Youth Action Mapper App

Youth Action Mapper app

SIPS funded Rachel Azafrani (SFS ’17) to travel to Liberia during the summer of 2016 and help aid the development of the Youth Action Mapper (YAM) application to increase the participation of young people in community planning and work. YAM is a GIS-based application that allows youth to map and search for projects and opportunities for volunteerism in their local communities. The app connected youth to community opportunities, empowering them from within their neighborhoods.

During Rachel’s time in Liberia she helped the app gain over 200 initial downloads and gathered the feedback from users of the app to help improve it. Rachel not only communicated with the youth using this app during her summer, but also made key partnerships and connections on an organizational level – she spoke with members of the Liberian government and the United Nations about the app, as well as the heads of various nonprofits about project outreach. The app rollout was a success for Rachel and her partners, and even after Rachel’s return to Georgetown she has continued to work on implementing improvements to YAM from the insight she has gathered from those around her.