Africa is a continent that has been plagued by political war. The grips of war and violence have infected numerous defenceless communities. These atrocities have traditionally been difficult to detect by the rest of the world, as they has gorged on vulnerable societies like a quiet but imminent disease. But finally, a light has been cast over the shadow of warfare and corruption that has until now left much of the continent in darkness.
Ushahidi is a website that has used online mapping tools and user-generated reports to put militant and rebel violence in Kenya on the map for the rest of the world to see. Ushahidi means “testimony” in Swahili and has been used thus far to acknowledge the violence happening in the dark belly of Africa’s body, violence that has sprawled throughout the continent without much notice from the rest of the globe.
Mapping out eruptions of violence and converging user-generated reports to gain first-hand accounts of war, allows the rest of the world to be aware of its extent – the severity of its grip on a nation – and begin to work toward solutions to local conflict.
The Ushahidi engine does not only map conflict, although that is how it started out. The website has also mapped out the spread of swine flu. Mapping the spread of diseases on the Internet to a global audience has obvious benefits for citizens who may otherwise struggle to get accurate reports of such information.
The remedy that Ushahidi offers to traditional ways of reporting on war and disease is that information is sourced from the public experiencing the outbreaks of violence and disease. This information is arguably more reliable and immediate than information reported on by media sources that are not experiencing the action as it happens.
Online users therefore have the ability to gain immediate, real-time reports and feedback on political events. Ushahidi is one of many sites that utilises crowd outsourcing technology and digital mapping technologies to highlight political and social issues around the world that have previously often escaped the gaze of mainstream global media. It is time to pay testimony to the traditionally marginalised voices of those who have suffered in the dark.
Hopefully, these sites will increase popularity on the World Wide Web so that the fortunate few who have access to the wondrous abilities of the Internet, can view the world through a grass roots perspective, alongside those experiencing political turmoil, as opposed to viewing these event through the eyes and experiences of traditional mainstream media outlets.
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