Russia: Using The Ushahidi Platform To Reach Rural Areas

[This is a guest blog post by Gregory Asmolov, an intern at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, contributing editor to “Runet Echo” and a Russian language blogger. He and Alexey Sidorenko deployed the Ushahidi platform Russian Fires.ru. This deployment is the second for the Help Map Team] The emergency situation that was caused by unprecedented wildfires in the Western Russia and was followed by the first Russian Ushahidi deployment “Help Map” is far behind. However in Russia, a state of emergency is a common situation, especially, when it’s winter. During Russian winter many people suffer from the lack of heating, electricity and other support systems. Russian liberal newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” approached the “Help Map” team and suggested to launch a new crowdsourcing project to address the problems of people who are affected by cold weather. As consequence, a new platform “Holoda.info” was born. A co-founder of “Help Map” Alexey Sidorenko developed a new special design for Ushahidi platform that took into account the previous experience with “Help Map”. The visual side of the new platform also reflects the atmosphere of Russian winter. The platform is based on the new version of Ushahidi and includes several modifications that were made by Russian developers. The first goal of the platform is raising awareness about the problems of people who are affected by winter, especially in the distant regions. Such transparency should contribute to effort of holding government accountable and push local authorities to solve the problems as soon as possible. However, in the places, where the authorities fail to provide appropriate response, we hope that the platform will contribute to solution of problems by people themselves through facilitation of mutual aid. Therefore, the platform includes categories as “Need help” and “Want to help”. The “Help Map” team was planning to launch platform after New Year, however the ice rain that paralyzed Moscow, Russian major airports and left hundreds of thousands people stranded on New Year eve, forced us to do it earlier than we planned. So far, the platform has received about seventy messages, and was covered by several major Russian media outlets. Making the platform effective is a special challenge since the project has a different nature comparing to “Help Map” and many Ushahidi deployments. It addresses not a crisis that suddenly emerged, but a permanent “common crisis” situation, that has less attention from media and government. Our main goal is expanding the range of sources and reaching people in remote areas. We are also looking for the most effective mechanisms that will not only cover the situation, but engage authorities, various organizations and people in providing solutions. At the same time, the “Help Map” team continues to work with the first “Russian Wildfires” platform and make preparations for the next summer.