A quick shout out, holiday greetings and thanks to our wonderful network of supporters:
Green Map System is delighted to share the good news that the Open Green Map interactive mapping platform that you help to support through your Global Giving donations has just won its third award in 2011!
We won the NetSquared Invitational, an award that comes with a little cash and plenty of help for our ongoing development, which is really great because we have big plans for the year ahead!! A project of TechSoup, NetSquared is focused on the intersection of technology and social impact. Their soon-to-launch new website will feature our video and help us reach a diverse new audience, too.
2011 also brought other honors - we are recipients of one of the very first Victor J Papanek Social Design Awards - this honor features the Open Green Map in exhibitions in Vienna and New York, a book and other outcomes.
And thank you again to Treehugger.com! We received the Best of Green 2011 for our mobile app in the Science and Technology category (we were also honored in their tourism category in 2010).
Today, there are more than:
• 60 countries involved
• 785 cities, towns and campuses with locally-led Green Map projects
• 500 uniquely designed printed editions and
• 250 Open Green Maps, linked by
• 150 Green Map Icons
Awards are an important part of our outreach strategy and a testament to the value of our work and impacts on communities worldwide through engaged mapmaking. The NetSquared Invitational is the 8th award for Open Green Map and one of 23 international honors to Green Map System overall.
We invite you to explore Open Green Map's 19,300+ locally charted sites and consider using this remarkable social mapping resource to chart progress toward sustainability in your community, too! Of course many communities in China are opting to create beautifully designed printed Green Maps, to ensure that people without computers can benefit from these fresh perspectives on familiar places. Two blogs linked below provide insights into our program, on the ground in China and New Jersey.
Let's make 2012 a transformational year together. Along with this good news, we're enclosing our gratitude for all you have done for us and our best wishes to all for a healthy, resilient, joyful and ecologically-sound year to come.
Links:
Hello to Green Map supporters! We continue to make steady progress and are excited to share brief updates from the region including and around China.
In September, we topped the 60 country milestone. Among those newly registered is the first Tibetan Green Map project. It was initiated by the Tibetan Village Project, a non-profit, non-political organization dedicated to promoting sustainable development while preserving the rich cultural heritage of Tibet. Tibet is our network’s 10th Asian country!
Japan’s Exhibition
This summer, a Green Map exhibition was created for the prestigious Zenrin Museum in Kita-kyushu, located just across the East China Sea from Shanghai in Japan. Several Chinese Green Maps were displayed amongst the Green Maps created across Asia and around the world. Lectures and interactive workshops rounded out the visitors’ experience. Youth and families even took time to explore Kita-Kyushu and create their own Green Maps. More about the exhibition is linked below.
Our Social Mapping Platform
Gradually evolving with new features and information, we updated the “About” section of Open Green Map. Fresh EPA students at Guangzhou Mega University Centre pitched in and updated the Chinese interface. This helps us attract new participants from China on a regular basis, with Xinhui, Jiangmen City ( ) - Guangdong Province joining us today.
Blogging from HeFei CHINA
We love seeing the blog posts by dedicated young people like the group of green urban planning students from Hefei University of Technology who shared their method of mapmaking in August. They went out around different parts o the city charting green living sites, taking time to interview citizens, including residents of retirement homes, about their environmental and future visions.
We appreciate how they enriched their mapmaking with in-depth interviews and discussions and we are looking forward to seeing the outcomes! More information about their experience (in Chinese) and and photographs are linked below.
Thank you as always for your support as together, we map our way to be more beautiful and healthy world.
Links:
Thanks to all our Global Giving supporters! We are pleased to share introductions to the two newest registered Chinese Green Map projects.
The Green Urban Planning Group of Hefei University of Technology in AnHui Province says “ with persistence and passion, we are planning a garden-city future for the world as a whole”. With communities everywhere beginning to address food security, biodiversity loss, localization and health through gardens and urban farms, we appreciate their outlook. We’re excited to see how Green Mapmaking helps them as they set out to explore and resolve urban-rural issues while building their professional skills and community resiliency.
In Changsa Hunan Province, the first Green Map by AIESEC is underway. An international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential, AIESEC is one of the world’s largest youth organizations with a presence in 850 universities in 90 countries. Motivation for this project originated from efforts to protect the Xiangjiang, the largest river in the province. To do this, the team has created 4 groups - made up of teenagers, young adults, environmentalists and foreign volunteers - and will be testing out different mapmaking techniques with each. We hope these pilots lead to more engagement in the region and throughout the AIESEC network.
Find the profile of each project linked below.
We also have the following food-related Green Map projects in China in the process of registering:
In Harbin, there will soon be a campus Green Map at the Northeast Agricultural University China. The 98-year-old Green Volunteers Association of Northeast Agricultural University is applying its experience with environmental protection advocacy to this effort. Beijing will soon have an organic food and farm Green Map, thanks to the Jane Goodall Institute Roots and Shoots Youth Group. We are delighted to have this large network getting involved! Also in Beijing, our long-time project with Friends of Nature is continuing its work on transportation issues with cycling Green Maps – watch for the new edition later this year!
Open Green Map Update
Right now, the Fresh EPA students at Guangzhou Mega University Centre are translating the updated “About” section of the Open Green Map platform. When this is complete, we will be doing more outreach as there are still just 2 published Open Green Maps and 2 in development from China (Taiwan, for example, has 9). We will create a media alert with links to the how to video, the website’s flow chart (attached) and more. Thank you again for your support - and have a great season!
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating or by subscribing to this project's RSS feed.
Promote This Project On Your Site
Get Updates via EmailProjects on globalgiving.org undergo compliance checks to ensure they have a bona fide charitable purpose and meet applicable laws relating to international philanthropy. Organizations listed as partners do not necessarily endorse or support any particular project listed on globalgiving.org. The GlobalGiving Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization (EIN: 30-0108263).
GlobalGiving
1023 15th Street, NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 232-5784 Fax: (202) 315-2558
Contact us
