Participating in an international conference for women is a wonderful experience. It is more rewarding when the conference is for Wikimedians to discuss issues primarily concerning women. The WikiWomenCamp, held at Buenos Aires, Argentina from 23-25 June and WikiGenero held on the next day was an enlightening experience not only for me, but also for the other 16 attendees from 15 countries of the world.
On the first day, we began by introducing each other. The
discussion was held in open space format and all of us proposed sessions that
are of importance to women working with Wikiprojects. There were sessions on chapters and women,
Wikipedia and education, dealing with abuse on Wikipedia, attracting femalewriters through social networks and many other topics which dealt with women
participation and outreach in Wikiprojects.
The traditionally assigned gender role of women in India is to look
after the household and rear children. With the passage of time, educated women
started to get employed and started having finances of their own, but most of
them still continue to fulfill the gender roles in addition to their career,
leaving very little time for volunteering. The gender gap that exists in the
global Wikimedia community has its reflections in India also. Although the
number of women volunteers from India working with Wikimedia is rising
overtime, their number is far less than that of male volunteers. With the IndiaEducation Program, many new women have ventured into Wikiprojects as CampusAmbassadors, but their number is far lesser than men.
Participants of the WikiWomenCamp, Buenos Aires, Argentina
By Jaluj (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The insights I provided were on the diversity of languages and cultures
in India, and how one language Wikiproject differs from the other in terms of culture,
and how it is reflected in the article writing styles. I also mentioned about
the outreach programs that are being successfully conducted in India through
social media and universities mainly aiming students enthusiastic about working
with free knowledge projects.
At the WikiWomenCamp, every session was a new learning experience. There
was always some idea I could propose, and a new piece of information I could
make a note of. The insights and opinions of the elderly participants and that
of the educators were valuable. The facilitation in open space format was
comfortable and highly productive – it gave opportunities for women to lead and
facilitate sessions who would otherwise have remained silent. Notes were taken
on Wiki to ensure that the ideas shaped out of the discussions are recorded for
future reference.
The important decisions taken by the members at the conference were the
creation of an emergency mailing list for dealing with abuse, relaunching of
WikiChix – the Women’s wiki, WikiWomen Translate program and launching OTRS
queue for harassment. The feasibility of launching new global projects for
women with participation from the home countries of the members was also
discussed.
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| Discussion on the second day of WikiWomenCamp Photo by Anastasia Lvova, CC-by-SA, Wikimedia Commons. |
The camp made me more sensitive towards gender issues and helped me learn
wonderful ideas for increasing women participation in the Wikiprojects of my
home country. Besides, I could discuss with representatives from other
countries about providing them assistance in launching gender specific projects
in their home country. The camp was directly relevant to my experiences and
qualifications, and meeting many WikiWomen boosted my confidence in working
with outreach programs.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Wikimedia Germany and
Wikimedia Austria for granting me scholarship to attend the first
WikiWomenCamp. The excellent work done by Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimedia Germany, Wikimedia Australia and Wikimedia Austria in
supporting women’s events is very much appreciated.