ICPD25 in Nairobi was an amazing event and I was extremely proud to run a Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) mapathon there on behalf of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 9500 people from 170 countries attended the summit, from heads of state and UN employees to grassroots activists.
I attended some amazing talks and workshops which included huge declarations from the Kenyan President to end FGM by 2022 and much smaller events. I met with familiar activists I’d spoken to before plus many new people with additional opportunities for collaboration. Some highlights for me included:
· Rebeca Gyumi talking about her social media campaign against child marriage and FGM in our mapathon
· Finally meeting Francis from The Network against Female Genital Mutilation (NAFGEM), who was talking at the Human Library about the value of generational dialogues in eliminating FGM
· Hearing Tony Mwebia talk about his initiative #MenEndFGM and helping many of this group get started with mapping in Kenya
· Meeting again Laura Mugeha and her colleagues from Women in GIS – doing amazing visualisations on gender – and persuading Laura to do a talk about Crowd2Map at State of the Map Africa, Ivory Coast (November 22-24)
Plus very many contacts to follow up with. We have a busy few weeks through to the end of 2019 and will be proactively looking to get in touch with our new contacts as we move into 2020.
If you didn’t make it to the mapathon in Nairobi there is more information on the work we do with the support of volunteers around the world, on this site. There is another online mapathon planned for 1st December and on 3rd December we will hold a mapathon in London, UK.
