Event Recap:

As part of the celebrations of the International Youth Day on 16 August 2016, the HerStory initiative was launched at the United Nations in New York and eight other cities around the world—Cairo, Chennai, Dubai, Delhi, Hyderabad, London, México City and Monterrey—to close the gender knowledge gap. Empower Women, the Wikimedia Foundation,  and the UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth with hundreds of volunteer champions, organized the series of edit-a-thons in their local community.

Photo credit: Empower Women/Emad Karim

A recent study, co-authored by MIT economist Esther Duflo, emphasizes just how important female leaders are for the attitudes and ambitions of young women. The results in the study were astounding. In areas with long-serving female leaders in local government, the gender gap in teen education goals disappeared, due to the fact that girls had set higher goals for themselves. Parents were also 25% more likely to report having more ambitious education goals for their daughters, significantly narrowing the gender gap.

Photo credit: Empower Women/Youssef El Tanahy

The participants of the edit-a-thons across the world were driven by these results and joined forces to increase the content on Wikipedia related to gender equality and women’s empowerment to raise awareness, close the gender knowledge gap, and provide more examples of female leaders.The events included a Wikipedia 101 brief tutorial, a full day of writing and editing on Wikipedia, and some hosted inspiring speakers, such as the Ahmad Alhendawi UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, Kathrine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation and Anna Falth and Jennifer Breslin from UN Women. 

Thanks to:

Wikipedia NYC Chapter, Wikipedia Women in Red, ONE, The Red Elephant Foundation, Sayfty, HomeWork Coworking Space, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, In5 Centre, and all of our champions and extraordinary volunteers.

Join HerStory edit-a-thons to contribute, promote, and celebrate women of the world. Make sure you going to be an agent of this ‘herstorical’ change.

For more information, check the initiative page.

Event:

International Youth Day Event

A series of HerStory edit-a-thons will be held on August 12th, which is International Youth Day in many cities around the globe and online. At the UN Headquarters in New York, the HerStory edit-a-thon will be convening hundreds of participants to edit and write for Wikipedia. The day-long event will include an opening, a Wikipedia 101 brief tutorial, a full day of writing and editing, featured speakers from our partners, breaks for coffee and networking, and a closing speech.

As Wikipedia compiles what represents close to the sum of all human knowledge, women should be recognized as part of that sum. . Empower Women by UN Women, Wikimedia Foundation, theUN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, the UN Inter-agency Network on Youth Development's Working Group on Youth and Gender Equality, and a group of volunteer champions are working on enhancing and increasing the content on Wikipedia related to women and gender equality to raise awareness, close the gender knowledge gap, and start changing and editing the future. The initiative aligns with UN Women’s youth strategy that focuses on strengthening the leadership of young women in all spheres, economic empowerment and skills development of young women and promoting action on ending violence against young women and girls. It calls for investing in young women’s knowledge development and young women led knowledge creation. The knowledge produced will be focusing on recognizing the contribution of female leaders and especially young women, produce articles about the concepts of gender equality and its champions, and offer a youth friendly content about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Reserve a spot and make a difference in NYC and globally. 

LOCATIONS:  

NY Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 9:30 am - 5 pm NYC Time

Address: 46th Street and 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Trusteeship Council Conference Room

Registration here. Contact: Emad Karim

Cairo Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 9:30 am - 5 pm Cairo Time

Address: Gallery Room, the Greek Campus. 28 Falaki St., Bab El Louk, Downtown. Cairo. Egypt.

Register here. Contact: May Hashem

London Edit-a-thon

Date: 11 August 2016

Time: 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm London Time

Address: 4189 Shaftsbury Avenue, London. United Kingdom.

Organizer: ONE

Register here.  Contact: Billy Hill

Chennai, India  Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 02:00 pm - 5:00 pm Chennai Time

Address: The Red Elephant Foundation, Chennai, Chennail. India  

Organizer:  The Red Elephant Foundation

Register here. Contact: Kirthi Jayakumar

Hyderabad, India  Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Hyderabad Time

Address: 6-3-249/3a, Saaz Apartments, 2nd floor, Road No.1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034  

Organizer: Sayfty

Register here. Contact: Sammy Sahni

Delhi, India  Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 11:00 am - 02:00 pm Hyderabad Time

Address: Ahlcon International School, Mayur Vihar Phase 1, Delhi 110091 

Organizer: Sayfty

Register here. Contact: Chetna Sabharwal

México City, Mexico Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 03:00 pm - 07:30 pm Mexico City Time

Address: HomeWork Coworking Space. Plaza de la República #9, Piso 1 Col. Tabacalera Del. Cuahutémoc. C.P. 06030 Ciudad de México

Register here. Contact: Nelly Andrade

Monterrey, Mexico Edit-a-thon

Date: 12 August 2016

Time: 11:00 am - 3:00 pm Monterrey Time

Address: Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey

Register here. Contact: Monica Lerith Melendez

Reserve your spot!