As the year 2018 has just began, everyone is busy writing resolutions, some reviewing what worked last year and what they need to change while others are writing new resolutions for the year. We at Map Kibera also took time to reflect on how the year 2017 was for us in terms of the work that we were able to do.
Security mapping/election monitoring
Una Hakika Project
The year began on a good note with the team in Map Kibera conducting a baseline survey for a project that they would be implementing in Kibera in partnership with the Sentinel Project. The project was dubbed Una Hakika? (Are you sure?), and the aim of the project was to assess and moderate the spread of rumours before, during and after the August election.
Una Hakika launch event at Undugu Ground in Kibera
With the August election drawing near, Map Kibera with the help of 3 students from University of Nairobi and JKUAT who were on internship through the Youth Mappers programme conducted a mapping exercise with the help of local community ambassadors drawn from the Una Hakika project.
Lucy Fondo (on the left) and Phylister Mutinda collecting data in the field
This was to update the security map that was last updated during the 2013 elections. The printed copies of the maps were distributed to the local administrative officials as well as to NGOs that work in Kibera on peace initiatives.
Joshua Ogure issuing a copy of the security map to Adminstration Police commandant
The other copies of the maps were distributed to community members. Read more here. The updated security map was also painted on the wall at a strategic point in Kibera where the community members and visitors would interact with it.
Updated Security map on the wall
During the August 8th election Map Kibera through the Una Hakika project also set up teams on various polling stations to report on the events as they were occurring. This was done through video coverage by the Kibera News Network team. The team was also supposed to report any issues by sending sms to the Una Hakika’s short code 40050.
Citizen reporters trained for the elections
Video Coverage of Elections by KNN
The KNN team produced more than 50 videos for both August 8 elections and the repeat October 26 elections. At least one video went “viral” with more than 13,000 views: Kibera Supports Supreme Court Ruling.
A screenshot of the videos produced by KNN during the election period
Repeat election
On 1st of October 2017 the Supreme Court Of Kenya nullified the August 8th Presidential election. The electoral body of Kenya was thereby asked to organize a fresh presidential election. This meant that our work on election monitoring wasn’t yet finished. So we organized and re-strategized to prepare for the fresh election. The period before the new set date for election saw a lot of demonstrations from the opposition team demanding changes on the electoral body before conducting another election. Kibera News Network documented some of these events, and even did interviews with some of the victims of police brutality after violence erupted immediately after Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of the August 8th election. The IEBC set a new date for the repeat election to be 26th October. We monitored these elections afresh just as we did earlier.
Research
In the same year Erica Hagen, one of the co-founders of Map Kibera, was funded by Making All Voices Count to conduct a research on the impact of the work of Map Kibera in the local community and how the maps are being used by various local organizations, community based organizations, government offices and the community members. Key outcomes were that local officials had used our education maps to reach out to informal schools, build networks and extend resources to these schools. NGOs had also used other maps by Map Kibera to locate resources such as water and sanitation facilities. The research report can be read here.
Sharing, Participating, Collaborating
The year 2017 also saw Map Kibera being recognized and invited to attend various international and national events to share about their work. Some of the meetings were: the High-Level Meeting on Data for Development in Africa held by the Kenya Government and Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD); Buntwani 2017 organized by Open Institute, Making All Voices Count, Dlad and Data Zetu in Dar es salaam; the Data Pop course at UN Headquarters in Nairobi, and a radio interview at IQRA FM.
Joshua doing demonstration about Map Kibera and the open schools project at the High level meeting.
 ICT4D
For the second consecutive year Map Kibera has been invited to speak at the ICT4D conference. This year’s conference was held in Hyderabad, India and the theme for the conference was from innovation to impact. Zack Wambua represented the organization at the conference where he shared the impact of the Open Schools Kenya project. Zack also had an opportunity to visit one of the local organization Hyderabad Urban Lab to learn more about the work that they are doing around community participatory mapping in Hyderabad.
Zack Wambua at the ICT4D conference.
 State of the Map (SOTM) AFRICA
This was the first ever SOTM event to be held in Africa, and Map Kibera being one of the oldest users of OpenStreetMap in Africa were invited to share about their work on community mapping, a model that has been borrowed by many groups and organizations that use OSM. Joshua Ogure the project manager of Map Kibera travelled to Kampala, Uganda to represent the organization at the event. Read more here  http://www.mapkibera.org/blog/2017/07/21/my-experience-at-the-first-state-of-the-map-africa/
Joshua Presenting Map Kibera at SOTM Africa Kampala
SOTM Tanzania
After the successful SOTM Africa event, OSM teams in Tanzania led by Crowd2Map and Ramani Huria organized SOTM Tanzania. the event took place in Dar Es Salaam. Map Kibera was again called to assist with the planing of the event and also to share about their work during the conference. Zack Wambua travelled to Dar to represent the organization at the conference.
A group photo of all the attendees at SOTM Tanzania
Open Schools Kenya
In 2017Â Map Kibera kept up with changes to the Open Schools Kenya data. We along with our interns checked if the schools were still in the same location and if they had moved, we collected coordinates of their new location and updated the details on the site. We were also able to update school populations (for both teachers and students), changes in school management as well as any other co-curriculum activities that are offered in the schools. This was followed by an update to the website, where we added a search by location filter which enables you to view the schools’ data in both Kibera and Mathare, the two locations that we have rolled out the OSK work. Look for more changes and additional locations in OSK in 2018!
A screenshot of the updated Open Schools Kenya website with the new search by location feature
Interesting work, where are your offices based if one needs to work with you on a project?