Community Mapping Day – Get involved

2020 has been a difficult year for us all in different ways and really highlighted the importance of supporting and caring for one another. Due to this, on World Human Right’s Day, Thursday 10 December, the School of Education, Environment and Development (SEED) are providing University of Manchester students, staff, alumni and supporters with a positive opportunity to come together virtually as a global community to make a difference.

Community Mapping is an organisation based in the School of Environment, Education and Development. Our goal is to create maps of previously un-mapped areas of the world, helping address chronic humanitarian crisis.

On Thursday, 10 December, we’ll be asking the University’s community to help map the Acholi Sub-Region of Northern Uganda to ensure our team of prosthetics and orthopaedic surgeons can track down those who have been left in urgent need of healthcare and prosthetic limbs following a devastating conflict that ravaged their region for 20 years. Getting involved in Community Mapping Day is a chance to change the lives of thousands of people and all it takes is a few moments of everyone’s time to help create an online map.

Mapping is easy, free and can be done wherever you are in the world, all you need is access to the internet and time to draw around some huts and tracks. Simple instructions and a short demonstrative video will be provided to those who register to take part. You’ll be able to volunteer your time at any time or place during the day and you can map for as long as you like. Our research shows that, on average, for each 50 huts accounted for, we are providing another person with a prosthetic limb – a great incentive to make the time to get involved.

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a positive difference during a time when many are finding it difficult to keep spirits up. We’ll be logging the actions of our volunteers so at the end, we can share just how many square kilometres of mapping we’ve achieved as a community.

Get involved


If you’d like to get involved in mapping on Thursday 10 December, register with us here. On the run up to the day, we’ll send you the simple instructions on how to get involved and how you can let us know you’ve taken part.