The American Red Cross and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team called on Volunteers to Map the Ugandan Cities Gulu and Lira on World Humanitarian Day

Mapping at the American Red Cross Headquarters yesterday. On the screen a video message from the team in Uganda.

A good two dozen mappers followed HOT’s and ARC’s call to help map Gulu and Lira as an effort to improve maps for fire fighters and rescue teams.

GeoEye has provided improved satellite imagery that State Department helped process and host for the event. About two dozen volunteers helped trace roads, tracks, buildings and huts from imagery. As a next step the American Red Cross will send a team of trainers to Uganda to initiate necessary ground surveys verifying tracing work and to teach Quantum GIS skills for using OSM data.

You can still join the effort by picking up tasks from one of the two HOT OSM Tasking manager jobs:

• Gulu
• Lira

For any questions around this effort, get in touch with Robert Banick from the American Red Cross.

Further reading

• HOT OSM: Preventative Mapping in Uganda with the Red Cross
• Mikel has captured some of the buzz around yesterday’s event on storify.