Translations:Course-v1:edz+11+2023 SP/en/block-v1:edz+11+2023 SP+type@html+block@7a1cc71605cd4195b13568f37395d9d9/content/en

You might notice that one of the biggest campaigns in the Wikimedia movement focused on Sustainability topics, #WikiForHumanRights is not focused on a specific Sustainable Development Goal. Why is that?

What we learned from the WikiForHumanRights Campaign

The WikiForHumanRights campaign evolved from a series of activities from Wikimedia Argentina and an opportunity that the Wikimedia Foundation had to partner with the UN Human Rights Council (read more <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/08/16/wikimedia-and-un-human-rights-partner-to-expand-wikipedias-knowledge/" target="[object Object]">about those early activities here</a>). As part of the partnership, we wanted to try bringing focus to human rights topics.

During the first year of the international campaign we tried to do a general human rights focused topic campaign. However, through observation and followup evaluation, we noticed some really clear problems in the first cycle of activity:

Wikimedia audiences needed a lot of education about human rights topics in order to do sensitive organizing on what can be controversial, risky in certain cultural contexts, etc.
Those organizers who were enthusiastic about the broad human rights themes, often focused on the most risky topics with the most conflictual politics (like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees" target="[object Object]">refugee integration</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory" target="[object Object]">LGBTQ+ rights</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_protection" target="[object Object]">protection of children from abuse</a> , etc) -- in turn organizers and new editors had a hard time explaining these topics to existing Wikimedians and potential editors.
Participants in the writing contest had a hard time identifying topics outside of broad concepts (i.e. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_life" target="[object Object]">right to life</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_education" target="[object Object]">right to education</a>, etc ) which are hard topics for non-experts to create content about.

The landing page for the first international WikiForHumanRights Campaign. The broad rhetoric around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not help organizers engage strategically around the topic.

At the end of the first pilot campaign in 2019, it was clear we needed a narrower focus and better organizer education. In reviewing the activities, we discussed this challenge with UN Human Rights, and they suggested two focuses: Gender and Climate change. Wikimedia Sweden and WikiGap partnered with them for the 2021 writing contest, and the Wikimedia Foundation moved the broad #WikiForHumanRights campaign to Earth Day with a new focus on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_a_healthy_environment" target="[object Object]">Right to a Healthy Environment</a>.

What did that new focus change?

At first focusing on environmental issues might seem to make it more complicated. But in fact, by focusing on the intersection of human rights and environmental issues under the header “right to a healthy environment” and pairing that with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_planetary_crisis" target="[object Object]">triple planetary crises </a>framework discussed earlier -- we were able to simplify the message of the campaign to be a better match for the Wikimedia movement. Each community organizer was to focus on an environmental issue in their context, and document the human story connected with it.

With this change, we were able to focusing on a) global issues that have local impacts, b) narrow the focus to a specific subset of two knowledge frameworks (human rights and triple planetary crisis) and c) communicate these problems clearly to organizers so that they knew enough about the topic to education Wikimedians and outside communities. Moreover, by focusing on the “human story” part of the topic (rather than abstract concepts like human rights), we relied on the strengths of existing Wikimedia communities: documenting local knowledge topics.

Later in the course we will share more of the voices of participants and organizers within the campaign, to understand how they were impacted.

Translations:Course-v1:edz+11+2023 SP/en/block-v1:edz+11+2023 SP+type@html+block@7a1cc71605cd4195b13568f37395d9d9/content/en

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