Crowdsourced Mapping to Prevent FGM in Tanzania

On 7th November we celebrated our 6th birthday with an online event hearing from many of the community groups we have worked with or trained over the last 6 years.

We started with an overview of our work which you can see here and review the slides here. Next we heard about the school mapping and nutrition projects. This was followed by presentations about mapping maize mills to prevent stunting and poor nutrition, and training Youthmappers by the Reslience Academy and OMDTZ, and how mapping helps with progress towards the SDGs.  

And Rhobi talked about how her Digital Champions programme is helping to protect girls in Serengeti, Tarime and Butiama districts, as well as teach them digital skills. 

She will also be talking at our next event on Monday for GeoWeek - I hope you can join us to find out more. 

This month we are also looking forward to training many new mappers in Katavi and other areas of Tanzania, as well as speaking at State of the Map Africa and the HOTOSM summit.

And we have this cool new film summarising our work.

So thank you so much for your support.

Many thanks

Janet 

Its been a very busy few months for Crowd2Map. We've spoken about our work in many different online events and conferences and welcomed many new mappers from all over the world.

The Digital Champion programme we started in Serengeti 2 years ago, whereby 1 woman per village trains others in her village in digital skills and mapping, has now been expanded into Butiama and Tarime, thanks to funding from UNFPA. We are very excited that 208 more women will be able to empower their communities and get online for the first time. You can read more about this project here. 

Our mapping training to community groups in Tanzania is going strong, thanks to volunteer GIS specialist Herry Kassunga who has been delivering training via zoom every week, as well as in person. This has paid dividends in building up capacity across Tanzania.  Last month we were delighted that 3 of the groups he trained were awarded microgrants from Open Map Development Tanzania.  So now these groups will start mapping border points in Katavi to help with disease control with the Red Cross. In Mwanza they will be monitoring hotspots of gender based violence, and Hope for Girls and Women in Mara will be mapping access to health facitlities.  More details to come later. 

Also Herry and 2 girls from the FGM Safe House in Mugumu were picked to take part in drone training in Tanga, as part of an Open Skies Initiative.  We are hoping in future they will be able to build their own drone to help map Mara.

Thank you for all your support that has made this possible.

Best wishes

Janet