HeakeSpeak Community Crowd-Mapping Initiative

Powered by HeakeSpeakSOS App (Ushahidi Platform)

The HeakeSpeak Community Crowd-Mapping Initiative, a community-powered infrastructure for accessible, real-time reporting and inclusive decision-making - a rapid community data-capture, crowd mapping deployment that transforms lived experience into data before, during and after emergencies, built using the HeakeSpeakSOS App on the Ushahidi platform․

In line with HeakeSpeak's goals around accessible literacy, inclusive design, and disability justice, the project seeks to support people with disabilities and other people in historically marginalized communities to document barriers, harms, needs, and resources as a means of equitable planning and response․

The HeakeSpeakSOS App

A Community Reporting & Equity Mapping Platform

The Initiative is powered by the HeakeSpeakSOS App, built on the open-source Ushahidi platform, a reporting and mapping platform that enables residents, educators, advocates, emergency responders, and community leaders to submit and view real-time reports on:

  • Accessibility barriers

  • Abuse, discrimination, or neglect

  • Emergency response gaps

  • Health and access to services

  • Education system issues

  • Hate incidents

  • Immigration enforcement impacts

  • Police interactions

  • Community resource needs

Reports can be submitted through web-based forms that are mobile-friendly and compliant with the best practices for multilingual user interfaces and accessible digital content (WCAG and ADA compliance)․

Access Gap Mapping

The initiative crowdsources and maps physical and digital accessibility barriers in:

  • Broken curb cuts or inaccessible routes

  • Shelter access limitations

  • Communication breakdowns during emergencies

  • The absence of ASL and language translation

  • Digital service exclusions

The mapping can also support local emergency management, equity audits, municipal planning, and community advocacy․

Disaster Resource & Service Visualization

The HeakeSpeakSOS platform also maps critical community assets and identified gaps:

  • Accessible shelters

  • Food distribution sites

  • Charging stations

  • Medical and mental health services

  • Community resilience hubs

This layered approach provides agencies and the community with a dynamic view of what exists and what is in high demand․

Why It Matters

The HeakeSpeak Community Crowd-Mapping Initiative:

  • More transparency and community participation

  • Surfaces inequities and unmet needs in real time

  • Eases data-informed, equity-centered resource allocation

  • Strengthens community resilience infrastructure

  • Increases neglected voices in customary planning systems

Through natural disasters, public health emergencies, civil rights issues, and daily struggles for access to physical spaces, apps like the HeakeSpeakSOS App enable communities to document what is happening and advocate for solution-based change grounded in lived experience․

HeakeSpeak does not merely map incidents․

  • We map patterns․

  • We map barriers․

  • We map resilience․

    To partner, collaborate, volunteer or support deployment in your community: Please contact George Heake: george@heakespeak․org

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Connecting Everyone, Everywhere, In Every Space․