By Adetutu Audu

WikiForHumanRights 2025 Health and Environmental Sustainability Campaign in Nigeria has been launched, bringing renewed focus to environmental justice, climate change, and the right to a healthy environment.

The campaign is part of the global WikiForHumanRights initiative, which began in 2019 through a partnership between the Wikimedia Foundation and the United Nations Human Rights. The initiative is implemented by Wikimedia affiliates across the world and was inspired by Wiki Por Derechos Humanos, originally run by Wikimedia Argentina. The 2025 Nigerian campaign was officially launched with a strong emphasis on health, sustainability, and environmental rights.

According to one of the WikiForHumanRights Nigeria National Coordinator, Kemi Makinde, the campaign focused on amplifying underrepresented stories across seven states in Nigeria. These states include Anambra, Kogi, Osun, Imo, Rivers, Kaduna, and Gombe.

She explained that for the second consecutive year, seven active Wikimedia communities collaborated to drive the campaign with a shared focus on environmental sustainability and human rights.

“This year, for the second year running, seven vibrant communities have come together to launch the WikiForHumanRights campaign with one clear focus: the right to a healthy environment and sustainability. Within the Wikipedia community, our goal is to use free knowledge to protect the environment, document stories that matter, and empower people to understand their rights while shaping conversations that affect our collective future,” Makinde said.

Speaking on the significance of the campaign, Associate Professor at the University of Lagos, Dr Rose Alani, highlighted the urgent need for documentation and advocacy in the face of Nigeria’s environmental challenges. She noted that while the country faces widespread environmental degradation, efforts to document these issues remain limited.

According to her, proper documentation is a critical first step toward raising awareness and inspiring social change.

“In Nigeria, the environment has borne the heavy costs of extraction, neglect, and injustice. Issues such as oil spills, illegal mining, plastic waste, desertification, air pollution, and indiscriminate dumping of hazardous materials are not isolated incidents. They represent a pattern of environmental injustice that directly affects human rights,” she said.

Dr Alani added that Wikipedia plays a powerful role in shaping how global audiences understand local struggles. By documenting Nigeria’s environmental challenges on a widely accessed platform like Wikipedia, communities are ensuring visibility, representation, and sustained advocacy for environmental justice and equitable access to human rights.

In his remarks, the President of the Wikipedia Nigeria User Group, Mr Olushola Olaniyan, emphasized the role of the media and open knowledge platforms in driving change. He stated that by supporting Wikipedia’s free learning ecosystem, more Nigerians can be empowered to lead environmentally conscious initiatives within their communities.

The project ran from October 2 to December 19, 2025. It was designed to increase awareness, document local stories, and shape global discourse around climate change, environmental degradation, activism, and the broader health implications of environmental challenges through storytelling and content creation on Wikipedia and its sister projects.

The campaign concluded with a review session that brought together editors and representatives from all seven participating communities to reflect on the campaign’s outcomes and lessons learned.

During the review session, Euphemia Uwandu, Programme Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, expressed her appreciation for the level of collaboration and dedication demonstrated by the Nigerian communities. She commended how the communities positioned themselves and worked collectively to ensure the success of the campaign.

She noted that coordinating seven communities can be highly demanding but praised the National Coordinators for their effective leadership and coordination. Uwandu expressed hope that editors gained valuable skills and insights from the campaign and that the experience would foster stronger collaboration and learning in future initiatives.

With the 2025 campaign concluded, the National organizers have expressed optimism about building on its successes, strengthening partnerships, and expanding collaborations in future editions of the WikiForHumanRights campaign in Nigeria.