Violaine’s Story
What inspired me
A friend in France doing mapping parties with disabled people to map accessibility in OSM. They go without rules (using field papers they could write what they wanted and then work on how it fits with OSM), listen to the people with disabilities, and make fun parties. I was at that time in a studying office where we did it by ourselves, no feedback to disabled people, and in a very scientific way. I loved that other approach: more open (100% open data open source) with a focus on sustainability, much more fun, and kind of activist, where people are in the action.
How I heard about the grant
People from the OSGeo Oceania team, and thanks to the FOSS4G SOTM in Wellington, where I got to know about the grant, and that it was OK to ask for funding (I am not sure i would have asked if I didn’t meet the people).
How it helped the project come to life
The project was already set but I needed funding to support hosting, so it ensured that. It was also great to know that some people in Oceania think it is important (community support, feeling less alone), and trust me and the project.
Impact
As an individual, it supported me in my professional life where I could demonstrate OSM is something serious, alive, and we can build great projects with it. It’s not just about a more or less fancy background map. It allowed me to join the local land surveying agency which allowed me scale up, going from a “I work for free for a small association because I love them” to, “I can also be paid for the work I do, and the way I do (opensource).”
My community
I think this was a little weird because once the project was out the association left the project and wanted to build their own but never ended up with something serious (they have 7 point of interest documented). It was a kind of a failure, but I also experienced and integrated that one must not count on individuals and good will, but have a political interest in order to ensure that the project lives in the long term. People are quite resigned about accessibility here, so I really need to demonstrate this map can help and so work with the administrations.
What’s the future for the project
My goal is to have a political support of the project. It was difficult to move on from this because of my position (being employed in an agency that could have supported the project), now my position will help I think, being independent worker again, so I will do what I can to achieve this.
Here is a video which showed the map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfZWbjUAN2g