My name is Peninnah Kyakuwa a final year student at Gulu University Faculty of Science and a YouthMappers Gulu Chapter member pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Information and Communication Technology.
What started as a demise turned out to be an amusement. Gulu University YouthMappers Chapter was introduced to a very interesting and educative project regarding the mapping of all water infrastructure points around the Gulu District. However, because this chapter was still in its early stages, this, therefore, required mobilization to get new members totaling up to the required number of 30 mappers that were expected to be on board to push on the project. Since the junior mappers that had joined the chapter were novices about the vision and mission of YouthMappers, this called for more time and training for them to embrace the project.
This project started with training that involved enlightening us of the chapter about what YouthMappers is all about, its mission, the vision, and the scopes. This training ushered us into the use of different geospatial technologies such as the use of Open StreetMap, the HOT Tasking Manager, the use of iD Editor and the use of different software such as JOSM (Java OpenStreetMap) to equip us with the necessary skills required for the project and this lasted for 2 days.
After a successful training course, I was spontaneously craving to contribute geospatial data to the OSM Community. I emerged triumphant since we were introduced to a learning project, where they put the skills we had acquired to a challenge by mapping different tasks and made us embrace the wonderful opportunity that had come their way.
Having been trained by immensely experienced facilitators Miss Stellamaris Nakacwa, Dr. McCusker, and Dr. Nono, at the end of the wonderful session, I was so delighted and appreciative to YouthMappers fraternity for such an opportunity I was part of and urged to keep up with practice to escalate my mapping skills.
This training was indeed a blessing to the Gulu YouthMappers chapter. Shortly, I will be readily available to contribute to any task or mapathon. To help in creating more geospatial data to support humanitarian work both in Uganda and the rest of the world, as well as, to keep on escalating the mapper’s skills.
Lastly, I am looking forward to taking part in all chapter activities till it shines to the maximum.
ohhh wawo