News — 21 December, 2020

Crowdmapping in the Midst of a Pandemic (by Map Kibera)

Map Kibera shares their experience crowdmapping during the Covid-19 pandemic to create public health data in Kenya.

This article originally appeared on the Map Kibera blog.

2020 has been a unique year owing to the fact that the whole world was brought to a stand-still by a global pandemic. Kibera and other informal settlements of Nairobi weren’t spared either. Most of the Kibera residents work as casual laborers and due to the regulations set up by the government, the majority of the residents lost their jobs while some had to shut down their business. This left most of them having to rely on well-wishers for any form of support.

In response to this, many organizations came up with initiatives to support the community; this varied from sensitization activities, food, and soap distributions, setting up hand wash points, and other relevant resources. Map Kibera, having worked with these organizations in other events and activities, partnered with them to:

• Map out their activities and post them on the Ushahidi-based Kenya Covid-19 tracker; this included training them on how to post their work and offering support in posting them where necessary.
• Directly support the programs they were implementing on the ground.

Read the rest of the article on the Map Kibera blog, and follow them on Twitter at @mapkibera.