The last week has been one of the darkest in South Africa’s recent history with xenophobic-inspired violence making headlines not just at home, but across the globe. In an effect to help police and charitable organisations coordinate their efforts to stem the violent outbreaks and deal with their aftermath, Kenyan non-profit Ushahidi has partnered with pan-African tech news and analysis site iAfrikan to create an online reporting tool that people can use to log incidents.
The Report Xenophobia site lets members of the public report past, current or potential incidents via email, Twitter, a mobi site and using the Ushahidi apps for Android and iOS. Users are encouraged to include information on the location, date and time, and details of the incident and to include supporting imagery if possible. To report incidents using Twitter people can use the hashtag #ReportX.
When reporting incidents using the website or mobi site users can select the location on an interactive map, and other users of the service can add comments or up-/down-vote existing reports. All reports are checked by an administrator who tries to verify them before they go live on the site in an effort to limit false reporting and fear mongering, and submissions via email, the web or the apps are anonymous.
Find out more here.
