Category: Mapping
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Sitting Around the Fire
The Power of Participatory Approaches in Documenting Pastoralist Communities Pastoral societies are among the most dynamic and adaptable populations in the world. With an estimated 240 million people living in these communities across sub-Saharan Africa, their experiences are far removed from those of others. Not many can relate to a lifestyle that includes moving across vast, semi-arid,…
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The Essence of Community Mapping
Beyond Buildings and Roads Community mapping initiatives are often considered tools for empowerment. Also known as participatory mapping, community mapping is a process where communities gather data and create maps representing their local knowledge, experiences, and perspectives. This approach includes social, cultural, and environmental information, and goes beyond traditional mapping. However, in recent years, many…
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My First Solo Cartography Project
Discovering Friendship, Resilience, and Beauty in Kenya’s Taita Hills In 2010, I did my first solo cartography project in Africa. Before coming to Kenya in 2009, I had already established a connection with Ronald Mdawida, the director of Kosmos Solutions International, an NGO working in both the Taita Hills and Nairobi’s informal settlements. Since I…
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Exploring the Uncharted
A Take on Mapping Back in July 2010, one of my first mapping projects in Kenya took me to Mount Elgon. It was a task for the National Democratic Institute, focusing on mapping polling stations for election monitoring before the constitutional referendum held on August 4, 2010. Drawing from this experience and incorporating recent experience,…
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Nungwi, Chwaka, and Makunduchi Mapping
In 2020 and 2021, Spatial Collective provided mapping services for Zanzibar’s Nungwi, Chwaka, and Makunduchi settlements. The project fell under the broad framework of the Tanzania Urban Resilience Program and was meant to showcase how locally accessible, low-cost technologies can support resilience building and urban development planning by producing high-quality spatial information. Specifically, the assignment…
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Mtaa and COVID-19
Informal settlements are often missing from the geographic and statistical representation of countries. Nairobi’s informal settlements are no exception. Very little information is available on the quality and quantity of public institutions and amenities, public services, or on the population itself living in the areas. They are often not even represented on official maps. This…
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Household Survey
This is part of a series on the Industrial Training of Students on Zanzibar by Spatial Collective. You can read parts one, two, three, four, five, and six here. One of the topics covered during the training was on using mobile phones to collect data on households. The goal was to introduce the students to…
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Mapping Drainage
This is part of a series on the Industrial Training of Students on Zanzibar by Spatial Collective. You can read parts one, two, three, four, and five here. As mentioned in previous blog posts, at the start of the training, the students met with the stakeholders from the civil society, government and the private sector…
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Half a million buildings mapped
This is part of a series on the Industrial Training of Students on Zanzibar by Spatial Collective. You can read parts one, two, three, and four here. Building upon previous efforts (read here and here), the State University of Zanzibar students finalized digitization of buildings on the Zanzibar Archipelago (Unguja and Pemba Islands). Fifty students…
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Creating a Base Map of Zanzibar
This is part of a series on the Industrial Training of Students on Zanzibar by Spatial Collective. You can read part one, two and three here. Geo-services are becoming an essential part of the fabric of society and geographical information is now interwoven with many aspects of life. Key to that service is accurate, up…