Throughout the 19th and 20th century, women around the world have fought for their right to participate in elections. Women in Switzerland were the last in Western Europe, gaining suffrage on 7 February 1971, 50 years ago. And still today, women in some parts of the world are not able to vote, even when men are.

Many of the women who fought for their right to vote still don’t have Wikipedia articles in many languages. And many suffragettes have articles in no language. We expect to produce many new articles!

This online camp is part of the bigger “Wikipedia for Peace” project and a cooperation between SCI and Wikimedia Switzerland. We had 15 participants.

7th of February was the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Switzerland and also the last day of our Wikipedia camp on women’s suffrage.

SCI Switzerland and the participancts of the camp wrote 30+ articles in several languages (Armenian, German, English, Russian, Italian and Czech) and you can now read about more suffragettes from around the world on Wikipedia. 

They also had lively discussions around what it means to be a feminist in 2021 and what effects the current COVID-19 pandemic has on gender-related issues. It’s always hard for them to say goodbye by clicking “Leave meeting” after such an intense week of getting to know each other and working together across borders.

They are looking forward to their next online camp already!