Reflecting on the lives and legacies of our politicians

Sitting in the iHub in Nairobi on Monday, I looked around to see if there were any other Canadian faces that looked as shocked as mine at the news of Jack Layton’s death. I was the only Canadian in the room at the time. I don’t normally write about Canadian politics, but this particular moment in time has caused me to reflect on how my views of politics and politicians have evolved over the past 6-8 years.

Like most young Canadians, my personal politics followed closely those of my parents. Growing up in a small rural community on Vancouver Island, I didn’t have much awareness of or exposure to the implications of voting for one party or another. On my 18^th birthday (national voting age in Canada) my mom encouraged me to register as a voter and participate in National and Provincial politics. And so I did.  And I voted NDP. It seemed like the right thing to do – Jack Layton was a charismatic politician, his party supported health care and equality and many other things that my young, left-wing mind found appealing.

As I studied for a degree in Health Geography at McGill, I became more convinced about the need for strong legislation that supports a healthy social environment and that reduces constraints in terms of access to healthy living spacing (prevention) and treatment (access to care). As the party whose founding leader introduced free, universal healthcare to Canada, the New Democrats have been consistent in their commitment to safe and equitable conditions for all Canadians, at work and at home.

I was fortunate to see Jack speak together with Thomas Mulclair at an NDP event at McGill in September 2007. I remember leaving the event confident that I was well represented, should his party ever become the Government of Canada.

Now that I live in a country whose public health legislation and health care provision is weak if not in crisis – I am ever appreciative to the legacy of Tommy Douglas and the leadership of Jack Layton in fighting for medicare, and a better Canada. A Canada that we can be proud to call home.

The loss of such a strong, charismatic and honourable leader is ever more tragic in light of the crisis of leadership facing the African continent. I am not one to make generalizations, and surely the Canadian government of late has not made me so proud – however the hold that some longstanding African “leaders” have over their crumbling economies and social institutions (Mugabe, or “Bob” in Zimbabwe, Gaddafi in Libya to name only a few) makes the loss of a young, but well respected politicians even more of a tragedy. A loss for Canada, and the world – which could really do with more politicians like Jack.

Jack Layton’s final letter to Canadians is a reflection of his wisdom, integrity and strong leadership ability. Although he leaves behind large shoes to fill, the challenge will be for the NDPs to hold onto the support of the young Canadian voters like myself. I look forward to the changes the NDP may still make on the Canadian political landscape.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

                                                            Jack Layton

Documenting a participatory digital mapping workshop with Plan Kenya

Map Kibera Trust recently facilitated a 3 day training to introduce participatory digital mapping to target staff at Plan Kenya. The participants in the workshop included programme staff and ICT staff from the Kenya Country office and regional offices around the country. Participants came from Homabay, Kisumu, Kilifi, Kwale, Tharaka, Machachos, Bondo, the Kenya Country Office and the Urban Programme (Nairobi). Their backgrounds ranged from ICT support staff, to Child Rights & Gender Advisor, to M&E Coordinator, to programme staff in 4 of Plan’s 5 focus areas (Protection and Inclusion, Health, Education and Governance).

The training was planned at the beginning of the implementation of the new Kenya country strategic plan (CSP) 2011-2015 for Plan Kenya. Building on the success of Plan Kenya’s work in Kwale on universal birth registration and also from digital mapping work with POIMapper and Map Kibera Trust, the new CSP highlights the importance of ICT in the improved efficacy of Plan’s work. Plan Kenya has chosen to place an explicit focus on participatory ICT in its work. This is in line with Plan International’s focus and leadership in ICT4D globally.

In this context, the workshop aimed to:

• Introduce participatory digital mapping theories, techniques and tools that Map Kibera Trust employs in its work
• Provide hands on experience in GPS data collection and data editing using Open Street Map
• Learn more about how Plan Kenya programmes use information and communicate
• Brainstorm ideas about how to integrate ICT into programme work

We began with an introduction to Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) by exploring some questions to consider before introducing ICT into programme work. The questions were (and are) meant to stimulate discussion and encourage participants to think systematically about the integration of ICT into new and existing programmes. The questions identify the reasons why you would use ICT, assess what constraints and opportunities exist in the framework you are working in, and explore how people are communicating in order to design appropriate and sustainable systems to build upon existing channels of communication. The questions are modified from Linda Raftree’s post “7 or more questions to ask before adding ICTs,” so thanks to Linda for the inspiration!

1. Why are you considering the use of ICT?

The Plan Kenya staff identified that using ICT, particularly mobile phones and the internet, has become a desired lifestyle choice that the majority of Kenyans around the country have embraced. This was an important point that the participants wished to build upon and capture in their use of ICT in various communities. The group generally agreed that ICTs are available and can be accessed by many Kenyans. The staff also mentioned that ICTs could improve communication and be used to easily mobilize communities (for example sending one SMS to many people to attend a meeting). ICTs are flexible and can improve accuracy and consistency in information, which can then be easily stored and shared. There was also mention of improved efficiency in programme work through the collection and processing of real-time information.

 

2. What are the programme goals or programme framework you are working within?

 

Most of the participants identified the new country strategic plan for the organization as the overarching framework that Plan Kenya staff are working with. The country strategic plan identifies 5 areas of focus: Health, Livelihoods, Education, Protection & Inclusion and Governance.

3. What are your specific information and communication needs?

The information needs of Plan Kenya staff members were largely related to programme work. The needs included collecting accurate data for baseline surveys for Monitoring and Evaluation and thus to assess programme impact. There were some suggestions of improving communication through digitizing information that can more easily be shared to large numbers of people. The group suggested that this could improve accountability to other staff members, donors and to beneficiaries in communities. ICT can also improve the ability of Plan Kenya staff to analyze information and make decisions.

4. How are you already using information and communicating?

In order to integrate ICT into existing programmes within communities, it is important to know how staff members are already using information and communicating in their daily lives. The group came up with a long list of communication tools: email, internet, intranet, websites and social netoworks – namely Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace), applications (Skype, Yahoo Messenger), SMS and telephone calls, radio, and television. The group is using information during baseline data collection. Some are involved in a project that integrates SMS applications into the birth registration process in Kwale District.

5. Who are the actors involved in the particular issue you are seeking to address with ICT?

 The Plan Kenya staff won’t be (and aren’t) using ICT in isolation. There are important stakeholders they work with on particular issues, programmes and projects. These include the general community – with a particular focus on youth and children. Important sub-sections of the community include teachers, school administration, Government of Kenya, civil society organizations, Plan Kenya partners (such as Childline Kenya, Community Cleaning Services), the media and private sector actors. Different groups of people use technology differently, and depending on the answer to question 1) and question 6 (below) the staff may need an ICT strategy that is diverse enough to reach the various stakeholders.

 

6. How do people use ICT already?

 

This list of the ways in which Kenyans are already using ICT is a testament to the idea that the group tapped into when answering question 1. The use of ICT in Kenya, specifically mobile phone applications, has become a lifestyle choice. Kenyans use phones for mobile money transfer, SMS, calling, accessing the internet, paying their bills, paying for goods, calling toll-free lines (e.g. Childline call centre, police hot lines) and for data collection and dissemination. Kenyans also listen to the radio, use computers, blog, email, chat, shop online, bank online, join online discussions and news groups and use various forms of social media. They do this for work, but also for pleasure. These were the means identified by the group, however this is not an exhaustive list.

7. How do people access technology already?

 

This was a sub-section of question 6 and the group answered: mobile phones (including GPS enabled and internet enabled phones), street phones, computer, internet connection in office and homes, internet modems, cyber cafés, radios, TVs, toll free lines, and resource centres.

 

8. How will you close the feedback loop and manage expectations?

How do you make sure the information you are generating, no matter the medium or tool you are using, gets back to the community? How do you promote the use of technology without seemingly presenting a silver bullet solution (even if you don’t intend to do so)?

These questions were answered in several ways. One idea about both closing the feedback loop and managing expectation was to network  with other organizations and partners in the community to share information and raise awareness about the use of ICT and the opportunities and limitations of ICT4D projects.

Another option for closing the feedback loop was to both collect and disseminate information on popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

A third suggestion was to close the feedback loop and manage expectations through an informed resource person and/or resource centers and staff having sessions with the community.

Finally, there was the suggestion to start the integration of ICT in development work by outlining and communicating clear expectations and at the end have feedback sessions to monitor the whole process.

 

9. What is your sustainability plan?

The final question, and likely the most difficult (we only had a one hour brainstorming session and did not expect participants to come up with final answers to this question but simply consider it as an important component to any project with an ICT component).

One idea was to equip community members, and particularly youth, with skills that will be applicable beyond the program (or project) timeline. The YETAM project (youth empowerment thorough arts and media) was designed in this way and the group agreed that this design was beneficial to the young people involved in the program.

Another suggestion was to involve the beneficiaries/community in the entire process of choosing/customizing appropriate ICT tools that suit their needs and for further development so that it is community owned process and will in theory continue beyond the project/program lifecycle. Other ideas included:

•  Build partnership with Government and NGOs.
• Integrate fund raising or income generating activities into the project.
• Use affordable technology (free and open source)
• Ensure follow-up mechanisms are built into the project

We discussed the use of mapping, open information and ICTs for development. We also used two of the three training days to focus on hands-on training and skills building. We facilitated training in handling the GPS devices, collecting data and using Java Open Street Map (JOSM) and Potlatch to record open spatial information into the OpenStreetMap databases. As we’ve found in the past, the hands on training is exciting and motivating. The theorietical discussions, combined with the practical field work inspired discussion and debate on ideas on how to integrate participatory digital mapping andICTs into programme work.

The following are ideas generated by the Plan Kenya staff:

• Ushahidi could be useful for referral partners mapping and identifying the hot spots of child abuse
• Use of SMS for communication with hearing and speech impaired within the community
• Using reports and sharing the same information to various media channels. E.g. PPM a in-house system that is used to track and monitor information and projects progress
• In governance as a tool for enhancing social accountability, where ICT can be used to track projects
• Digitization of data collection e.g. in sponsorship (especially photography), child abuse hotspots
• Involving children in participatory community mapping by mapping schools using walking papers
• Using blogging as a tool for youth to document governance issues in the new good governance project for the Urban Programme
• In Kilifi the team is doing a 2 year study on Open Defecation Free villages and health outcomes. They could use mapping and spatial statistics to document findings.
• Mapping and other ICT4D tools could be used to document and share participatory activities that Plan already undertakes, such  as transect walks and participatory situational analyses

The training ended with a note of caution – the team recognized the potential tension between the processes that are needed for ownership of a community map (and any other ICT4D project) and the haste of development partners to use the budget and report progress to donors. In this case, many projects (ICT4D, mapping and any other project) may “leave the community behind.”

It is thus important to ask the following questions and consider the answers carefully when designing projects:

• For whom are we doing the mapping (or any project really)? And whose map is it?
• Of what use is the (spatial) information, what will it compliment?

After another successful workshop with Plan Kenya, we look forward to building on the excitement and enthusiasm generated during the training! Let’s see some of the great ideas turned into reality!

SMS2Email and blogging through SMS

This is a test of the email post function offered by Safaricom.

I’ve just enabled the SMS2Email functionality on this blog to test it out. Through our work with Map Mathare, we’ve been discussing blogging through SMS with the Mathare Valley bloggers.

Marc Maxson blogged about SMS2Email from Safaricom extensively here. With his permission, I’m reposting the basic instructions.

To set-up sms to e-mail on your phone:

1. Create a new SMS message on your phone and type EMAIL ON. Send the SMS to 123
2. Receive reply with your e-mail address based on your number e.g 254713509292@safaricomsms.com
3. To personalize your e-mail address e.g. johndoe@safaricomsms.com, send the words ‘ADDRESS John.Doe’ to 123
4. You are set!

To send an email to someone:

1. To send an e-mail, create a new SMS and type the recipient’s e-mail address followed by your message. Leave a space between the address and your message. SEND TO 123
2. To read an e-mail. You will receive an SMS notification when you have an e-mail. To read your first message, type READ 1. To read your second message type READ 2 etc. and send to 123. The message will inform you of how many SMS’s it will take to read each message.

COST: Sending an sms to 123 is charged at 7/- per sms, sms length is 160 characters. Receiving an sms from 123 is free

Setting up “blog by email” on your WordPress blog

The official directions are on WordPress.com. To post by email, you need to:

1. Create a dedicated e-mail account:
   • Login to your wordpress blog
   • Go to Dashboard
   • Click “My Blogs” under Dashboard
   • Click the “enable” button to setup blog by email. This will generate your secret email address. It will generate something like test123test@post.wordpress.com
   • Write your email address. This is what you put in the start of every sms2email message.
2. Use sms2email from Safaricom to deliver the message

Whose information?

The question that sparked this post is: whose mandate is it to collect information?

A few weeks back our team attended a meeting with Plan Kenya and partners who are using mapping tools for generating information. Someone in the room asked:

“Whose mandate is it to collect information?”

The meeting was called to discuss a specific tool data collection tool called POImapper, which is being developed by a Finnish company called Pajat. Plan Kenya is piloting the tool and has developed custom data collection forms to collect data to inform Plan’s work in Kilifi. There is no question about mandate when gathering programmtic level data (about children benefiting from Plan’s sponsorship programme for example). The concern raised during the meeting was about an organization collecting public information in an area where government should be providing this information – this includes the base level information on roads, schools, and other public infrastructure.

One of the major challenges of using POImapper however is the lack of base maps upon which to overlay the Points of Interest (POI). Without good base layer data, it is difficult to discuss the implications of the information being collected. Pajat and Plan Kenya made the decision to switch from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap because of this challenge (through our work with Plan Kenya, we also hope we played a part in this decision). With OpenStreetMap, the organizations are free to improve the base layer information as necessary and use the data in their (for-profit) portal. But this brings up the question of mandate? Should a non-governmental organization (NGO) really be doing this work?

The question about mandate got me thinking about how government, citizens and organizations collect and share (or don’t share) information.

The question “whose mandate” gets at the question “whose information is this that we are collecting?”

One point of view (shared by some at the meeting) is that information is the property of the government. The government is mandated to collect and disseminate information for the public good. Others should not interfere. There is validity in this point of view.

Access to information is in the Bill of Rights of the newly adopted Kenyan constitution.  “Right and fundamental freedom” number 35 in Chapter Four, Part 2 states that:

35.       (1)  Every citizen has the right of access to—

(a)        information held by the State; and

(b)        information held by another person and required for the exercise or protection of any right or                                                    fundamental freedom.

(2) Every person has the right to the correction or deletion of untrue or misleading information that affects                                 the person.

(3)  The State shall publish and publicise any important information affecting the nation.

The government is constitutionally mandated to grant any citizen access to “information held by the State.” The government is mandated to go even further and not only publish “important information affecting the nation” but must also publicise this information (theoretically improving accessibility).

But the reality of the situation is the governments don’t always do what they are mandated to do. Sometimes governments need a push in the right direction – a reminder of their role and their responsibility to the citizens of their country. The government may also need a “proof of concept” – a demonstration that there is an easier, more cost effective and efficient way of delivering information and services to citizens.

One example would of a “proof of concept” is the use of ICT in universal birth registration in Kenya, being piloted by Plan Kenya in Kwale.

On the Plan Kenya country website for this campaign it states

“It is government policy that every child should be registered at birth, and this is covered by the Births and Deaths Registration Act. However, there is a huge gap between law and practice. Birth registration is not fully decentralised, and so families have to travel long distances, particularly in rural areas, to access registration services. The birth notification process – through which parents complete a notification form at the chief’s office when a child is born, which are then submitted to the district registrar of births – can take more than a year or even two. Any registration after six months of birth is considered late registration, when the process is more complex and lengthy, and there is also a penalty – which act as deterrents to the registration of children. Parents also do not see the need to register their children and so do not actively seek out registration services. The government is reviewing this Act, which we hope will ensure greater access to registration services for Kenyans.”

Instead of waiting for the government to improve its birth registration system, Plan Kenya is working together with local government to digitize the birth registration system.

This is a success story of a local government partnering with an NGO to achieve results. It is also why we have advocates – advocates for access to essential medicines, for improved service provision, for freedom of the press, and the list goes on.

In this case of improving access to information generally, we need information advocates – those citizens and/or organizations who advise individuals and organizations on the importance of information, where it can be accessed and how it can be utilized. Information advocacy is similar to info-activism, but does not specifically target activists or advocates. Information advocates raise awareness about the importance of information more generally.

Should international, national or local NGOs information replace the need for government information? No, indeed NGOs should not. Organizations and advocates should work closely with government to advise and improve systems for collecting and disseminating information. It is government policy, in many countries to provide access to information. Governments and NGOs need to work together to open up information and make it accessible for local populations

I must admit that the Map Kibera team is biased toward open knowledge and/or open data. We have a commitment to open data. We create, share, and advocate for open information, in all sectors (NGO, government, citizen). The disclaimer is of course that not all data should be made public – for example private data that may endanger individuals or invade privacy should not be made public (such as precise locations of individual vulnerable children or families, individual level health information, etc). Aggregate information of this kind may however be useful for planning and advocacy purposes.

We do focus on public information – that is information about services that are open and available to the public – such as water access points, sanitation facilities (toilets mainly), schools, health clinics, shops, kiosks, restaurants, bars, and many more. The teams in Kibera and in Mathare are working hard to integrate information into local government channels.

Demand for open government data is increasing around the world. Kenya is not unique in terms of challenges in opening up government data. In Kenya there is however very little data available at the local level. Through visits to City Council and local authorities in Kibera and Mathare, we’ve learned that the local area counselors, chiefs, District Officers, District Commissioners, and other officials do not have access to maps of their areas. The local government authorities may need some support in terms of generating baseline information (including maps) of their constituencies.  This is not a criticism of the government, but a call for NGOs, citizens and government to work together to generate and share information for better planning and development. This is a major challenge, but our teams are consciously working hard to open dialogue with local government to create sustainable systems of information creation and dissemination. Plan Kenya has been an invaluable partner in terms of advising and supporting this process. Keep your eyes out for updates on the work in Kibera and Mathare.

[Cross posted on my blog]

Thematic mapping – water & sanitation

Thematic mapping in Mathare kicked off yesterday! The past three weeks since the Mathare community forum the team has been concentrating on video training and new media work with the Mathare participants. We’ve had some really exciting discussions about how we can support the spin-off blogging project and integrate with SMS reporting in Mathare. We have also been working to develop data collection forms so that the mappers could begin collecting water and sanitation information.

We separated the data collection forms into three types of objects 1) toilets 2) water points 3) open defecation areas (or athara as they are known in Mathare). We printed out 10 copies of each data collection form with the hope of field testing them with the mappers. We wanted to know “do they make sense?” “What questions and/or responses are we missing?”

Questions for the data collection forms were drawn from the Map Kibera team’s experience mapping water and sanitation points of interest and from Community Cleaning Services and Plan Kenya’s work on urban community total led sanitation in Mathare (view the draft data collection forms here).

A team of 11 Mathare mappers gathered at Community Transformer. We went over each question on each form. In terms of mapping toilets, there was debate about the various types of toilets. “Pit latrine” was straight forward, as well as “hanging toilet” (a toilet that sits over a river or drain and drops directly into the water below – we’ve also been told that in some parts of Asia this is referred to as a helicopter toilet). Other types of toilets “Asian” and “European” and “Trench” weren’t immediately clear to the mappers.

The team broke into 3 separate groups to test out the forms. The main feedback on the forms included breaking the types of government run toilets into those run by the CDF vs LATF. This will be important for different groups that undertake social auditing. The other observation is that water in Mathare is usually purchased by the 20L gallon, so we changed the data collection form to that effect.

water vendor in Mathare

Measuring the number of people of use a toilet per day is difficult. For toilets that sit by the river and do not have a caretaker, this is nearly impossible (without sitting and counting people entering the toilet). Collecting information about toilets that belong to institutions (schools and churches) is quite time consuming. Entering the premises requires a formal introduction to the secretary or other person-in-charge. The school and church we visited were very welcoming and gave us quite a bit of information. We were able to find out that there are about 800 staff and students using just 6 toilets and 1 urinal at the school. The church next door had 5 toilets that were very well maintained. The church has about 100 visitors on week days and 500-1000 on the weekend.

Toilets at the school

Mapping a CCS toilet

Open Defecation areas (or athara) are large areas where people come to shit outside. This is due to lack of access to toilets – for reasons such as ability to pay, proximity to the nearest toilet, security, etc. These areas are used in the early morning and evening due to the issue of privacy. It is very difficult to estimate the number of people who use an athara – the only good option would be to count the piles of shit (not feasible in this case, because the volunteer mappers don’t have the appropriate footwear nor expertise in sanitation issues). More on mapping open defecation areas….

Javin mapping open defecation area

In UCLTS style, shit in an open defecation area

Every organization or a CBO or an NGO is looking for a different set of information when carrying out work on water and sanitation. The Map Mathare team is building a geographic database of different facilities with some basic attribute information. It’s our hope that sanitation specialists, public officials, youth groups, CBOs and others can and will utilize this information. At this point, we are in the process of field testing data collection tools to determine the baseline the mappers will build . In this case, the accuracy of information the mappers collect will decrease with the number of questions on the data collection tool, so we are looking for the balance between accuracy and level of detail. The mappers and the coordination team are learning a lot! By the end of March we hope to have a team of 10-20 dedicated, certified mappers!

Whose map?

“Participatory methodology (PM): A combination of approach and methods through which people do things themselves interactively. What they do may be appraisal, analysis, planning, action, learning, changing, monitoring, evaluation or other activities”

Robert Chambers. Paradigms, Poverty and Adaptive Pluralism. IDS Working Paper 344. July 2010

Map Kibera did not begin as a participatory development project. The initial project was an attempt to introduce open source technology – namely, OpenStreetMap – into a community that had previously not had a publicly accessible map (for all intents and purposes it was “unmapped”). Initial mapping of Kibera was done quickly (in 3 weeks) and local leaders, including administration were consulted but not necessarily engaged in the process. Interest from the international community and the innovative nature of the project fueled its expansion and the local community was left behind.  The entire Map Kibera team has been reflecting on these experiences, individually and as a group, over the last couple of months (read Mikel’s reflection here).

In November 2010, Map Kibera became a research subject. Our initial thoughts were that the research would take away from our work because we would need to give a significant amount of time to focus groups and workshops during a busy time of the year. We were however pleasantly surprised – being subjects of the participatory research process was an invaluable learning experience. We were all able to take time to reflect on the work we had done and consider where the strengths and weaknesses lie. The evaluation of the project – recently shared with us by Samuel Musyoki of Plan Kenya (formerly of Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at University of Sussex) and Mark Skipper of Aptivate – is an important read for anybody interested in ICT4D. Our experience in community engagement has evolved since the early days of the project, particularly because of the team we’ve been working with at IDS.

Map Mathare: employing a participatory approach

Map Mathare is a 4 month training programme in Mathare led by the Map Kibera team. Building on the experiences in Kibera, we hoped to improve the process of community engagement and enhance our skills in participatory storytelling. With advice and leadership from staff at Plan Kenya, we embarked on a journey of community participation in mapping and media. By employing an explicitly participatory methodology, we hope to improve community awareness and impact and reach our main target audience – the people of Mathare.

Our first step was to cross the city (not as easy as it sounds with the Nairobi traffic!) and meet with local youth groups in Mathare. Why? To see if the concept of Map Mathare was of interest to them. Without any interest from the community, we wouldn’t and couldn’t move forward. We had an inclination that there would be support for the concept because we had received a number of invitations to visit Mathare and perhaps start some work there. COOPI, Rebel Film board and Community Cleaning Services all extended invitations separately and we met with their members, who were all excited about the work. We also met with Onserio, the District Officer of Mathare. He was also enthusiastic about the project and began brainstorming ways in which his office could use the information. We continually received calls from Mathare residents who we had met (our first trip there was July) until the day we started on December 1^st, 2010. As a colleague recently pointed out, the first important difference between the work in Mathare and Kibera is that Mathare was demand driven, while in Kibera the work was supply driven.

Our second task was to meet and plan the Mathare approach. This was only possible by working closely experienced staff and local leaders, such as Simon Kokoyo – a community development worker with 20 years of experience in Mathare – and Plan Kenya with Community Cleaning Service staff (CCS) – CCS is Plan Kenya’s local partner with experience in facilitating participatory community sanitation work. Of course during this step we secured funding for the project, through a contract with Plan Kenya that is supported DFID (Plan UK) and AusAid (Plan Australia). We also met with the local administration in the area, to ensure support for the mapping process.

Our third step was to formally introduce participatory teaching methods to our Kibera teams. For three days in November, we invaded the NaiLab and were guided through some practical examples and theoretical principles behind inquiry lead learning (ILL). The ILL workshop was facilitated by Mark Skipper from Aptivate. Mark’s challenge, which turns out to be our current challenge in Mathare, was to design a participatory learning experience for 30 young people over 3 days. Of course, his first response was “it can’t be done”. To provide a transformative learning experience, he needed a smaller group. This was not possible we decided – as we had invested countless hours in team-building between the three Map Kibera programmes and were not willing to compromise on who could and couldn’t participate. Mark lived up to the challenge and we thoroughly enjoyed the ILL workshop.  As both a part-time active participant and part-time observer over the three days, I learned that previous workshops we have facilitated have indeed provided hands on participatory and inquiry-led learning experiences. This is mainly because you can’t learn how to use a computer or a GPS or the Ushahidi platform or a flip camera without getting your hands on one and doing it yourself! The workshops and the process were not however participatory in terms of attendance. We’ve had mostly youth attend our sessions and involved in mapping and media work.

Our challenge is thus two-fold

1)      To build participation into the process, encouraging involvement from stakeholders at all levels – women, men, elders, youth, local administration, local elders, you name it!

2)      To facilitate inquiry led learning during the training process – to encourage learning-by-doing and let participants in the training ask and answer their own questions

After the IIL workshop, and many more planning meetings, our fourth step was to get out into the community and discuss the idea with everyone! This was done through a community forum, which was held at St. Teresa’s church on December 1^st. The turnout was great! 118 people signed the obligatory “sign-in sheet”, while many did not. We estimate the true number to be about 130. Our budget for tea and lunch was shot because there were so many people! The Kibera team presented their work and the Mathare residents discussed the importance of new technology. The group engaged in a “map with your feet” exercise to explore the importance of mapping community resources.

The community forum brought together elders and youth, who identified challenges they are facing including unemployment, tension between local administration and youth, crime, corruption, etc. The general mood of the forum was positive and the attendees were excited to learn from the youth of Kibera.

The week after the community forum we began training. Day 1 – we had 45 attendees.  Maureen (a mapper), Joe (from KNN) and Fred (from Voice of Kibera) presented their programmes and discussed the importance of the work they are doing. Primoz presented the theory and concepts behind geographic data. Day 1 complete.

Day 2 – we started with hands on training in mapping and video with 64 participants – some the same, but some different from Day 1

Day 3 – 59 participants

Day 4 - 59 participants

Day 5 – 14 participants (we only did video training this day so we had a smaller group)

As we move forward, the planning team decided we need to improve the learning experience by making (somewhat smaller) groups. We didn’t (and still don’t) want to turn anyone away, because from the perspective of community participation – the more the merrier! We want to generate and sustain support for this programme from within Mathare. The map needs to be the generated by and for the people of Mathare.

But how do you effectively train 80+ people? We had initially planned and thus budgeted to train 40 people!

The tradeoff to ensure true participation is that perhaps not everyone walks away with as much hands-on experience as we would have liked. We hope however by accepting as many people into the training programme as are interested,  the Mathare residents will answer the question “whose map?” with the response “ours!”

Note: of the 84 participants that came through the training programme in December 2010, the average age was 26.2, with a range of 17 -43 years.

July & early August

Because I haven’t had time to update my personal blog in quite some time, here are some highlights on what I’ve been working on in July and early August.

• Youth mappers: from Kibera to Kinango – training peer-to-peer exchange on Wait…What?
• Kibera is a hotspot for the use of new media – a focus on the Kenyan Referendum
• Uchaguzi – read more about the project on the Ushahidi blog
• Reviewing the referendum reports from Voice of Kibera (see videos below too!)

A pilot study of the use of menstrual cups among young girls in Nairobi slums

A story ran in yesterday’s Daily Nation about the trial of a ‘new’ sanitary product in Nairobi’s Korogocho slums. The product is a menstrual cup – a small, silicone cup that  is inserted into the vagina to catch menstrual blood. Instead of absorbing the blood, like a tampon or sanitary napkin, the cup collects the blood, which is then disposed of in a toilet facility. According to the Diva Cup website (one manufacturer of the menstrual cup) the cup is “emptied, washed and reinserted 2-3 times” every 24 hours.

Diagram of how to insert the Diva cup, from www.divacup.com

Is the physical and social environment in slum areas in Kenya conducive to the use of the menstrual cup?

There are a number of challenges to using the menstrual cup in slum areas:

• access to water & soap (2-3 times a day)
• access to clean, private, safe toilet facilities (2-3 times a day)
• acceptability (the young woman must insert her finger into her vagina to position the cup properly)
• price (1000 shillings is very expensive!)

Will the scale up of the use of the cup solve the issue of school absenteeism for young girls during their menstrual cycle? If they can afford the initial cost of the cup, have access to water & soap and clean, private, safe toilet facilities, and its use is accepted by their female peers – yes. However, I thought the challenge in slum areas was low wages, and lack of clean water and sanitary facilities….

The menstrual cup provides an environmentally friendly and convenient alternative to sanitary pads and tampons – that is if you don’t face barriers to accessing and using the product (see the challenges mentioned above). The pilot study is being carried out by the African Population Health and Research Centre (APHRC) to determine the acceptability and usability of the menstrual cup among young girls and women in informal settlements (slums) in Kenya.

Note: Don’t get me wrong, I’m an advocate of the menstrual cup. Is it going be a great alternative for young girls and women in slum areas? I hope it can be, but we’ll wait and see.

It’s a SwiftRiver of Information

Last Wednesday Jon Gosier and Matthew Griffiths from the SwiftRiver team were at the iHub in Nairobi to present SwiftRiver 101. I could not have been more impressed with the work of the Swift team!

What exactly is SwiftRiver?

According to the website:

“SwiftRiver is a free and open source software platform that uses algorithms and crowdsourcing to validate and filter news.”

SwiftRiver is an initiative of Ushahidi Inc. The project is a response to the challenge of handling large amounts of small pieces of data with limited resources, particularly in crisis situations.

SwiftRiver automates some of the work of an administrator of an Ushahidi website (for example Haiti, Hatari or Voice of Kibera). The application automatically parses out the “who”, “what” and “where” of a short piece of text. The text could come from Twitter, a web form, email, SMS, news headline, etc. The platform is made up of the following components:

1. SiLCC – Natural Language Processing for SMS and Twitter
2. SULSa – Location Services
3. SiCDS – Filters for duplicate information (for example exact re-tweets on Twitter)
4. River ID – Establish the distributed reputation of an individual source (i.e. how reliable is the information I generate as an individual, from my phone, my Twitter account, my blog….and any other channel through which I submit information)
5. Reverberations – Measures influence of online content

Not only does the Swift platform parse small pieces of text, but it also stores information about the reliability of different sources of information (see #4). This can serve as a way for Ushahidi administrators to decide whether or not to verify a piece of information coming from an individual source (based on their past history and reliability).

Crowdsourcing and Data Verification

A question that is often asked of Ushahidi deployments is “How do you verify your data?” and “How do you know the information is accurate?

These questions are essentially asking the question: is crowdsourced information reliable? The concept of crowdsourcing relies on information submitted from a dispersed network over time. You may not be able to decide how reliable one single text message or tweet is, however the strength of crowdsourcing lies in the collective wisdom of a group of people. The best known example of crowdsourcing is the online, user-generated Encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Although the accuracy of Wikipedia is constantly being challenged, this constant critique leads to improved content over time. In 2005, Nature magazine published a special report comparing a random sample of 42 scientific entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. The author finds that there are

“numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.”

The author argues that the major advantage of Wikipedia is the ability to update and change entries quickly. This can be likened to near-real-time collection and publication of information through the Ushahidi platform. This near-real-time collection and publication also comes with the responsibility, particularly with controversial or sensitive issues, to have a team that is knowledgeable about an issue to read, possibly edit, approve and/or verify reports – SwiftRiver alone cannot do this job for you.

How do organizations deal with crowdsourced information?

It is the responsibility of each organization to develop standards, or procedures, or a policy based on their knowledge of the issue(s) they are monitoring (it’s up to you!). The Ushahidi platform allows you to APPROVE and/or VERIFY reports, which then show on the map as VERIFIED “YES” or VERIFIED “NO”.

A snap-shot of the administrative side of the platform is below. Note that you can approve but not verify a report, and you can indicate its reliability (reliability is not made public).

SwiftRiver as a standalone tool

SwiftRiver does not necessarily need to be plugged into the Ushahidi platform. The application itself can be used to track and store data from many different sources and store that information over time.

A number of use cases were discussed in one of the breakout sessions of SwiftRiver 101:

• Brand monitoring – a company or organization could set up the SwiftRiver platform to pull in keywords from Twitter and specific websites to monitor what people are saying about their product(s)or service(s)
• Disaster risk reduction – monitoring opinions and sentiments about certain issues in a specific geographic area over time. Indications of unrest may be apparent in the discourse, prompting intervention by responsible agencies.

Interested? Have an application for SwiftRiver?

SwiftRiver is currently available in a pre-beta version – Batuque v.0.20.

Download it from http://www.swift.ushahidi.com or view it here.

Learn more about SwiftRiver through the Swift River 101 slide show and the website.

Not a walk in the park.

Data collection is not a walk in the park. Day two of the health services mapping with Map Kibera brought to light two major challenges to systematic data collection.

I do not claim that these challenges are unique, nor that today was the first day the mappers came across these issues (in fact yesterday, and during the previous mapping exercise, the mappers expressed some of the same concerns):

1. Suspicion. People do not want to give up information about the services they are providing. This could be for many reasons (they don’t believe you are who you say you are, they think you are being exploitative, research fatigue, they are not licensed to provide said service, etc).

2. Research fatigue. From my (limited) experience in Kibera (I spent 3 months in the area in 2008 and have been back a few times in 2009 & 2010), the settlement is one of the most over-researched places in Kenya, if not in Africa. As an example, as we were walking around today, I saw 2 groups of researchers walking around with clipboards interviewing people door-to-door. And what ever comes of the research? Does the community see the benefits? Likely not in their eyes. As such, even groups such as Map Kibera doing ‘community research’ are viewed with suspicion…and the cycle continues.

Reviewing the health services data collection form