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Only 17% of biographies published on Wikipedia are about women.

UNESCO aims to increase the visibility of women in the digital space by organizing a global call for contribution, the "Edit-a-thon", on International Women’s Day, 8 March.

The objective is clear: everywhere in the world, people will be invited to create, edit or translate new Wikipedia pages of portraits of women who have played a key role or who still contribute today in the fields of education, science, culture, and communication.

Approximately 130 volunteers, among them students, journalists, retirees, representatives of civil society, and diplomats, will participate to the event from 1:30 pm to 6:00 pm at UNESCO Headquarters. They will receive training provided by the Wikipedia team. .

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, will open the ceremony. The event is co-organised in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, with the support of Canada, Iceland, Sweden, the European Union, the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) and the Chanel Foundation.

Gender Equality, one of UNESCO’s priorities, will be promoted through a series of events organized on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

Wednesday, 7 March

•    Launch of the book " Mujeres de America Latina y el Caribe " organized by Latin American and Caribbean Group Member States, followed by a reading of poems dedicated to women. [11.00am-1.00pm Room II, Fontenoy]

•    Screening of a film about Boko Haram survivors, Boko Haram : Journey from Evil, in cooperation with the Permanent Delegation of the United States to UNESCO, followed by a debate in the presence of the director and producer of the film, Beth Mendelson. [3:00-5.30pm, Room II, Fontenoy]

Tuesday, 8 March

• A symposium focused on “Gender, Cultural Rights and Scientific Freedom”, co-organized by UNESCO’s Chair on Cultural Rights at the University of Copenhagen and the Delegation of Denmark at UNESCO. [9.00am-1:00pm, Room IV, Fontenoy]

• Inauguration of the International Women’s Day Exhibition “Rural Women” [1.00pm, Salle des Pas Perdus, Fontenoy]. The exhibition, on display from 6 to 16 March, will be complemented with a multimedia installation organized by the Communication and Information sector entitled “Rural Women in Africa and the Media”.

Friday, 9 March                         

• A conference on the theme "Women Engineers & Empowering Rural Women and Girls”, in cooperation with the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and the Launch of the 2018 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report Gender Review [9.00am-12.00noon, Room IV, Fontenoy]

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For journalist’s accreditation please contact :

Djibril Kébé, UNESCO Media relations,

 Tel : +33 (0) 1 45 68 17 47, d.kebe@unesco.org

Join the conversation

#Wiki4Women, #Internationalwomensday

Discover on the latest issue of The UNESCO Courier magazine the portraits of four exceptional women:

, 2008 Laureate of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Prize for Women and Science and Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009;

, L'ORÉAL-UNESCO Prize for Women and Science 2009 and Professor of Pharmacology and Nanotechnology at Rhodes University (South Africa);

, British-Sudanese television personality – who transformed UNESCO’s General History of Africa into a nine-part series for the BBC and;

, Nobel Peace Prize 2011 is a feminist and human rights activist and one of the leading figures of the Arab Spring in Yemen.