Mapping-related request - UNHCR

[Andrej Verity]

Hi all,

Greetings from remote Prince Edward Island in Canada!

There was an activist ion request just submitted from UNHCR - see below. Seems like a request to help them map data they have been storing in a WP site/database.

Any interested parties?

"My name is Nathalie Mosca <mo...@unhcr.org>, and I’m in charge of the UNHCR Solidarity Map.

We are in the process of changing the format of the map to make it more user-friendly, interactive, and accessible by external users.

The purpose of our map is to add all types of initiatives and projects that deal with the cause of refugees to show that the cause of refugees is the matter of everyone and not that of only one organization. 

Given that there are currently 2276 initiatives/projects on the map for which we enter a set of information (status: Published/Not Published, Location (Mail address), Name Displayed (one sentence), Link to website and/or journal article), Duration of Operation (dates), Contact person/email, Background/description, Type of Organization (NPO, NGO, CSO, FBO, etc.), Type of Assistance to Refugees (Livelihood, Shelter, Education or other), Additional Information (foreign languages, iframe code for videos, etc.), we need to take into account the traffic limit of map loads and the resulting loading time in the choice of a new software/online support database. 

While we, at UNHCR, enter all relevant types of initiatives/projects and other events into WordPress for further displaying on the Solidarity Map, we also invite external users to submit details of their initiatives/projects which we then check before adding them to our map. 

Given that the data for each initiative/project are entered into WordPress, the first issue and question would be to export the data from WordPress to a new interactive mapping support database/software.

The UNHCR Solidarity Map contains different categories:

All Categories

Cities Statement

German Coalition

One-Time Events

Regions

Story

Uncategorized

World Refugee Day

World Tour

The Regions category contains eight subcategories: Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, International, LATAM (Latin America), MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and North America. 

One major modification that we would like to make is to show and distinguish all types of events, namely external initiatives/projects, World Refugee, World Tour, and Cities Statements so that external users can search, find, and view events more easily.

Regarding the search functionality, it would be nice if external users could search through at least two manners, i.e. by event AND/OR by location.

To make it more user-friendly, interactive, and accessible by external users, we would like to have the Solidarity Map easily accessible on mobile and desktop in any browsers. Given that the purpose is also to share on social media, it would be good if the map could be embedded into websites or shared on social media sites.

Thank you very much again for your time and advice.

Kind regards,

Nathalie

"

—

Andrej Verity

Digital Services, Information Management Branch (IMB)

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

ver...@un.org +1-646-642-2836 Skype: andrejverity