Map Kibera

The journey to Florence, Italy to attend both SOTM and FOSS4G, has had nothing but memorable moments.  It all started on a good note,  with my visa being processed on a record of two days, considering that my appointment was a day before our general election (The Kenyan election was on the 9th of August), and I was afraid that it may delay the process by at least a few days.

My flight to Florence was a smooth one with 2 stops one in Addis and a long one in Frankfurt, arrived in Florence in the afternoon of 18th August. I want to thank Cristiano and Geoffrey who gave us a heads-up on how to get to the hostel from the airport. On arriving at the hostel, the guys at the reception were so friendly and efficient. I was able to check in so fast and in that process met with Amor from OMDTZ after a quick catch we headed for dinner at Indian restaurant (that later became well known for its nice kebab (shawarma).) The next day I got to interact with most of the unsummit scholars on our way to the SOTM venue.  It was interesting to hear how that everyone had their own experience with their flights from long delays, to rerouting, to delayed luggage and so on. 

State Of The Map 2022

Even with all those travel setbacks and heavy rain the previous night, the SOTM event kicked off on a high note with Fairhurst’s keynote speech [“State of Independence”](https://2022.stateofthemap.org/sessions/URUJH8/). As always SOTM provides an amazing experience, and it was nice reconnecting with old friends and also getting to meet new ones and learning about the amazing work they are doing in their communities.

Throughout the 3 days, there was an amazing lineup of talks, workshops, and academic tracks both in person and virtual. I got to bookmark several sessions that I found interesting from which I had the opportunity to learn about the amazing mapping tools and new developments, such as MapRoullete and iD editor. If it was possible I would have written about all the sessions, but for now, I will just focus on two  HOT unsummit humanitarian sessions and the session on Entry-Level Mobile Mapping.

HOT unSummit humanitarian sessions

The presentations at the summit sessions were quite inspiring and it was really interesting to see how the concept of community mapping has grown over the years. Who would have made them even more interesting other than the session moderator Pete Masters. Moreover, it was nice seeing in most of the presentations that local communities’ voices and their feedback were valued. From the presentation, I also noticed several projects that focused on solid waste management and WASH. Which made me think, maybe it’s time for these communities to come together and share lessons from their projects and their methodology. In doing so other communities can easily pick up what has worked and find also find common solutions to the challenges they encountered. One way to do this would be to host a workshop and bring together all these communities and other interested communities to discuss the above points and document best practices for mapping solid waste and WASH.

Entry-level Mobile Mapping by Kristen Tonga 

In this session, it was interesting to see how challenges around mobile data collection are similar across different countries. While these apps are created with good intentions to simplify the data collection process, most of them also ignore some basic things such as internet connectivity and storage. While this may not be a problem in other places, it’s a common challenge in most developing countries. It was so disheartening to hear someone had to delete his memorable photos in order to create enough storage and the app still didn’t work. The reason, why I was excited to attend this session, was because these are the same challenges we continuously deal with and we have to mitigate them by providing phones to the data collectors. In a nutshell, there is still more that needs to be done around mobile data collections and I hope these sessions kicked off meaningful conversations amongst different communities and mobile developers.

FOSS4G

This was my second time attending FOSS4G, after the one that was in Dar, Tanzania 2018. In the Dar event, I, unfortunately, missed out on the first two days. And if you ever attend an event after the first day, there is always that feeling that you’ve missed out on a few things.  At least this wasn’t going to be the same this time around as I was going to take part in the conference from the first day to the last day. I was also looking forward to it because I had two sessions that I was presenting, one on the first day and another on the last day.

Major highlight of the two events

1. Volunteering

Well, this was my first time volunteering at any event. I wasn’t sure how to go about it as it felt like a huge task ahead. On the first day, we got a quick orientation and got a bit acquainted with the venue and the different roles we were to help with. After the keynote speech, I had the chance to be a session assistant, which went really well. I was also able to help with other roles throughout the three days and also had a chance to volunteer during one of the two-day workshops in FOSS4G. I want to send a big shout-out to Lorenzo and Anisa for their leadership, they coordinated everything so well and made the whole process smooth for both the SOTM event and the FOSS4G conference.

2. Social events

On the evening of the 19th, we had a social event to celebrate World Humanitarian Day hosted by HOT.  It was great to hear from various speakers on the impact of OSM in the humanitarian space.  It was a wonderful time with great music, drinks, food, and jovial moments of catching up with old friends and connecting with new ones.

On the evening of the 20th, we were able to pick up from where we stopped the previous night. This time around, the local organizing committee took us to the local central market. With just a loaded voucher you could grab a nice meal and drinks and if you are full, you could get yourself a souvenir to take back home.

3. Culture

Firenze was an amazing choice of location for both SOTM and FOSS4G. As one person jokingly said, the whole city is a piece of art. I had a chance to visit some of the sites, taste some good food and of course, drink some fine Italian wine. In short, Firenze was good for me and I enjoyed my stay there.

HOT Unsummit 2022

All that I have shared above wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the HOT unsummit travel grant that made it possible for me and the other 14 scholars representing different communities around the World to attend both SOTM and FOSS4G.  All that we needed for our travel was taken care of and we had an amazing team that coordinated the whole process and made it successful. I want to thank HOT through the Unsummit 2022 travel grant program for making this possible for us. Ciao!!

One year ago, the world was overwhelmed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This prompted a change in the way things are done and organizations were forced to adapt new ways of coping with the global crisis. Map Kibera therefore was honored to execute a project dubbed Kenya Covid-19 Tracker that involved mapping of COVID-19 data in Kenya-with emphasis on informal settlements i.e. Kibera and Mathare. 

Map Kibera designed an open, detailed yet simple Ushahidi Deployment map (Kenya Covid-19 tracker) that illustrates the extent of the infections of the corona virus per county, with help from individual donors through Global Giving. The site has tracked resources made available by many different organizations and the government to halt the pandemic in the slum areas of Kibera and Mathare, such as hand wash points, mask and soap giveaways, food distribution and more. The Kenya COVID-19 Tracker also shows news that is directly related to the corona virus sourced from blogs, websites and eye-witness accounts among other various sources. Visit (https://kenyacovid19.ushahidi.io/views/map)

Though  the better half of 2020 involved working remotely as opposed to the traditional 9 to 5, map kibera managed to coordinate a great number of events both remotely and physically with strict adherence to the COVID-19 restrictions that were stipulated by the Ministry of Health and the Kenyan Government. Some of these activities include:

Map Kibera staff together with community volunteers who participated in the project clad in the T-shirts that were distributed to create awareness.

Training of community volunteers.

Thanks to a partnership developed with Ushahidi and FCDO-DAP funding, volunteers and enumerators were trained via webinars and physical meetings that were strictly adherent to the COVID-19 protocols. They used mobile phones to capture data on the ground (Ushahidi Mobile Application) and uploaded the same to the Kenya Covid-19 Tracker. There was also desktop based research that was conducted remotely to report also on the-news, cases of infection, death and recoveries. Additionally, Map Kibera staff were tasked with quality assurance, this ensured that data added on the Kenya Covid-19 Tracker were accurate and timely and as truthful as possible to avoid cases of misinformation and rumor mongering.

Community volunteers from Kibera during one of the training sessions at Mchanganyiko in Kibera.

Field mapping and reporting

Since mapping and data collection is labour intensive, Map Kibera had to recruit data enumerators and volunteers from all the villages of both Kibera and Mathare to assist in the mapping of COVID-19 resources and also report on the news. This involved mapping out of hand washing stations that were donated by various organizations, food distribution conducted by various charitable organizations and also in general; the distribution of various  items that ranged from face masks, hand sanitizers and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) that were donated to various health facilities to assist in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.

https://kenyacovid19.ushahidi.io/views/map

Updates and Follow up

Furthermore, there was also need to make regular updates due to the emerging issues in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Towards the end of the year 2020, certain trends were emerging that needed to be captured in the story map. For instance food donations were gradually decreasing as the government initiated economic recovery plans and this move so many people resume work. Consequently as the situation normalized, people also started neglecting some of the protocols and this resulted in the neglect of hand washing stations-which were in most cases taken by individuals for domestic use.

Map Kibera’s Zack Wambua conducting a training session on the Kenya covid-19 tracker project.

 Mural on the Wall

Map Kibera went a step further to draw murals on public spaces in both Kibera and Mathare. The purpose of the murals was to create public awareness and also create an offline platform for the public to interact with the data on the Ushahidi Deployment map (kenya covid-19 tracker). This has proved to be a useful approach because it ensures transparency and data sharing to the benefit of the community at hand-in this case Mathare & Kibera.

Kibera Resources mural along Kibera Drive.

A mural in Mathare showing the Covid-19 Resources

Humans of Kibera & Mathare

Kibera News Network (KNN) also started an initiative called Humans of Kibera and Mathare. In this case random people from both locations were interviewed and they shared their ordeal during the Coronavirus pandemic and how they made it through the tough season that was characterized by lockdowns and curfews.

Internet provision from Moja WiFi

Map Kibera also partnered with Moja WiFi to provide internet services at specific public points in both Kibera and Mathare slums. Since most of the work had to be online. Furthermore Moja wifi showed some of the video clips from KNN on their online platform in a bid to further share with the public regarding covid-19 experiences and eye witness stories.

Posters were also circulated to the residents of Kibera and Mathare to create awareness.

The team from Mathare were equally excited for being involved in the project.

Impact 

The Kenya COVID-19 Tracker had a great impact on the residents of Kibera and Mathare as well. People had the chance to interact with the data through the wall murals and the online platform. “…We know that information is power and the ability to access it is even more powerful…” as stated by Moses Omondi, a resident of Kibera and also team leader for Adopt a family, an NGO that has used the data provided by the Kenya COVID-19 Tracker deployment map. He further acknowledged that the map offered direction in terms of where to source for different services, how to also access different resources like food distribution and donations with regards to the COVID-19 challenges in Kibera. The deployment map was created in a way that it can be used for various purposes like for health reasons, logistical and also general information. 

In conclusion, the Kenya Covid-19 Tracker Project was a success and the extensive data that was generated is actually free to all interested parties and can prove resourceful with regards to how informal settlements are equipped in times of distress; for this case a disease outbreak. This open data can be used to address an occurrence of the same nature and magnitude and with the insights provided, the necessary measures can be applied to achieve the best results in governance and service provision.

To mark the International Open Data Day, Map Kibera, on Saturday 7th March, took the initiative of hosting a half day forum in order to discuss Open Data with partner organizations, community leaders and members not only from Kibera but the larger Nairobi area. The aim of the event was to try and simplify the concept of open data to the grassroots level, and further promote the use of open data among the community members in order to promote data driven development.

Participants following up on the session keenly

The event kicked off with Zack Wambua, who is Mapping Coordinator at Map Kibera, talking about the importance of Open Data. He highlighted examples of Open Data and the importance of having open data such as giving clear information and containing rumors and making data accessible and reachable.

Sharon Omojah represented OSM (Open Street Map) Kenya and explained to those who had attended what OSM Kenya is and the work it does. She gave an example of the Mapathon as one of OSM Kenya activities. She also explained the benefits of being a member of OpenStreetMap as more questions were asked about OSM Kenya mission and whether trainees were awarded certificates after OSM trainings. She stated that the OSM Kenya mission is to have an updated map of Kenya and yes, certificates are awarded after trainings.

Sharon presenting about OSM Kenya.

Zack Wambua took the attendees through how Map Kibera started. He explained Kibera was just a blank sport on the government map and there was need to have a detailed map of Kibera to show that there’s life in Kibera, and that’s where Map Kibera stepped in to provide the first map of Kibera, which has since been reproduced thematically. Map Kibera uses OpenStreetMap because it is open and accessible.

Zack talked about Open Schools Kenya, how it can be accessed and the information one can find when searching for a particular school from the website. People could see an example of a printed Open Schools map on the wall. There was a suggestion to map the Kibera population which has been a controversial issue for long.

The attendees also watched a small video done in Kibera asking people on the street about what they know about Open Data. Zack led a small exercise on what people had learnt from the video and what they thought of the answers given on Open Data.

There was a breakout session where the forum split into 3 groups to discuss the Open Data rising questions among them, why there weren’t many people who have attended Open Data forums. Most of the audience had an idea of what open data entails and even went ahead to share some of their experiences like accessing census data, and the country’s financial budget among others.

One of the group discussing about open data, during the breakout sessions

Discussions followed on the benefits of open data and accessibility, where we had an example of how Kenya Urban Roads Authority had hid the data of possible people to be displaced by the road cutting through Kibera.

The last session of the day was led by Lucy, where she introduced the participants to Maps.Me and OpenStreetMap. She did a step by step demonstration of how to map new points as well as how to upload them to OpenStreetmap. Majority of the participants were excited that they can now be able to add new map features of their neighborhood. Since this an extensive course, there was a request that Map Kibera should organize more training on open mapping of which most participants have already registered for it.

Among the recommendations were organizing for more sensitization forums and further defining open data in a simpler way that can be understood by ordinary citizens. There is also is a need to conduct more training on open data platforms in order to promote open data in the community.