allaboutadvocacy.com

Advocate-Driven Mapping

     Interesting idea regarding what Advocates could accomplish. And the idea comes from  Kenya. A well known Kenyan professional returned to her homeland and because of death threats, she went elsewhere. In her blog, she mentioned how great it would be if there was an online tool to let people anonymously report violence and bad behavior. Some tech savvy  Advocates saw her post and built something from her idea for her….Ushahidi.  The site today uses cell phone reports of violence, riots, rapes, death threats and plots them on a map.  Ushahidi is Swahili for “testimony.”  Ushahidi has taken off and was most recently used when the Haitian earthquake struck and people were using SMS to report on individuals unable to get out of damaged buildings.

In this New York Times article where I first found  this information, the idea surfaced about using this type of reporting to gather information on where Osama bin Laden might be hiding. Wouldn’t that be amazing.  Ushahidi  could be the foundation for building a crisis map of the world manned by global volunteer advocates.  “With every new application, Ushahidi is quietly transforming the notion of bearing witness in tragedy. “