Map Kibera

We are in the process of building out a dynamic website and report with the findings from the project thus far. As a sneak peak, this is what we believe to be the most detailed child protection, public safety, or girls vulnerability map of Kibera ever produced by and for the community.

via watoto‘s photostream

News From Last Week
– We completed the education community outreach meetings. With printed maps and tracing paper, we sat down with informal school leaders, teachers and parents to discuss the state of education in Kibera. Many schools meet the legal requirements for community-based school funding but do not receive it. Community leaders are excited to help visualize their case to policy makers.
– We presented to the UNICEF-Kenya monthly programmatic meeting (slide deck available here), Ushahidi 101, and Africa Agriculture GIS Week.
– We began the water and sanitation mapping phase, collecting public/private water points, toilets and private water points. Complete list here.
– The Story of Map Kibera was published and will be presented next week at the University of Sussex Institute of Development Studies.
– Kibera News Network uncovered the story of a frog whose body was inscribed with a holy message.

What’s Next?
– This week we transition from map data collection to ensuring that our tools and methodology become useful for the longterm work of our partners in the community. In the safety/vulnerability theme, for example, this means supporting girls leadership groups, gender-based violence (GBV) providers in their efforts to plan new safe spaces and incidence response.

News From This Week

–  Map tracing exercises are proving to be a fascinating tool for bringing community knowledge into the commons.  We held five 2-hour map tracing community meetings this week. With printed maps (featuring security data collected last week by our mappers), tracing paper and pens, we met with different aged girls from Binti Pamoja (ages 10-18 and 18-24) as well as security providers such as community police and elders.

The girls revealed behavioral norms while the service providers gave the big picture.  Early versions of the scanned, rectified, tiled and displayed maps are here. You can see pictures from these meetings here.

Just a few of the things we learned:

Girls are often at risk when they go to nightly funeral parties to dance, and when they go out in town, they often stay out until 5AM to avoid returning to Kibera in the dark. We have also learned that while much violence is tied to drug and alcohol abuse, a single drug rehab center (SEPTA) serves Kibera, and does not provide outreach into the informal areas. Most carjacking takes place at the Anany Bridge, and  rape and abduction often takes place either near Jamhuri Park or in Silanga near the Nairobi Dam.

– Using our Flip Cams, we launched the Kibera News Network, a youth-run Youtube channel that provide narratives about the mapping data and general news about Kibera.