Africa Wiki Women Inspire Inclusion 2024 Campaign  Virtual Launch

On April 12, 2024, Africa Wiki Women launched the Inspire Inclusion 2024 Campaign in observance of International Women’s Day. With the United Nations theme “Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress,” the virtual launch included partner spotlights, introductions to the campaign, and Wikipedia. 

Anita Ofor, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Women for Sustainability Africa, was spotlighted as one of our 3 partners, and the moderator of the session was Linason Blessing, a team member of Africa Wiki Women. The session attracted over 30 participants, including project leads and community members from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. Ruby D. Brown provided an overview of the campaign, which was  followed by an introduction to Wikipedia.

Key highlights

The webinar commenced with the welcoming of participants, followed by a brief citation of our partner, Anita Ofori the  Co-Founder and Executive Director of Women for Sustainability Africa, a non-profit organization committed to empowering women and girls in STEM,as well as enhancing their visibility within the sustainability sphere. 

The session proceeded with a comprehensive overview of the campaign presented by Ruby D Brown. She elaborated on the campaign’s objectives, and  explained the mission of the Africa Wiki Women, and outlined the campaign’s goals. She provided insights into essential aspects that participants should acquaint themselves with, including training and office hours, and emphasized the significance of following the scoring criteria and data scholarship.

Furthermore, the session progressed with a slide presentation focusing on the introductory aspects of Wikipedia. The presentation encompassed what Wikipedia is, an exploration of the various styles of editing on wikipedia, more light on the facts and misconceptions surrounding Wikipedia, and practical  hands on  editing wikipedia. 

Subsequently, participants were provided with an attendance form aimed at gathering comprehensive feedback regarding the Day 1 session of the Inspire Inclusion of the Africa Wiki Women campaign.

The session concluded with a guided walkthrough of the campaign metapage  by Bukola James. She provided detailed guidelines to participants on how to actively engage in the campaign, including more guidance on registration and accessing the dashboard. She also demonstrated how participants could navigate through the various categories to identify articles requiring updates or creation, thereby enabling them to contribute effectively to the campaign objectives. Participants asked questions and they were given answers to every question asked. 

For those who may have missed the session, the link to access it is available on the community meta page. Additionally, we encourage you to register for our upcoming sessions to ensure you receive timely email notifications one hour before each online session begins. If you wish to become an active member of our community, please take a moment to complete the registration form. Let’s work together to bridge the gap on information about women on Wikipedia and sister projects.