Campaigning And Engaging Young Girls and Women Towards Positive Change Using Open Mapping Tech in Nigeria
Over the years, young girls and women have faced various challenges related to both social, economic, and political empowerment. They most often have limited access to education, healthcare, safe public spaces, and decision-making processes. This shows that there is need for driving young girls and women towards positive change.
Positive change is a move in the right direction that impacts lives and as well brings development. Positive change is geared towards all aspects of life ranging from social, political, environmental, religion, technology etc. Positive change is meant to bring growth and development in all spheres of life.
Open mapping is one of the means through which positive change can be achieved. Though, mapping is not an end, it is a means to an end and as a result, paves way for solution when utilized effectively and efficiently. Many Young girls and women in Nigeria face a lot of obscurity to positive change and open mapping can be used to address the problems by producing open data that are accessible for both public, private and government utilization. Open mapping technology, which includes crowd-sourced mapping platforms and GIS, offers new possibilities for addressing these challenges by enabling individuals to actively participate in data collection, data analysis, and community development efforts. Open mapping technology allows users to contribute geospatial information, map resources, document infrastructure, and visualize data in an accessible and interactive manner. It harnesses the power of collective intelligence and empowers individuals, including young girls and women, to actively engage in shaping their communities.
Before joining Unique Mappers community, my key interest has been on inspiring young girls to maintain focus in their studies and career. One of the major challenges among young girls in my area is the issue of teenage pregnancy which bring setbacks in the education of the girl child. I took this as a challenge upon myself to engage and educate young girls through outreaches and sensitization on a better career path which would lead to a more successful life and a better future.
With this prior interest in community engagement in women/girls empowerment, joining Unique Mappers Network Nigeria, which is known for its volunteering and humanitarian services, using mapping tech is an avenue for me to make more impact. Over time, I have contributed to driving young girls and women towards positive change and engaging them in learning, using open mapping tech which are geared towards meeting up the Sustainable Development Goals and social good through outreaches and campaigns.
In International Day of the Girl Child and International Women's Day 2021, I sensitized over 100 young girls and women teaching them mapping skills like organic map, map.me. The girls and women were taught on using innovations and technology for gender equality. My bunch of outreach experiences is what I want to share in my talk along with my OpenStreetMap (OSM), journey as a member and women program associate of Unique Mappers Network Nigeria. It's worthy to speak on how we are working collectively in reaching more young girls and women to join the community and make useful contributions in OSM and our openness for collaboration.