Education/News/August 2022/Wikimania SDGs 2022: The Kwara Experience
Summary: The Nigerian Wikimedians for Sustainable Development organised a local events for the Wikimedia movement’s annual in Kwara State to celebrates student-members contributions to free and open knowledge projects made possible to promote SDGs such as
Wikimedia Commons,
MediaWiki,
Meta-Wiki,
Wikibooks,
Wikidata,
Wikinews,
Wikipedia,
Wikiquote,
Wikisource,
Wikispecies,
Wikiversity,
Wikivoyage,
Wiktionary among others.
The Wikimania SDGs 2022 was held from the 12th to 14th of August with over forty (40) participants across five states in Nigeria coming together to celebrate their contributions as free knowledge enthusiasts and Wikimedia volunteers contributing to Wikipedia and its sisters' projects to promote Sustainable Development Goals across all Wikis. The program which was made up of a gathering of students from Wikimedia Fan Club-Kwara State University, Wikimedia Fan Club University of Ilorin, Wiki Club State University Lagos State University, among others, who have taken part in different WikiLovesSDGs events, editathon, contest, and campus engagement in Nigeria was packed with exciting activities to promote knowledge sharing, learning trajectories and provide opportunities for students to network.
The in-person event hosted over 40 participants and ran for 3 days. This conference exposed participants to the impacts of SDGs in different sectors in Nigeria; the need to prioritize SDGs and advocate for any of the goals they are passionate about; learn from first-hand experience of SDGs Advocate, and also connect with Wikimedians globally during the conference. The conference commenced on the 12th of August with a watch party, and a panelist session. Bukky658 and James Moore200 (authors of this article), who are experienced editors, community builders, and project leaders in various capacities, were the panelists of a panelist session. They shared their volunteering experiences with participants which were followed by a question-and-answer session. On Day 2 of the event, participants were trained on how to use WikiJournal; A site where authors can write their works directly online, and undergo independent scholarly peer review before being officially published in the journal. The journals are currently being hosted in Wikiversity: WikiJournal User Group, with the three journals WikiJournal of Medicine, WikiJournal of Science, and WikiJournal of Humanities. They also received training on how to make use of the Tool hub to search for tools to help with their workflows while working on different Wikimedia projects and to create lists of useful tools to share with others.
The session ended with an opportunity for participants to network among themselves. The last day of the local in-person event, began with a question-and-answer segment for participants to share their reflections on the previous lesson learned after which there was a Wiki Quiz and lots of games. The third day, which doubles as the last day for the 2022 Wikimania event globally, gave the participants an interesting Wikimania experience that will linger in their heart forever as they took pictures, and lso recorded video for the 2022 Wikimania; the Festival edition with a wish to see each and everyone in the next proposed in person Wikimania at Singapore.