The University of Cape Coast in Ghana was the very first inaugural chapter of the YouthMappers network. Their enthusiasm to take their GIS skills into the world of open mapping culminated this month in a 2-day training programme on campus that leveraged the Tasking Manager of TeachOSM. This platform gives new groups the space to work on their own dedicated projects to learn and develop skills that can be later applied to humanitarian and development projects, while they also help to collect data on their own campuses.
Mr. Enock Nyarmador and his friend Ebenezer Cobbinah were invited by the chapter at University of Cape Coast to assist in training UCC youthmappers in OSM. Over 70 students registered for the training but we could only accommodate the first group of 25 students for effective learning, made up of all officers of the chapter (called the GEOSOC) and those who registered on time. The Geosoc executives and I as advisor will together then rolling up training programme for as many students as possible using the trained students as the trainers of new trainees. Together we will be prepared to have many active, high quality YouthMappers on weekly bases throughout the rest of 2016.
On Saturday, September 10, 2016 we went to the field to collect data. We were in two groups. After the field work we were at the Lab for over 5 hours inputting the data and also learned OSM and JOSM and practicing new techniques.
We are thankful to Chad Blevins of the USAID GeoCenter, for posting a task on the TeachOSM Tasking Manager of the University of Cape Coast campus. It was extremely useful to learn "at home" first. Certain questions we were anticipating was resolved by the use of the TeachOSM tasking manager. We are most grateful. To the many contributors to this platform, we owe thanks too.
To Dr. Patricia Solís we appreciate her commitment to involve us and also for providing certificates. We are presenting these to participants when all participants are trained. The certificates help us as an academic institution to acknowledge the learning that is taking place with our students.
UCC Students are now familiar with OSM. They are not experts yet and we continue to train others, but we are monitoring the progress of students in order to get the core active UCC youthmappers for the tasks ahead. We thank the USAID GeoCenter for their support of this program.
Our entire group say thanks for being given us such opportunity to be part of global YouthMappers. We extend our friendship and collaboration in learning to all chapters!