Poster: Mental Health AWHEREness

This poster shows how our volunteer organization — one of HOT OSM’s Micrograntees for this year — Mental Health AWHEREness, has been using maps and OSM data for community care in the Philippines, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With quarantine, self-isolation, and its effects on our routines and usual personal and work activities, a lot of us are finding these times extra difficult. Faced with new realities of working from home, temporary unemployment, home-schooling of children or lack of access to it thereof, and being physically distant from family members, friends and colleagues, levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal behaviour may also rise.

Here in the Philippines, we have been on community quarantine since mid-March. And although restrictions to movements have been a bit eased now, movements are still limited and most of us are still physically distant from friends and family. As advocates for mental health, we know it is important to do our part in reminding everyone to look after our mental, as much as our physical, health.

So together with other groups and individuals, we organized online activities and shared information aimed to provide community care during the pandemic.

We did this through maps utilizing OSM data through Here; Here and Mapping Emotions by providing a platform for sharing stories on mental health and give hope to others by expressing their support, whether they are mental health professionals or not, to others who might need someone to listen to them; through collaborations with other organizations for mental health awareness campaigns, and through mapathons to teach volunteers in mapping services via OpenStreetMap and our Mental Health AWHEREness Map on MapContrib.