Grants:PEG/WM AR/Wikigenero GroupLens Participation/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2011-12 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM AR/Wikigenero GroupLens Participation.

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Activities

WikiGénero Conference. Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. May 26th. 2012. Anuradha Uduwage was the keynote speaker of the conference.

Anuradha Uduwage speaking at WikiGenero. Buenos Aires. May 26th. 2012

Project goal and measures of success

Project goal

This activity had two main goals:

-One regarding gathering information and experts on gender topics inside the Wikimedia Argentina community, and also related communities such us free software and free culture local movements, presenting to them the state of the art of the topic, in order to generate a line of action with an adequate understanding of the challenges, and from there, aspire to check the efectiviness of this actions in time.

-Another main goal of the meeting was regarding to get some engagement of local women organizations, specially those related to academic world, journalism and media, and IT, who are invited to participate as lecturers, reporters, and attendants.

This goal is a long term one, but we consider the WikiGender meeting was an important starting point to build any future action, based on information and reciprocal analysis of facts.

We hope this meeting, and the further actions related to them, will collaborate to improve the quality of existing articles of Wikipedia, adding gender perspective on them, or adding relevant information very well know by women, and actually missing, incorporating new insigths from the women experts on several topics who are actually not editing Wikipedia, or contributing to Wikimedia Commons, and other projects.

In brief, we expect to increase and improve the participation of women, specially of local ones we recognize as “experts” in their respective fields.

We also expect, as a secondary effect, to generate some impact over general education while opening this topic to analysis, considering teachers in Argentina are mainly women.

Measures of success

Press Coverage

Previous to the event

Mujeres de Wiki tomar-Página 12 Newspaper March 23th 2012
La Brecha de Género en Wikipedia (Gender Gap in Wikipedia. Interview with Lila Pagola in the radio program "Las nosotras"- April 4th 2012)

During and after the event

Telam, National News Agency, with strong impact in all the other news media in Argentina. http://www.telam.com.ar/nota/26482/
Tiempo Argentino National Newspaper Covered WikiWomenCamp and announced WikiGénero http://tiempo.infonews.com/2012/05/25/sociedad-76617-las-mujeres-wikipedistas-llegaron-a-buenos-aires-para-hablar-sobre-genero.php
Página 12 http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-196260-2012-06-13.html “Internet aún es un fenómeno emergente” Interview with Sue Gardner.
WikiGénero: coverage of the "Red Nosotras en el mundo" Project.
Emergencia de género en Wikipedia (Gender emergency in Wikipedia) by Dafne Sabanes Plou (APC)

Participants

We received the contribution of highlighted speakers in the field of gender activism, including the philosopher Diana Maffía, Paola Rafetta (LGBT activist), the participation of UNESCO Scholars on Women, Science and Technology and the network of women RIMA.

There was a number of around 40 people in the room during the whole day, most of them were women from the Wikimedia Community who attended WikiWomenCamp, and the rest were mostly women and activists from gender, women and LGBT organizations from Argentina. Around 80% of the attendees were women.

Lessons learned

What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects?

Visa's times and proceeding: the international speaker needed a visa for Argentina, since he is a citizen from Sri Lanka studying in the US. He found out about visa process in the Argentinian Consulate, and made the forms but one month before the event's date, we began to receive lots of new requirements from the Argentinian Consulate, with a few time remaining. Visa was approved 2 days before departing, and we were very close to cancel the participation (and becoming a teleconference), with all the waste of time, effort implied. Lesson learned: to identify before the confirmation of an international speaker who requires visa, if time remaining is enough to manage visa's issues.

Main speaker opening the meeting very early: Although is a common practice oriented to reinforce the "on time beginning" of activities, in this case was quite early (9hs) for a Saturday morning after a holiday (May 25th), and many people arrive late, when the talk of Anduradha Uduwage has already begun.

What impact did the project have on WMF mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?

The presence of Anuradha Uduwage contributed to the quality of the whole event, specially as a scientific approach to a complex issue, regarding methodology used, and questions to data analyzed. In this sense, this participation was very valuable for the public as the possibility to have direct access to the author of one of the most interesting studies on Gender Gap in Wikipedia.

The quality of all the speakers generated a stimulating exchange of ideas and projects, being the most remarkable as direct impact of the event:

National network of feminists scholars and activists: We had an immediate meeting (June 8th) with two of the speakers from Argentina (Diana Maffía and Paola Raffetta), for analyzing future projects. Diana proposed to organize a workshop about editing Wikipedia articles commented in the event (the gender topics gap analyzed) in a feminist library and cultural center called Tierra Violeta, in a similar approach to other activity Wikimedia Argentina had programmed for next June in the University of Cuyo (Mendoza). Contrasting ideas and projects, we decided to initiate a kind of "national network" of feminist scholars and activists, in order to collaborate in the improvement of quality and representation of gender topics in Wikipedia, and use the workshop of the University of Cuyo as a pilot experience.
- This network is being built in these days, with a new workshop planned for September/October in the University of Jujuy, and the University of Córdoba in September also, in collaboration with their respective Gender Departments.
DIY scanner: As other project related to this meeting with people of the cultural center Tierra Violeta, Wikimedia Argentina is finishing legal details to sign an agreement of collaboration for digitizing material in public domain of the library: a very special collection of books and magazines of women, or related to feminism, especially from Argentina or in Spanish. The material is going to be uploaded to WikiSource, using one of DIY scanners of Wikimedia Argentina.
Bilingual publication: Many people asked for the documentation (audio recorded) of the talks, and as an initiative of the Board Member Evelin Heidel, we are working in a digital (maybe printed) bilingual publication of the talks of WikiGénero, plus the conclusions of WikiWomenCamp.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

Did you send WMF documentation of all expenses paid for with grant funds?

Details of expenditures:

Anuradha Uduwage. Plane Ticket Dulles Washington DC / Buenos Aires / Dulles DC. Ar$5150.40.-
Anuradha Uduwage. Perdiem, hotel and local transportation: Ar$2497.-

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