Finished!

The Gaza field teams have finished their seven weeks of hard work and they've collected a whole lot of data! 13,706 road segments to be exact, and 2,344 points of interest.

Jeff Haack and Project Coordinator Montaser Bakroun review the data
with mappers Abd Alkareem Aloul and Mohammed Elhessy

Mohammed Elhessy (pictured above) wrote a small software program to help keep track of all the teams work. It enables the guys to run searches and see which teams completed each area and other information about their work. The energy that these guys devoted to this project has been fantastic. They've gone above and beyond what was asked of them.

Having finished the project it was time for some fun on the beach. A special thanks to our kite-making friends in Jordan!

Mapping in An Nuseirat

The "Shebab" (young men) are in the middle area this week, the last area remaining to be mapped. Things are on schedule and going great! We look forward to finishing up this project, and all the guys think it's pretty cool what we've achieved.

Mapping in An Nuseirat

Moving South

With Gaza City and North Gaza 98% complete, our field teams have begun working around Khan Younis and Rafah in the south. The quality of their work has been great, and they've not only collected road names and points of interest, but other detailed information including surface type, width, and number of lanes.

Work in the border areas and in certain difficult neighborhoods has been a concern, but we've had no major safety issues to date. Additionally, as the project has progressed, our mapping teams have grown more and more adept. While we continue to map all urban areas on foot, one of our top mappers is surveying large agricultural areas by car. He also identifies missing data and follows up in those areas. The teams are going strong, and we hope to finish by the end of May!

Ekramy and Mohammed Inputting Field Data