WikiAfrica Hour #34: Celebrate WikiWomen

by
Translate this post

This special WikiAfrica Hour is a three-part salute to the gender-gap-busting work (some of it within education) within the Wikimedia movement in celebration of International Women’s Day. This special session was hosted by Nigerian Wikimedian and co-founder of Igbo Wikimedia Usergoup, Tochi Precious.

“There is some good news […] regarding content and participation. We know that between 2019 and 2022, the proportion of gender diverse active editors has doubled. We know also that newcomers are more likely to identify as women,  as well as people from a gender diversity identity.” – Tila Cappelletto, on the community insights survey from the Wikimedia Foundation

“Then, at the contributing level, women and allies (male allies) can help us fight these different types of bias, such as coverage bias, visibility bias, structural, and lexical biases, so that the content we build up reflects the entirety of humanity and not only male-gaze, male-impacted content. That’s why we need women. First, to feel fine, to feel happy together doing something. And then to serve our mission, which is knowledge for everyone.” – Florence Devouard on why it is important that women participate and contribute to Wikimedia

Watch the full episode on YouTube.

“For me, a wow moment was related to linguistic diversity … I was part of the strategy track. In this space, we had women from radically movements, different languages, that came together to idealize ideas for the movement.

“And sometimes English is not enough for us to express ourselves, but I saw a whole movement, a collective movement, to understand the other, even if not in English. So for me, it was a beautiful moment. As for the general activities for me, a wow moment was when I saw many women speaking in their native language on stage. Of course, they were being translated, but to have this space where we can speak our native language is very important, and I saw this effort on WikiWomen Camp. I hope that in other spaces where we bring women from different languages together, we provide this safe space and the resources for people to communicate in their native languages.” – Andi Inacio, on linguistic diversity when attending  WikiWomenCamp 2023

Guests included:

Florence Devouard, Co-founder, Wiki In Africa and Wiki Loves Women

A Wikipedian since 2002, a former Chair of Wikimedia Foundation, and a founding member of Wikimedia France, Florence Devouard was born in France where she currently lives. She is a free knowledge advocate, a public speaker, and a consultant. Above everything, she loves to share her knowledge of new practices and online communities. She cares for language diversity and multicultural dialogue and supports the open-source and free knowledge movement. 

Tila Cappelletto, Senior Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation

Tila Cappelletto has been a volunteer Wikimedian since 2015. Brazilian, she joined the movement in Madrid during a gender-gap editathon on Wikipedia in Spanish. In 2019, she co-founded Wiki Editoras Lx (WELx), a Portuguese-speaking collective guided by an intersectional and decolonial knowledge approach aimed at closing the gender gap in Wikimedia projects. Since 2021 she has been part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s team, currently working as Senior Program Officer in the Campaigns Programs team.

Netha Hussain, Scholar, WikiWomenCamp 2023

I am User: Netha Hussain on Wikimedia projects. Netha mostly works on topics related to women and healthcare on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata.

Andi Inacio, Scholar, WikiWomenCamp 2023

Andi Inácio is a historian and Wikimedia, a member of WikiMulheres+ and Wiki Movimento Brazil.

Manavpreet Kaur, Co-lead, WikiWomenCamp 2023

A distinguished Forensic specialist, Wikimedian, and community leader from the vibrant state of Punjab, India. As an organizer of WWC2023, she brings unique perspectives and insights.

Manavpreet will be sharing the impactful declaration of the camp. 

Chinmayee Mishra, Co-lead, WikiWomenCamp 2023

Engineer by profession, Wikimedian by passion. Chinmayee is a daughter hailing from the east coast of India. She believe in creating an inclusive space where everyone has a fair chance to thrive, free from any discrimination or bias. Because an opportunity never differentiates based on the receiver’s gender. That’s keeps her motivated about gender – equity-focused work.

This WikiAfrica Hour episode’s guest host is Tochi Precious, a Multilingual Project Manager, Teacher, Translator, Entrepreneur, Co-founder & Executive Director of Igbo Wikimedia Organization and a Wikimedian in Residence at Wikitongues. She’s a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Committee and a Board Member at Wiki in Africa.

WikiAfrica Hour is a monthly live broadcast where Africa’s Wikimedians talk to, learn from and explore topics related to the Wikimedia movement in Africa. It is a production of Wiki In Africa to support the development of the Wikimedia movement across Africa.

Episode notes:

Can you help us translate this article?

In order for this article to reach as many people as possible we would like your help. Can you translate this article to get the message out?