Summary

We train young people in Southern Africa to map their own neighborhoods and use that data to tackle the climate risks they face every day. Through free online courses, field mapping, and community-led climate action, youth in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini will turn their local knowledge into open map data.

Context

Across Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini, communities face increasing climate risks, including flooding, heat stress, water scarcity, and loss of green spaces, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas. However, geospatial data used for planning and response is often incomplete or outdated at the neighborhood level, limiting effective climate action.

Young people, who experience these impacts directly, are rarely engaged in data creation or decision-making, despite their local knowledge and potential. Limited access to digital skills and recognition pathways further constrains participation. This gap weakens climate resilience planning and highlights the need for mapping as a tool for advocacy, awareness, and community-led climate action.

By placing open mapping tools in the hands of youth and connecting their contributions to a recognized digital credentialing system, it builds both the datasets and the people needed for community-led climate action.

Our goal

• Build skills by training at least 1,000 young people, with a focus on adolescent girls and young women.
• Create local data by supporting youth to map features such as buildings, wetlands, wells, boreholes, and green spaces that matter for climate resilience in their own communities.
• Turn data into action by ensuring every engaged youth group delivers at least one climate action based on the data they mapped, from tree planting to drainage improvements to community awareness campaigns.

Our approach

Participants follow a three-step pathway: Learn, Map, Act.

Step one is learning two free, self-paced online courses on the HOT Learning Center:

• Introduction to Open Mapping for Climate Action: the basics of open mapping, where anyone can add to a free map of the world.
• ChatMap for Field Mapping: How to use popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal to collect local data and build community maps without needing complex technical software.

Step two is to map and contribute in two ways:

• Remote mapping: tracing buildings, roads, and green spaces from satellite imagery using HOT's Tasking Manager
• Field mapping: visiting their neighborhoods to record climate-vulnerable and climate-protective features, from water storage to health facilities to schools using ChatMap.

For action, each group uses its own data to design and deliver a local climate action and to make the case to local leaders and planners. Everyone who completes the courses earns a verifiable credential, a digital certificate stored on the Yoma platform.

All the data created is open and will be available on OpenStreetMap, free for any organization, planner, or community to use.

What success looks like

By the end of the project:

• Young people have verifiable, portable proof of their climate and mapping skills to carry into jobs and further learning.
• Neighborhoods that were previously unmapped have local climate data, created by the people who live there.
• Country offices and local partners have usable data on climate risks and protective features in priority areas.
• Young people, particularly adolescent girls and young women, are recognized as credible contributors to climate resilience, not just beneficiaries.

Who can join

The project is open to young people aged 15 to 24 in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini. Participants join through local youth groups, each led by a group leader with around 20 members.

Recruitment opens country by country. Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook for announcements on when to apply.

Get involved

• Map with us. Are you aged 15 to 24 in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, or Eswatini? Email us at esahub-info@hotosm.org to find out how to join a youth group or start learning.
• Partner with us. Are you a youth organization, university, or mapping community in any of these five countries? Email us at esahub-info@hotosm.org to host a group, use the data, or explore how this model could scale to your context.
• Fund the next phase. This project shows what young people can do with mapping skills and open data. With the right support, it can expand to more countries, more communities, and more climate action. Email us at esahub-info@hotosm.org to discuss funding or scaling.