I became involved in OpenStreetMap because as a volunteer visiting projects in rural Tanzania I became aware of the lack of maps of this area which greatly hampers navigation and development. With Egle, who I met at Mozfest, I set up a volunteer crowdmapping project to seek to address this called Crowd2Map Tanzania. This recruits volunteer mappers to map rural Tanzania, starting with the area in Serengeti where girls are at risk of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). There are details of this project here http://bit.ly/FGMSOTM

I became aware of and was greatly helped and guided by many people at HOTOSM and Missing Maps. I regularly attend Missing Maps events in London and have spoken about Crowd2Map at SOTM, Mozfest and talks for Britain Tanzania Society.

OpenStreetMap is an amazing initiative that seeks to put the worlds’ most vulnerable people on the map, and I want to support it in any way I can. I became a HOTOSM voting member in 2017 and I help promote HOT and OSM wherever I can, and ensure it is as inclusive as possible, particularly in less well represented areas such as rural Tanzania. Crowd2Map’s greatest challenge is access to funding so that it can support mapping initiatives in areas in rural Tanzania and so telling stories about the difference mapping makes, such as in Serengeti, shown by this 2 minute video. https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/873491619459013/ is extremely helpful.