Ushahidi in Kyrgyzstan

You can follow the Ushahidi in Kyrgyzstan efforts at @savekg. There is a lot going on!

You are all seventeen kinds of awesome, and we have fully funded this project! (It doesn't show on the widget because $100 came via amazon) Thanks so much to everyone who donated!

Watch this space for project updates.

Ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com/) is an information-sharing platform based on mobile technology, used to aggregate information among individuals and communities in crisis situations. It was used in Kenya to report post-election violence to help individuals avoid conflict areas. It was used in Haiti to help track and rescue earthquake survivors and then track response and recovery efforts. Ushahidi was deployed in Sudan to monitor the elections, and in Chile for earthquake response.

Ushahidi is now being used in Kyrgyzstan, to track fighting and slow the cycle of violence. Much of the conflict in Kyrgyzstan has stemmed from rumors, as communities respond violently to rumored atrocities. Sharing real information in real time will debunk inflammatory anecdotes and allow individuals to avoid dangerous areas.

Thus far, the Ushahidi deployment has been totally community developed and community funded, by a dedicated team who want to see the violence in Kyrgyzstan stop. It is running at http://www.aikol.kg/.

In preparation for the referendum, the Ushahidi team needs to scale up. They plan to establish a separate Ushahidi platform for referendum monitoring. They want to train NGOs on how to use Ushahidi, educate the media about the platform so it can be used for reporting, and print materials for individuals and polling places.

These additional activities are beyond the level that the Ushahidi team can pay out of pocket. The team urgently needs $564 for scale-up activities before the constitutional referendum.

The Ushahidi platform is up and running. We are fundraising in order to train NGOs on how to use it, and raise awareness of the site. Since it's crowd-sourced, the more people who use it, the better it gets. That's why we need the training.