Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Intro

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Wiki Loves Women image presentation
Wiki Loves Women image presentation

Wiki Loves Women in brief: Freeing access to information on African women

WikiProject Wiki Loves Women seeks to fill two major subject gaps – women and Africa – on the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia. These gaps exist both in content on these two themes, but also in terms of participation in the editorial level. Our objective is the fight against the existing inequalities between men and women on the African continent.

The project is designed to leverage Wikipedia’s role as a global repository for the dissemination of information to achieve accessible and fair online representation of notable women in countries in Africa. It encourages the contribution of existing researched and verified information by civil society organisations to Wikipedia with the intent of redressing the systemic bias online about women. The donated data and content specifically focuses 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 that it is instigated.

Wiki Loves Women video presentation


Did you know that only 0.318% of all Wikidata biographical entries are about African women? Furthermore, of all biographies about African people on Wikipedia, only 17.9% are about women.


African Representation on Wikipedia at a Glance

  • There are fewer Africa-based Wikipedians across the entire continent than in Hong Kong alone.
  • African subjects are chronically underrepresented on Wikipedia, and articles relating to African women especially.
  • By 2030, there will be 490 million more people in Africa, each deserving access to free knowledge and representation on Wikipedia.


How does Wiki Loves Women approach this problem?

The Wiki Loves Women poster launched at Wikimania 2018.
  • Hold Edit-a-thons and other information-contribution events to make African women’s experience more visible.
  • Create and strengthen relationships between gender-focused culture and civil society organisations.
  • Encourage women to be involved as leaders, editors, and partners in documenting their history and experience.
  • Encourage the growth of Wikimedia groups, and ensure that all editors are aware of gender issues and focuses.
  • Organize regular global drives to raise awareness and facilitate participation.
  • Train women in leadership.

The Wiki Loves Women project initially aimed to release and make widely available cultural and educational content on, or related to women, to the general public. It quickly also included women recruitment and training. The project works with organisations and public institutions to draw their existing information onto Wikipedia, and via this platform be made available to millions of people every day. In 2016-2017 the project was run in collaboration with the Goethe Institute and was active on the ground in four West African countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria. Following successes in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Nigeria, Wiki Loves Women celebrated women’s achievements in two new African nations: Uganda and Tanzania, with the support of Wikimedia Foundation.


What to expect from Wiki Loves Women in 2021

For 2021 we have a project plan jam-packed with exciting new elements that build on Wiki Loves Women’s success so far. You can read the full strategy behind our gender-equity engagements over 2021 here.

Over the year, we will be focusing on the following:

  • ISA campaign Tell Us About Her - Theme will be Women at work. The Isa is a multilingual, mobile-first 'micro contributions' tool, that makes it easy for people to add structured data to images on Wikimedia Commons.
  • Support for WikiGap Nigeria
  • Coached training of communities members with a Focus Group, in a minimum of 3 countries
  • Train-the-trainer MOOC: a skills transfer programme to sustainably build a gender-equity programme with in the Wikimedia communities
  • #InspiringWomen podcasts: interviewing and celebrating local notable women and WM organisers


More info on

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