Digital Champions fighting Gender Based Violence in rural Tanzania with maps (sotm2022)

Our digital champions project in Tanzania has transformed the lives of 353 women who had never used a smartphone before into confident advocates of mapping in their extremely marginalised communities. They have delivered training to over 9000 women in these villages and reported over 470 cases of gender based violence in their villages to the police and social services who have then used the maps to find and protect these women. Giving local women and youth the digital tools to protect their sisters in their communities is an extremely cost effective, long term solution to build up our mapping community and make it more inclusive, and share lessons learnt We will talk about the digital champions project which has transformed the lives of 353 women who had never used a smartphone before into confident advocates of mapping in their extremely marginalised communities. They have delivered training to over 9000 women in these villages and reported over 470 cases of gender based violence in their villages to the police and social services who have then used the maps to find and protect these weomen. We will show giving local women and youth the digital tools to protect their sisters in their communities is an extremely cost effective, long term solution to build up our mapping community and make it more inclusive, and share lessons learnt about this event: https://2022.stateofthemap.org/sessions/FJWKRV/