Crowdsourced Mapping to Prevent FGM in Tanzania

Crowd2Map is making great progress mapping rural Tanzania, particularly those areas where girls are at risk from Female Genital Mutilation.  Having better maps helped prevent 2257 girls from being cut this year. However change is a slow process. 1076 girls were cut, down from 3700 the previous year, and 4 girls died, down from 12 last year.  Girls like Bhoke* forcibly cut at 13, her body thrown into the bush. But the tide is turning. This year saw the first prosecutions against parents and cutters for FGM.

We now have over 1500 online mappers, tracing roads and buildings from satellite images.  Together they have added over a million buildings and 64,000 kilometres of road, to ensure that FGM activists can find the girls at risk.  Mappers on the ground are continuing to add details such as village name, and we have now added over 75 villages to Openstreetmap, an open source map accessible to everyone online and on phones. There is more information in this article.  

We were delighted to receive one of the first Microgrants from Humanitarian Openstreetmap (HOT) last month, which will enable us to buy phones and deliver training to village level community change activists in four different areas of Tanzania.  That work will start in June. 

HOT also asked us to present our work at their Community Webinar on 18^th May.  You can participate here to find out more about our future plans. 

And please check out our new website - any feedback gratefully received.. 

So thanks again for your generous donation which is helping us to map Tanzania to help prevent FGM.. 

Links:

• Missing Maps article