#Let’MapNaija: Building a Volunteer team of university graduate/Red Cross Member

Various OpenStreetMap communities have been formed through the opportunity provided by the OSM platform to map their community, thereby providing critical geospatial dataset which has aided emergency preparedness and response. For example like Ramanihuria in Tanzania, MapKibera in Kenya to mention few.

eHealth Africa an NGO led OSM mapping of Nigeria across all the 36 states plus Federal Capital Territory, an analysis of OSM mapping of Nigeria shows an over 60% contribution from eHealth Africa team.

Recently to revive the spirit of further updating publicly available geospatial dataset, we launched a mapping collaboration tagged #Let’smapNaija using Nigerian university graduate volunteers/Red Cross member on mandatory one year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). This involves training, provision of working tools & refreshment for mapping parties.

This led to the further mapping of Borno State, which aided humanitarian interventions. We were able to fully map roads to over 700 health facilities, all majors roads (primary, secondary, tertiary and unclassified). We are also currently mapping road to all settlements that we currently have in eHealth Africa’s data as well as cascading of the acquired skills to Nigerian Red Cross Society’s members.