DigiActive.org

Tactic: SMS/Map Mashup Protects Human Rights in Kenya

Written by Mary on January 10, 2008 – 11:03 pm -

Description: Ushahidi.com is a Kenyan web site that records reports of violence sent by SMS and e-mail on a Google Earth map. It provides living testimony to the atrocities committed following the recent presidential elections in that country. (”Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Kiswahili.)

Organizer: The idea for the Ushahidi web site was created by the bloggers behind KenyanPundit.com, WhiteAfrican.com, MentalAcrobatics.com, AfroMusing.com, and Skunkworks and was built by developer David Kobia.

Purpose of Action: To create a visual map of human rights abuses.

Organizing Tools: SMS, Google Earth, web site

Outcome: A political resolution to the election crisis has not yet been reached.

Ease of Replication: Replicating the Ushahidi map is rather difficult, as it is actually a mash-up of SMS messages and a Google map. You will need a developer friend to make it. However, other digital map applications, like Frappr, are quite easy to use.

The violence which Ushahidi is attempting to track is a result of the Kenyan presidential election, which occurred on December 27. On the I&D Blog, Josh Goldstein reports that, “a presidential election pitted incumbent president and Kikuyu tribesman Mwai Kabaki against leading opponent and Luo tribesman Raila Odinga. After what was initially described as a very close vote, Kabaki swiftly announced himself the winner and swore himself in for another term.

This week, the election results are being described domestically and internationally as fraudulent, and violence has erupted between rioting mobs and police in Nairobi, and between ethnic groups throughout the country. Mobs in the town of Eldoret burned at least two dozen inside of a church (see Red Cross helicopter video of Rift Valley humanitarian situation on You Tube) and dozens more have died in the streets of Nairobi’s Kibera slum. The port of Mombasa has ground to a halt, already causing petrol shortages as far is Kampala, Uganda. Today, despite cancellation of a major anti-government rally, protesters turned to the streets and were met by police using tear gas and water cannons.”

This violence is strange and traumatic for peaceful and economically-stable Kenya (annual growth rate of 6-7%). Writes blogger KenyanPundit.com, “I am glad to be alive. But somehow, in another locality, the locality where my heart lives, I am distraught, I am alarmed, I am looking out into unrelenting darkness. I feel naked in all this, stripped of many things that made me Kenyan. I am a stranger to what is becoming familiar on the news. I keep wondering what country that is where flames are rising on the streets…. I cannot say Happy New Year. Not yet. So I will say Don’t let this new thing grow old let it remain strange, let it remain abhorrent, let it remain something that has no place in the place we call home.”

The bloggers behind KenyanPundit.com, WhiteAfrican.com, MentalAcrobatics.com, AfroMusing.com, and Skunkworks decided to start Ushahidi to record these atrocities and end the climate of impunity in the country. According to White African: “Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see. ”

The way the site works is that people to send an SMS to +447624802635 with your mobile phone or email your reports to tips@ushahidi.comwhich describes an atrocity. The atrocity is then displayed on a map of Kenya using a colored pin and the text of the message is displayed on the home page. According to Ethan Zuckerman, Kenyan developer David Kobia put together the Ushahidi website, based on a design sketch from White African blogger Erik “Hash” Hersman and input from a wide range of Kenyan bloggers and activists. The original call to action came from Kenyan Pundit.

The most successful digital activist campaigns work with the technical realities of their country. Ushahidi makes use of the fact that SMS is a very effective form of communication in Kenya, where approximately 1 in 10 Kenyans has a cell phone even though only 3 in 100 has Internet access. In fact, in much of the world, SMS is a more effective tool of digital activism than the Internet. Before launching a digital activism in your country, think about which technologies and practices are most prevalent. Activism must fit its context.

Tags: africa, google, googleearth, kenya, mobile, SMS, subsaharanafrica
Posted in Mashups, Sub-Saharan Africa, Tactics |