In 2019, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team was excited to launch our first gender-specific project as part of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge, which aims to bridge the digital gender divide and increase women’s access to and use of technology to improve their everyday lives.

Over the year, we supported three community projects in Peru, Tanzania, and Zambia to engage local mappers to map for gender issues that affect their lives. We also worked with the global YouthMappers network to contribute to the projects.

Peru

Peru has high rates of gender inequality, but how do you show that on a map? We worked with a local Peruvian education group, Global Active Learning (GAL), to train high school and university students on how to use mapping tools and explore how gender impacts people’s lives in the Cusco region. One group collected opinions from women across the region about how ‘machismo’ affects their lives, for example, if they had suffered violence. They mapped where the women lived, their experiences, and how far they were to shelters, police stations, and other safe spaces they could ask for help.

“The project is helping us all to have rights. It has helped me to put myself in the shoes of others to build a better world. I hope my project helps deliver gender equality, but also economic equality as well!"
- Diana Arteaga Cusi, 15, Student, Cusco, Peru

Tanzania

In Tanzania, we partnered with Crowd2Map to support women and girls at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) and gender-based violence. Women across 78 villages in the Serengeti were trained on how to use smartphone devices, map and add significant places in their community to the map, and report instances of gender-based violence within their communities to local authorities. From there, a network of 87 women, known as ‘digital champions’ in their communities, were provided with smartphones and became advocates for the prevention of gender-based violence.

“The map data added by the women is helping the police. Sometimes we receive reports of [gender-based violence] from villages I don't know. The first thing I normally do is to search for the place on the map on my phone, which allows me to quickly reach the victims or offenders and handle the case as soon as possible.”
- Sijali Nyambuche, Police Officer, Mugumu Town, Tanzania