the Ushahidi Platform

Ushahidi is an interactive data visualization platform that was borne out of the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya. The open source platform has evolved to allow users (and there are now upwards of 45,000) to not only map unfolding emergencies, but to also map community services, events, and resources.

Since its founding, Ushahidi has become a mapping and data visualization project that has been used to map unfolding emergencies such as the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the current unrest in Libya, violence in Gaza, and the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. Voices of Kibera, a citizen's reporting project, has used the platform to map water shortages, emergencies, forced evictions, and health-related news. In addition, the organization has used the Ushahidi platform to map community resources such as media training, yoga classes, and Mathare Youth Sports Association neighborhood clean ups.

The Ushahidi platform could be an appropriate platform for Forage Oakland, as it would adequately allow all members to contribute to populating maps. The Ushahidi platform software is available for anyone to use to map an unfolding event in (near) real time, or to map current resources within a community.

Frequently Asked Questions

The FAQ page has been updated, so if you have questions about this project, this could be a great place to start. If you still have unanswered questions, you are welcomed to email me at forageoakland@gmail.com.

Thank you!

'How to Create Your Own Seed Lending Library'

This piece appeared on Shareables.net on February 23, and while the steps are in reference to starting a seed lending library, I think they can be applied to starting an urban fruit harvesting network as well. Thanks to Richmond Grows for sharing this information.

30 Project

Tonight, I am participating in the inaugural 30 Project dinner, which is a gathering of activists, academics, organizers, cooks, co-op grocery retail proprietors, et al-- anyone who has a vested interest in creatively strategizing ways to make our regional food system more sustainable, holistic, accessible, and equitable, all within 30 year's time.

In preparation for tonight's event, all participants have been asked to think about two questions:

What is your vision for a better food system in 30 years...and what can you do to help us get there?

What work is happening now that you believe is a system-changing solution?

In terms of the latter, projects like Phat Beets offer inspiration, projects that have an understanding of the necessity to work across fields and collaborate with health professionals in order to decrease health inequities in North Oakland communities. Phat Beets site their farmers' markets at strategic locations, and where they can be most impactive, and truly increase access to communities that could benefit most. This means siting markets at Children's Hospital in Oakland, at the St. Martin de Porres School, and North Oakland Arlington Medical Center. Not only does Phat Beets site their markets in communities that could most benefit, they also incentivize the purchase of fresh produce to Children's Hospital patients by offering $5.000 vouchers, called Beet Bucks. Where food costs were once a barrier to purchasing nutritious food, Phat Beets is paving a path that allows low-income Oaklanders to have a more active role in determining what they consume.

This is a project that I believe is a system-changing solution; it functions at the neighborhood level, and directly connects low-income people with fresh produce. Affordable produce markets like this allow people to have an increased say in their food choices. Increasing access and available choices in low-income communities is a vital step in restructuring the food system.

What do you think? What are system-changing solutions that you see happening in your community at the moment?

PS: Following the dinner, the photo at the top of this entry was added to this blog entry. It shows the permanent structure in which we dined, and which will remain at Hayes Valley Farm.

Found Fruit Wine-Making Audio Stories

Forage Oakland looking for a few good folks to share their found fruit wine-making stories. The stories will be debuted in 2 weeks' time, and I am currently soliciting stories about the following:

Nocino-making
Experiments in making limoncello
Plum wine crafting

...and more. I am specifically looking to capture audio stories, no longer than 90 seconds in length. If you or anyone you know might be interested in contributing to this collection, please do email: forageoakland@gmail.com.

...and hello Blogspot

It looks like Blogspot is better suited to host the content that I post to the Forage Oakland blog. Over the next few weeks, I'll be transferring the content from the Forage Oakland tumblr site back to this blog. This is the permanent home of Forage Oakland's web presence.

Thanks!

Asiya