Context

As part of its commitment to commemorate International Women's Day 2024 and continuously empower the WiR community, the Africa Wikipedian Alliance (AWA) organized the EmpowerHer Edit-a-thon 2024, a month-long campaign from March 22 to April 23, 2024, in collaboration with the Africa Charter Project. This project aimed to improve Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items about women in democracy, elections, and governance within the African Union states among Francophone WiR communities. During this campaign, I had the pleasure of being involved as a Wikipedia trainer to help equip participants for the successful deployment of the project.

Activities Carried Out

During the EmpowerHer Edit-a-thon 2024 campaign, I participated in several activities, including:

• The online launch of the campaign on March 22, 2024, during which the campaign, its organizers, goals, and expectations were presented.
• The Wikipedia training sessions on March 27 and 29, 2024, as a trainer, which allowed me to share my knowledge on creating and editing content on Wikipedia.
• Coordinating the Francophone office hours on April 2, 2024, for Wikipedia contributions, which enabled us to gather participants' challenges in practicing Wikipedia after the training.
• Attending the Wikidata training session as a participant, which was an opportunity for me to further enhance my Wikidata knowledge.

Wikipedia Training and Office Hour/Check-in

During the Wikipedia training sessions, practical demonstrations on creating and editing articles on Wikipedia were provided, while allowing interactivity with the participants. The exchange session during the office hour/check-in was an opportunity to review the Wikipedia work done by participants after the training and address their questions, observations, and challenges in content creation on Wikipedia. During this session, we also benefited from the intervention of Aboubacar Keita, a Francophone evaluator, who encouraged participants to continue producing content on Wikipedia.

Success Points

• The successful execution of the campaign, including the training sessions, exchanges, and especially the participants' contributions to content production on Wikipedia and Wikidata.
• The presence of participants during the various training and exchange sessions.
• The presence of other trainers and campaign team members during the training sessions, which added value through their inputs during the sessions.
• The punctuality of the campaign team at the start of sessions.
• The content of the Wikipedia and Wikidata training was appreciated by participants, whether they were new or existing users; they found the sessions rich and learned new things.
• The conviviality and collaboration during the exchanges fostered interactive discussions with the participants.

Areas for Improvement

• Most participants in the Wikipedia training sessions were already familiar with using Wikipedia, and there were fewer new people discovering Wikipedia (between 2 and 3 people maximum).
• Very few participants took part in the office hour out of the total number of participants registered for the project.

Recommendations

• Allow more new users from the communities to participate in these campaigns for a stronger, more dynamic community supported by better-equipped teams.
• Increase awareness among members of our Francophone communities to take more interest in international campaigns.
• Organize future office hours as collective exchange and experience-sharing sessions so that it is not just the trainer that participants come to listen to, but rather that everyone comes to share their experiences and learn from each other.

Lessons Learned

This wonderful journey as a Wikipedia trainer for the EmpowerHer-Edit-a-thon 2024 campaign made me realize that:

• Continuous training is an element to integrate into our daily lives as Wikimedians.
• Every opportunity is good to learn something new, provided we are present.
• When everyone shares the little knowledge they have, we collectively increase our knowledge.

The Wikidata training taught me to understand even more about editing on Wikidata and, more importantly, how to transmit the training more simply to others.

The EmpowerHer-Edit-a-thon 2024 initiative showed me that actions are being taken to equip women and girls with the tools they need to produce content on Wikipedia and Wikidata in favor of women in Africa.

Conclusion

Reflecting on this month of commitment to the EmpowerHer Edit-a-thon 2024 campaign, gratitude and joy fill my heart. I take this opportunity to thank the organizers who involved me in this exciting adventure. I also thank the other trainers and monitors for their involvement and sense of sharing, as well as all the participants who showed dedication, collaborative spirit, and commitment to producing results. Finally, a big thank you to all those who contributed to the success of this campaign, near or far.