Putting the world’s most vulnerable people on a map and thereby reduce the vulnerability of disaster prone regions before they can even cause serious harm – that is the objective of the MissingMaps Project. A great idea put together by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), British and American Red Cross and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team (HOT).
We are very happy that numerous students of the Heidelberg University as well as volunteers of the local OpenStreetMap community shared this opinion and decided to start the weekend with a special kind of mapping party that was not only fun, but will also help people in the most vulnerable places. Doing so we alltogether contributed to the MissingMaps Project launch in London directly from Heidelberg – and joined other volunteers from all over the world.
After Pete Masters (MSF UK), Jorieke Vyncke (HOT), Chris Grundy (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Ivan Gayton (MSF UK) and Andrew Braye (British Red Cross) gave a short introduction on the project and welcomed all international volunteers via live stream, we started filling in the gaps on the OSM world map. Diligently the volunteers mapped, socialized and helped each other to complete the tasks prepared by the MissingMaps team. The goal of the mapping party was to create maps of different regions in South Sudan, in the Central African Republic (CAR) as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to facilitate the work of MSF and to support different Health Care Projects and emergency mortality and nutrition assessments in these places. Another example on how maps can save lives.
We want to thank all of you for your amazing support. All in all about 230 people (more than 30 from Heidelberg!) contributed to the project so far and made roughly 200,000 map changes. GREAT JOB!
For everyone further interested in the MissingMaps Project and in the work of the HOT team in particular we organize another special event:
Coming wednesday (12th November, 4pm, Berliner Straße 48, Heidelberg) Kate Chapman, Executive Director at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, will give you an insight into the work of HOT and present more ways on how to become active in the Disastermapping Community!
Save your seat, we expect a large crowd. 🙂
Heidelberg Disaster Mappers