Janet Chapman is leading an effort to map rural villages in Tanzania to aid development and fight female genital mutilation (FGM). [1] The villages are poorly mapped, making navigation and planning difficult. [2] They are mapping the villages onto OpenStreetMap, which is accessible online and on phones. [3] Their initial focus was mapping around Mugumu to help Rhobi Samwelly's safe house for girls refusing FGM reach more villages. [4] They have recruited over 5,000 online volunteers and 600 local mappers, mapping over 17,000 square kilometers and adding many roads, buildings, schools and clinics. [5] The improved maps have helped prevent over 2,000

1. Janet Chapman
j.chapman@tanzdevtrust.org
GROWING LOCAL MAPPING COMMUNITIES IN RURAL TANZANIA TO
FIGHT FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION AND AID DEVELOPMENT

2. WE’RE MAPPING RURAL TANZANIA. WHY?
• Remote villages are EXTREMELY poorly
mapped.
• Local officials lack maps of their area.
• This makes navigation and planning
difficult.
• We are mapping onto OpenStreetMap
that is accessible to everyone online and
on phones.

3. WE’RE MAPPING RURAL TANZANIA. WHY?
• Much of rural Tanzania is blank in Google Maps and OpenStreetMap.
MOST RURAL TANZANIA LOOKED LIKE
THIS WHEN WE STARTED - AND MUCH OF
IT STILL DOES..
Zeze village, Kigoma,
population 9200

4. WE’RE MAPPING RURAL TANZANIA. WHY?

5. WE’RE MAPPING RURAL
TANZANIA. WHY?
LOCAL MAPPERS ADDED POINTS OF
INTEREST, CHURCHES, SHOPS,
SCHOOLS, WATER POINTS USING
MAPS.ME ON PHONES…
REMOTE MAPPERS ADDED ROADS
AND BUILDINGS

6. INITIAL FOCUS: FIGHTING FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IN MUGUMU, SERENGETI
Tanzania Development Trust’s largest project is a Safe House
for girls refusing Female Genital Mutilation, run by FGM
survivor Rhobi Samwelly. She visits the villages around
Mugumu to tell girls about the Safe House and the dangers
of FGM. This work was hampered by the lack of maps
showing the location of the villages.

7. MAPPING ON MAPS.ME

8. MUGUMU SAFE HOUSE GIRLS ENGAGING IN MAPPING THEMSELVES
Rhobi and some of the girls at the Safe House mapping in
OSM on May 7th after initial training when I visited.

9. TRANSFERRING GOV OPEN DATA TO OSM
data from http://opendata.go.tz/

10. TRANSFERRING GOV OPEN DATA TO OSM
Over 600 online
volunteers manually
added schools and
clinics.

11. BUILDING COMMUNITY - SLACK CHANNEL
Slack channel is good for
generating a community, and
for volunteers to ask
questions etc. – if anyone
would like to join please let
me know!

12. NEXT STEPS

14. WINS
Safe House able to reach more girls
in Mara via
✓ Discovery of remote villages
✓ Reaching remote villages
(limited roads, bridges, issues
in rainy season)
✓ Fuel planning
✓ Better maps will eventually
help girls reach the Safe House
on their own
“We’re reaching places that we’ve never reached before”

15. WHAT WE’VE ACHIEVED..
• We’ve now recruited over 5000 online volunteers and
over 600 local mappers.
• mapped an area of over 17,248 square kilometres,
added 23 towns and 363 villages and 45 hamlets.
• added over 96,742 km of roads and tracks and over
2.1 million buildings.
• Countrywide we have added 12,294 schools and 162
clinics to Openstreetmap from government open
data.

16. EFFECT ON FGM
Better maps helped
• prevent 2257 girls
from being cut in the
last main cutting
season. However
change is a slow
process.
• 1076 girls were still
cut in Mara, down
from 3700 the
previous year,
• and 4 girls died, down
from 12.

17. AWARDED HUMANITARIAN OPENSTREETMAP TEAM (HOT) MICROGRANT
Grant of $5000 in June 2017 to
• buy 48 smartphones,
• train village level community change agents in 12
areas of Tanzania, and
• generate village and ward level maps and data,
particularly around access to water, health
facilities and land rights.

18. ORIGINAL MAPPING PLAN
Use Maps.Me to map:
• Village Office
• Schools
• Dispensaries/health
centers/hospitals
• Water points
• Mpesa shops
• Legal office
• Churches
• Police stations
• Shops
• FGM Activist House

27. CAN YOU HELP??
Any comments, questions or suggestions always welcome!
Thank you!
Janet j.chapman@tanzdevtrust.org @crowd2map
- Validate our tasks
- Join a team of advanced mappers giving feedback and advice
to new mappers via our slack channel
- Partner with a community mapping group in Tanzania, receive their
annotated field papers via email and input the information into OSM.
- Partner with a community mapping group in Tanzania and
produce a printable village map using QGIS