For several years now, CartONG has been recruiting civic service volunteers to support collaborative mapping activities, in particular mapathons. This year, CartONG participated for the first time in the International Volunteering and Reciprocity initiative.
Over the past few weeks, CartONG, as part of its partnership with the GIS Centre of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), has been contributing to the training - in Kampala and Kinshasa - of MSF field staff active in Africa in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). An increasingly essential tool for improving the efficiency and speed of humanitarian operations.
Just over a year ago, CartONG carried out a participatory mapping project with Médecins du Monde France (MdM) in informal settlements in Mayotte. Having been involved for several years with NGOs fighting against inadequate housing (cf. projects in French Guiana and Burkina Faso), we wanted to revisit this project in the context of increasingly violent political evictions and the destruction of camps and shantytowns. This current situation echoes our questions about mapping the "informal". How can we safely produce geographic information in these neighborhoods, where it is sorely lacking?
CartONG has an active volunteer team and is constantly adapting its cooperation models to meet the challenges of collaboration between volunteers, employees and partner organizations.
On Friday, April 14th, the 6th edition of the GeoNight took place, which honors geography and geographers! CartONG has, for the 5th consecutive time, coordinated several collaborative mapping workshops - also called mapathons - simultaneously in France, in French-speaking Africa and online!
In February, CartONG conducted a two-week mission in North East Syria to provide Geographic Information System (GIS) support to Solidarités International (SI). A mission that is part of a larger consultancy that CartONG has been conducting for SI's Syria field teams since September 2022.
CartONG launches a brand new project combining participatory mapping and awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CartODD project aims at mobilizing young people in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (France) to adress the main challenges of their generation: climate change, migration and gender inequality.
To accompany its growth and deploy its new strategy, the CartONG team has built a new governance model based on the principles of collective intelligence and is now looking for a Executive Director to lead the organization and its evolutions!