Internet marketing company Quirk is developing an application using Google Earth and Google Maps to monitor the wave of xenophobic violence that has swept the country.
The site, www.unitedforafrica.co.za, is based on a Kenyan service, www.ushahidi.com, which was set up following the trouble that followed that country's general elections earlier this year. Unitedforafrica is due to go live over the course of this weekend.
Quirk marketing manager Tim Shier describes Unitedforafrica as "Web 2.0 personified" as it is a mash-up of the Google offerings combined with social media.
"The site will have the Google Maps layer embedded in it and the Google Earth satellite photos will be available for download. The social media aspect comes in from the ability of ordinary people to upload photographs and comments when they report anything they have seen," he notes.
Shier says information on the site will initially be populated with data gleaned from the general media and press.
Useful tool
Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan national living in Johannesburg, is a member of Ushahibi and has been working with Quirk on its site. She says the Web site can help cover gaps in reporting by mainstream media by supplementing what is being reported with views from the ground.
She says it can also function as an early warning system to keep track of violence and incidents visually and over time. Finally, it can be a good source of information about where to go for help and where to send help, she adds.
"Based on our experience, I think it would be a stretch to say that we helped end the violence (or that any similar tool can end the violence)... the tool is more of an information gathering and dissemination tool that can enable, for example, NGOs [non-government organisations] and other organisations to work more effectively to address the crisis," Okolloh says.
The xenophobic violence erupted on 11 May at the northern Johannesburg township of Alexandra. It rapidly spread throughout the Gauteng province and then to KwaZulu-Natal and other parts of the country, including the Western Cape. Since then, 42 people have lost their lives and an estimated 25 000 have been displaced.
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