The campaign physical training for the Port Harcourt Wikimedia Hub was held on the 9th of August, 2024 at the ICT Lab of the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Port Harcourt. The Wikimedia for Human Rights 2024 campaign in Rivers State focused on enriching understanding and raising awareness about environmental degradation issues in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. In the past, the region has been plagued with oil spillage issues, illegal bunkering of oil and poor environmental disposal by oil and gas companies domiciled in the region.
The campaign’s strategy involves creating and enhancing Wikimedia content tailored to Environmental Degradation issues in Nigeria’s and specifically in Niger Delta. This includes improving information availability and quality, translating key content into local languages, and engaging experts and community members for content verification and enrichment.
Keynote
The program was spotlighted by Mr. Jeremiah, a Librarian and an experienced Wikipedian in the University of Port Harcourt. He spoke on how volunteers who are passionate can serve as advocates to environmental sustainability. He introduced participants to Human rights and why advocating for climate is an important issue. Also discussed the various activities that are involved in bringing into being a sustainable environment.
Then, the Question and answer session was a chance for participants to point out areas where they were confused; each other talking about their innovative ideas to tackle these challenges.
Campaign Activities
The participants contributed to Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons, and Wikimedia, also creating and editing articles related to the Niger Delta Region, Human rights, and climate change in Nigeria. This campaign ensured that everyone was armed with the five pillars of Wikipedia: Neutral point of view, Wiki linking, and citations.
Patrons received a series of trainings ranging from editing, sourcing of reliable information on Human right-related articles to Wikipedia. The experienced Wikimedia Volunteers/Trainers guided the new participants and participants that needed help through hands-on exercises, adding images to articles, helping them to gain confidence during the event’s editathon. By the end, participants had basic knowledge of editing techniques on Wikipedia and uploading images to Commons.
Project Outcome
The physical event recorded 35 participants. The campaign continued with a follow-up physical training for returning/experienced editors at the medical library of theUniversity of Port Harcourt. At the end of the campaign, 104 Wikipedia articles were improved, 10 wiki data articles were improved and 24 files were uploaded on wiki commons from the Port Harcourt Wikimedia Hub.
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