Data first in climate justice
Two recent initiatives highlight a turn toward data‑driven climate advocacy: the African Wikipedian Alliance with Code for Africa launched a project to strengthen environmental advocacy through better data, and Mount Holyoke College opened a Climate Justice Lab to support research and student‑led campaigns. Both efforts show models for marrying storytelling, local data, and institutional support in environmental justice work. (diff.wikimedia.org (mtholyoke.edu)
The African Wikipedian Alliance — working with Code for Africa and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs — launched an Inclusion and Climate Justice fellowship in March that enrolled 15 participants from Angola, Namibia and South Africa, and the cohort has already produced roughly 30 new or improved online reference entries. (diff.wikimedia.org) Early contributions focused on grassroots and advocacy groups across the three countries, including entries for MenEngage Namibia, the Young Feminist Movement Namibia, Miss Trans Angola, EcoAngola, Amnesty International Angola, Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia, and the South African Water Caucus. (diff.wikimedia.org) Organizers moved from plain skills to platform specifics: fellows received training on how to add and license photos for Wikimedia Commons (the free media library), how to create and query items in Wikidata (the structured database that feeds facts into Wikipedia), how to spot and correct mis- and disinformation, and how to translate content; the program ran onboarding sessions on March 22, offered an office hour on March 23, and plans up to 14 virtual training sessions over the fellowship. (diff.wikimedia.org) Mount Holyoke College opened a Climate Justice Lab housed in the Miller Worley Center for the Environment, naming Olivia Aguilar (the center director) and Vanessa Rosa (associate professor and faculty director) to lead the initiative, and citing ongoing support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and a community of donors. (mtholyoke.edu) The college describes the Lab as a central hub that links its existing Campus Community Commitment to Climate Justice, a “Sustainability Across the Curriculum” workshop series affiliated with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and the Summit on Feminist Leadership in Climate Justice, which the announcement says is scheduled to return in April 2027. (mtholyoke.edu) Mount Holyoke’s announcement frames the Lab around applied student research and projects on specific issues — livable cities, affordable energy, clean air, labor conditions and gender equity — and says the goal is to integrate those topics into multiple courses so graduates gain practical skills for community-based and policy work. (mtholyoke.edu)
