Join us for an Uchaguzi Kenya Community Meetup

Kenyans take to the polls for General Elections on 8th August 2017. Ushahidi, Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) and Infonet invite you to join us on Friday, 12th May 2017, at the iHub, on the 6th floor of Senteu Plaza, between 5:00 p.m and 7:30 p.m where we will share our plans to help Kenya have a free, fair, peaceful and credible election through the Uchaguzi Kenya 2017 partnership.  Please sign up for the event here.

Ushahidi started during an election crisis in Kenya. Since then elections in general and Kenyan elections in particular have been an important part of our work. Ushahidi has been a key partner in citizen centered election protection initiatives around the world from the United States to Nigeria and beyond.

We recognize that as a technology company we would not have the level of positive influence we should have in a general election without building a broader based coalition with governance, election, security, gender, partnership experts etc. As we like to say at Ushahidi, technology is only 10% of a successful deployment, the other 90% people. 

In 2010 Ushahidi together with our colleagues at CRECO, Infonet and Hivos convened the Uchaguzi Partnership with the aim of increasing transparency and accountability in Kenya’s referendum of that year, through active citizen participation in the electoral cycle. For the purposes of Uchaguzi Project, the electoral process is perceived as a permanent and recurrent cycle, in which every stage, and not just the Election Day, counts. Since the 2010 referendum, the Uchaguzi Partnership has deployed for general elections in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Kenya. This is beyond observation, beyond monitoring, this is election protection. 

Uchaguzi Kenya 2013 has been the most successful Uchaguzi deployment to date. This success was built on the strengths of partnerships beyond the Uchaguzi conveners. We worked with a wide range of partners including UWIANO, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Map Kibera and others. Our planning for 2017 is at an advanced stage as organisations, Kenyans and friends of Kenya, unite and work together to ensure Kenya has a free, fair, credible and peaceful general election. Uchaguzi is working in partnership with the iHub, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, UWIANO, The Women’s Situation Room, the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu, The Election Observation Group, Map Kibera, Connected Business Initiative, Kenya Humanitarian Partnership Teams, Open Data for Elections Working Group, and others. We invite you to join us as an individual or as an organisation.

All these organisations coordinate through the Uchaguzi Platform run from the Uchaguzi Situation Room hosted by our good friends at the iHub. We need you and your skills for our situation room! Please join us on Friday to hear more about how you can plug in.

During Friday’s meeting we will discuss Uchaguzi's plans for the upcoming elections, demo the Uchaguzi platform and engage in brainstorming discussions on the following themes:

Technology

Local Outreach and Training

Translation/Localization

Social Media

Analytics and Research

Those interested in participating should sign up on this meetup event page . This is the first of many community working group meetings to be held in the coming weeks.

In case of any questions, feel free to get in touch with us.

See you there