in the first phase of the project.
Coordination and "online" support for editing with a gender perspective in WP edit
Wikimujeres has created the telegram list “Wikimujeres support for editing and exchange of information” to edit with gender perspective in an advanced level. Currently, after three months of operation, the list consists of 35 women who regularly edit Wikipedia.
Collaborations with partners edit
We have continued to collaborate with Wikimedia-related partners and local institutions.
Iberocoop edit
We have continued to participate in the debates organised by Iberocoop, such as the ones focused on the resistance found in Wikipedia against incorporating a gender perspective and the problems that derive from it in the edit-a-thons.
Affiliates edit
Beyond this, aside from our regular collaborations with Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimedia México and WikiDonne, Wikimujeres has supported feminine leadership as in the case of Wikimedistas de Bolivia.
Local institutions edit
We have strengthened ties with institutions like Institute of Women, universities like Pompeu Fabra, Autónoma de Barcelona and Autónoma de Madrid, cultural institutions such as Medialab-Prado, and we are moving forward to establish ties with groups with similar missions to us.
Wikimedia Strategy Direction edit
In Wikimedia Conference 2018, we are presented The Space of ViquidonesUPF and the work with OSM Geochicas: streets belong to women. We presented our experience in organizing days of edition in Learning days, getting to know other communities and their characteristics. We participated in the Black Lunch Table, where we learned about inspiring ideas on innovative ways of working and about experiences in different contexts. These participations allowed us to develop a more critical vision about the transversal biases related to race and class. We continue to participate in the Strategy Process because we have great expectations for this process, and look forward to continue participating in it.
In Wikimania 2018, we organised the Wikicafé a new space to teach to edit in small (and sometimes surprisly not so small) groups, which led to the birth of new ideas of projects and affiliations.
Outreach in different ecosystems edit
We have continued to carry out activities with civil associations, women's organizations and feminist groups, such as the feminist meeting space of Barcelona Ca la Dona. We also created an information stand on Wikipedia in an art fair called Merkatua in Navarre where we made visible the lack of biographies of female artists in Wikipedia and invited the audience to edit. We held a round table on the situation of women in Wikipedia with the cultural entity Ateneu Barcelonès.
We have also been very active in other kinds of panels and sessions on communication and gender. We participated in the Feminario that is celebrated every year in Cordoba, along with the main feminist organisations of Spain. We also took part in other high impact events such as Día del Amor por el Software Libre (Day of Love for Free Open Source Software) in Madrid. We believe this is consistent with the Wikimedia Strategic Direction - going beyond the Wikimedia ecosystem to learn from other movements and work with them.
Cross support edit
Wikimedistas of Bolivia has decided to adopt an affiliation working model with Wikimujeres by giving their cross support to all our projects during the planning of all our activities in order to effectively include measures and initiatives to reduce the gender gap. The incorporation of this criterion allowed the creation of a prize to encourage the participation of women in the WLM contest in Bolivia, achieving 75% of female participants.
Social media edit
Wikimujeres has continued to be very active on social media. We have grown our numbers of followers and positive interactions. Our Facebook page has more than 13,700 followers and 13,200 likes and our Twitter account has ~2165 followers. Our blog is used for announcements and reports of conferences - it is difficult to regularly maintain it with just volunteers. We have found Facebook and Twitter to be better to increase our reach. We have identified our use of social media as one of the key components for the success of our events.
Media edit
Many of the events we have celebrated had strong media repercussion. A selected list of meaningful media mentions and interviews follows:
- 26/02/2018 | La Cope | ¿Entrevista a Ester Bonet en el Programa geniales
- 16/04/2018 Montserrat Boix: “Hay que impulsar la presencia de las mujeres en la Red más allá del 8 de marzo”. Tribuna Feminista
- 23/04/2018 Cámara Abierta. TVE
- 9/10/2018 El género llegó para quedarse en Wikipedia. Silvina Molina. KBZ
Awards edit
In March 2018 Wikimujeres was honored with the 8th of March Award by the Institute of Women of Spain for its work in favor of equality and the visibility of women's achievements.
