MAPBEKS: Mapping of HIV Facilities and LGBT spaces in the Philippines on OpenStreetMap

Room: Track 1

Sunday, 10:00 UTC
Duration: 20 minutes (plus Q&A)

session pad

video on media.ccc.de
video on YouTube

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  • Mikko Tamura

MapBeks is an online community of mapping volunteers that advocates for diversity inclusion and representation focused specifically for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgendered, Queer, Inter-sexed, etc. (LGBTQI+) on OpenStreetMap. As part of its advocacy is to map-out and locate all HIV facilities (testing, counselling, and treatment hubs) in the Philippines. It has researched, collated, and validated various sources to build an updated and comprehensive online database with location data. Currently, it has identified 650 HIV testing and counselling centers all over the Philippines and already mapped out 140 (20%) of the facilities on OSM using MapContrib.xyz. We would like to share our experiences in building our small community of LGTQ+ advocates, and digital volunteers. We hope we can inspire the world with our endeavour to make change from what little we have. The talk will discuss the following:

  1. The STATUS QUO- LGBT places are not that much represented on OSM/ tagging/ lack of data
  2. How was Map Beks able to start up as a local community and how it was able to reach out to the growing LGBT and PLHIV community
  3. Its current projects and advocacies
  4. Its plans for the future