My Experience

My name is Atuhura Lydia, a year 3 student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Computer

Science at Gulu University. I became a member of the YouthMappers Gulu chapter in March 2020. I registered my profile on the 28th of December 2021 on OpenStreetMap, which started my journey with OSM. I have taken part in the program of Water Infrastructure Mapping in Uganda, Gulu Water Project. This project is about mapping water points and infrastructure within Gulu city for uplifting the services of provision of clean and safe water with greater accessibility and availability.

Having gotten an opportunity to become part of this amazing youth association, was a turning point in my life. Where I obtained several social and professional skills such as communication skills, mapping skills, and interpersonal skills.

On 12th Jan. 2022, Kalungi Abdul Malik and I started a field engagement in the Buntagira sub-county. My mind was filled up with thoughts about what would happen during mapping, how to face the people, and how the local officials would react to our work. We finally reached our destination being guided by the map on the OsmAnd. The roads taking us were narrow and bushy. I experienced that the life the people were living was so hard. The water points we met were mainly privately owned taps of which most of them were not functioning. Some homes that could not afford a tap installation had to pay a small amount of money to their neighbors for water which was hard because of insufficient money.

During mapping in such a remote community, I gained lots of experiences. This kind of mapping exercise helps to locate people who are in greater need than others. Therefore, any organization working to uplift the welfare of people in the world will know where to go first after the data is digitized on a map.

WE DON’T JUST BUILD MAPS.

WE BUILD MAPPERS.