I find the pictures below inspiring. In many ways, the action of participatory mapping is where the real added value lies. The pictures are from TRMA and IFAD and IAPAD (Vietnam, Fiji and Kenya for the latter). They depict scenes from the Sudan, Botswana, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia, Fiji and the Philippines. What is striking, however, is the lack of women doing the actual mapping in these photographs.
Please send me additional pictures, I’d love to include them, especially of women focus groups and projects from South America. Kindly see my previous post for pictures of social maps.
iRevolutions 
I noticed the same thing about the lack of women. Regardless, these photographs do seem pretty inspiring. When I was living in Kenya, the people in my village didn’t understand they were looking at a map of their small town when it was right in front of them. After a day or two, they started to understand how to read the maps and eventually collect data to produce some interesting results.
Cool pix, Patrick! It looks like the mapping gets pretty intricate. We were taught how to do community participatory mapping in the Peace Corps and we were told to always try to work with men and women separately. It’s interesting that sometimes the results can be very different. In addition, you essentially prompt a discussion about gender roles among your participants. It’s not a cure-all but it’s a start.
That’s interesting you got community mapping training in the Peace Corps, Helen. Where were you located? I was an SED/ICT volunteer a few years back in Kenya and didn’t get much training beyond the cultural and language components.
Hello while I endorse your initiative I would like to call your attention that you are in breach of copyrights. Some of these pictures are protected by copyright. You are requested to seek permission from the copyrightholders or remove them from your blog. Specifically please remove the images from Vietnam, Fiji and Kenya.
Many thanks
Giacomo Rambaldi
copyright holder
Patrick
Check out this post from the JumpStart mapping project in the West Bank, for some photos of women engaged in mapping. You’re free to post the photos here too 🙂
http://jumpstart-mapping.blogspot.com/2009/02/ready-to-move-north.html
-Mikel
Thanks Mikel!