Project grant/Introduction to Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Africa Women Biographies

Basic information

Project Title (If applicable)

Introduction to Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Africa Women Biographies

Proposed by

Olubusola Afolabi

Project justification

Briefly describe the issue or problem that motivates this application. What needs are you meeting?

Wikipedia has an obvious gender and racial representation gap. African women fall under both categories of underrepresentation in Wikipedia's biographical content, in terms of both the number of articles and the depth and quality of existing articles. The lives and contributions of African women across history, science, politics, the arts, and culture are either absent or poorly documented on one of the world's most widely consulted reference platforms. This edit-a-thon seeks to create and improve Wikipedia articles about African women, helping to build a more equitable and representative knowledge base.

Describe project activities. What will you use the funding for?

The funding will primarily cover lunch and refreshments for 10 to 20 participants to support a comfortable, productive full-session experience. A smaller percentage of the funding will go towards stationery items such as Sharpies, pens, sticky notes, and plain paper to help make the session more interactive and engaging.

Describe your plan for evaluating this project. How will you measure success? What types of things will you measure (e.g. content, participants)?

Success will be measured through the events dashboard created solely for this session. The metrics that will be measured include the number of new articles created, the number of existing articles improved, the number of references added, the number of attendees and first-time editors, and also post-event feedback from participants.

Identify key people involved in this project. How will or could the wider Wikimedian community be involved?

The event will be primarily organised and facilitated by me, drawing on my experience and learnings from the Wikimedia UK Train the Trainer program. I am also actively supported by my assigned mentor, Lucy Hinnie, and Rupal Karia, who have provided a lot of assistance in helping me plan this session. I will also engage Wiki projects like the WikiProject Africa and WikiProject Women in Red, both of which support efforts to improve coverage of Africans and Women on Wikipedia. Participants will be encouraged to join these projects after the event to continue contributing.

Estimated cost

£250