We were delighted to assist the students from Portmarnock Community School and Action Ireland Trust with validation during a hectic and fun 24 hour mapathon that took place on 5th and 6th May. The mapathon was part of the school’s ongoing commitment to improving civic life in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. While the school, with Fingal County Council’s technical assistance, has been working since 2014 to create an open, free basemap of the Kingdom, the aim this time was to improve the tagging of buildings and farm land to assist in spatial planning. The Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team tasking manager recorded that over 300,000 edits had been made by Portmarnock CS mappers in the 24 hours, which was certainly a significant achievement!
More information, and information on getting involved, is available from the #MapLesotho project, Action Ireland Trust, and the award-winning Global Citizens Mapping the Future initiative within Portmarnock CS.
