MOZAMBIQUE - Health
General Information:
By Austin Preiss
Mozambique is a country located in the southeastern part of Africa. Mozambique shares 2,470 miles of coast along the Indian Ocean to the east. To the west, Mozambique shares borders with Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Swaziland. To the north Mozambique shares a border with Tanzania. Mozambique has a population of about 24 million people and the official language of the country is Portuguese. Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975. June 25 marks the day, called National Day of Mozambique, that the locals celebrate Mozambique's independence. Mozambique had a long civil war after gaining independence which official ended in 1992. The country has been struggling ever since becoming independent. The total area of Mozambique is 313,661 square miles which is about 812,379 kilometers. The capital of Mozambique is Maputo which is also the largest city in country. The government is structured in a multi-party democracy. Christianity is the major religion with about 56% of the population converting to Christianity then comes Islam with 16% of the population and other indigenous beliefs. The currency is called metical. Right now 1 metical is equivalent to .0194340 US. dollars. The life expectancy from men is 50 years while for women it is 52 years.
References:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13890416
http://www.mapsofworld.com/mozambique/facts.html
http://country-facts.findthedata.com/l/149/Mozambique
USAID Interest:
By Cody White
The interest of USAID in Mozambique is a multitude of things, but mainly for our project we focus of Global Health, Environment, and Crisis Response. For Global Health, USIAD is trying to help with HIV/AIDS for 1 in 10 (1.2 million) have the disease. Along with helping with clinics to provide more doctors to overflowing patients. The local Environment is also a big attention grabber to USAID, considering Mozambique is one of the most susceptible counties to climate change. Server weather plays a big role in the contently changing environments. With these changing environments, Crisis Response to those server storms is critical. Floods, tropical storms, and cyclones attribute to the destruction of this countries people. Including all of these things, Our main focus as a group is helping construct roadways and identifying homes and buildings so that the maria prevention team can use our map to help clear out the major mosquito problem in Mozambique. That's why USAID has played a large role in helping those in need during these trying times. Here are some links that show USAID'S involvement in Mozambique.
http://hotosm.github.io/tracing-guides/guide/MozambiqueGuide.html
https://www.usaid.gov/mozambique/global-health
https://www.usaid.gov/mozambique/environment
https://www.usaid.gov/crisis/mozambique
Current State of OpenStreetMap Data:
By Chantry Dunlap
The scope of our project consists of Quelimane, Mozambique, and the surrounding communities and coastline.
While the city of Quelimane has been digitized, the outskirts have only major roads and features. From the legend, it can be concluded that only Quelimane and its immediate surroundings have been completely digitized. Our goal as a team is to complete the areas outlined with squares. Our main focus is digitizing roads and buildings in order to help USAID coordinate indoor spraying campaigns (HOT Tasking Manager). The city of Quelimane appears to have more features digitized than other similarly sized cities in Mozambique. Even Maputo, the capital and largest city of Mozambique, lacks the detail Quelimane has. In Quelimane, almost all buildings have been digitized (including residences), whereas in Maputo, only major buildings have been digitized. Our goal is to achieve the same level of detail that Quelimane has throughout the scope of our project.
Refer to the following images comparing the waterfront areas of Maputo and Quelimane. Note the difference in the amount of buildings that have been digitized:
Maputo:
Quelimane:
Refences:
HOT Tasking Manager - #1498 - Quelimane, Mozambique -- Africa Indoor Residual Spraying Campaign. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2016, from http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/1498
OpenStreetMap: Quelimane. http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/-17.8783/36.8945
OpenStreetMap: Maputo. http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/-25.9671/32.5575
Local OpenStreetMap Community:
By Kendall Merkel
The local Open Street Map community within Mozambique aims to “ produce and distribute free maps with high quality of Mozambican territory” (wiki). There are two projects currently in the works to help improve Mozambican maps. Recently, UVM (The University of Vermont) hosted a mapathon of the city of Ribáuê, to help map for HIV medication distribution for Doctors Wthout Borders. Here is a before and after of the area mapped at this OSM mapathon:
The group out of UVM was able to digitize 347 roads, 173 residential areas, and 107 waterways during this mapathon.
The second project is the Quelimine project currently being worked on by Youth Mappers at Texas Tech University. This project is backed by many different organizations including USAID, Open Street Map, Humanitarian Open Street Map Team, National Geographic, Missing Maps and many other organizations. This project is focusing currently on mapping for resilience and malaria prevention, which is “directly supported by [the] US president’s malaria initiative” (OSMGeoWeek.Org).
These projects are vital to the residents of Mozambique and the OSM community in general. With the help from people mapping on OSM, residents of Mozambique are hopefully able to gain health benefits and improve development within the country.
References:
Ahles, N. (n.d.). Letters from the SAL: UVM Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team - A Year in Review. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from http://letters-sal.blogspot.com/2016/03/uvm-humanitarian-openstreetmap-team.html?utm_source=feedburner
Mapping for Resilience - Malaria Prevention Mapping in Mozambique. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2016, from http://osmgeoweek.org/project/Quelimane/
WikiProject Mozambique. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2016, from https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Mozambique
Health
What is the problem?
What are the solutions?
The solution to stopping the spread of malaria in Mozambique is to effectively control the mosquito population. However, before an effective spraying campaign can be developed, a reliable series of maps of Quelimane, Mozambique must be created. Therefore our first course of action is to create these maps using Open Street Map software. We are using OSM to map the roads and homes throughout the community of Quelimane, Mozambique so that a plan can be developed to effectively spray pesticides that will reduce the mosquito population while having little to no negative effect on the people who live there.
- John Cook
Who and what is affected by this problem?
In Mozambique malaria is a serious disease that claim the lives of 438,000 people and infected 214,000,000 people in 2015. Mozambique is one of the most poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. Citizens of Mozambique live in a rural area, with rudimentary housing. Mozambique is the most affected area throughout Africa with mosquitoes. The whole area of Mozambique is devastated by the presence of malaria, the low amounts of precipitation received in the area that would have affected the insect populations. Another problem is that fumigation the houses that the people live in should help but mosquitoes are constantly being carried by wind into these areas as well as influx of people coming in and out of Mozambique spreading disease. Some people of Mozambique are illiterate and/or haven't seen a doctor before so this could possibly create a rift between interacting with the people of Mozambique as far as providing to these people whom aren't entirely familiar with certain medicinal customs.
- Quentin Brooks
How can mapping mitigate these problems?
What are you mapping and how can mapping these features help make communities more resilient in light of this problem or in areas affected by this problem?
We are mapping the structures and road features of Mozambique in the Southeastern part of Africa. Malaria is a very fatal disease and is very common in Africa. It is a major killer of children and people living with HIV/AIDS, with death rates up to 90%. However, with the rise in technology and medicine as well as global awareness the numbers have dramatically declined between the years 2000-2015. Malaria is transported by mosquitos and by mapping out these areas, we can see which areas are affected the most. A good portion of Mozambique is located by water, which mosquitos are the most common. Mapping all these features, allows volunteers to know where homes, businesses, and other buildings are that way they can find ways to help out those affected. Technology and mapping out in these areas are not updated, and so mapping out the roads and transportation features allows everyone stay updated on the situation and how to move from one location to another. With Mapping Without Borders, we are bringing public awareness to a situation that others may unknowingly overlook. Keeping the population up to date with current mapping features in essential, and helps relate todays’ generation to a problem that has been around for years.
-Cheyenne Betancourt