Forwarding the response from HOTOSM management here. We appreciate the response and actions moving forward.
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Tyler Radford <tyler.radf...@hotosm.org> Date: Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 01:31 Subject: Re: [hotosm-membership] A Call to Correct Narratives about Geospatial Work To: Mikko Tamura <mikko.tam...@gmail.com> CC: Blake Girardot <bgirar...@gmail.com>, Membership <members...@hotosm.org>, arnalie faye vicario <afsvica...@gmail.com>, <osm.pilipi...@gmail.com> Dear friends, Since we heard about this situation, we’ve taken steps to clarify what happened in the production process, and to speak directly with the individuals who raised this query. This email summarizes three things. Firstly, it recaps HOT’s core values, which drive all of us. Secondly, it reviews and acknowledges the gaps in HOT’s staff team with respect to the production of a video which does not fully represent HOT’s values. Thirdly, it discusses steps to ensure inclusion in the HOT community, and thanks both OSM Philippines and HOT Philippines for their collaboration. Our core beliefs: HOT’s Core values <https://www.hotosm.org/strategic-plan> are collaboration, volunteerism, inclusivity, independence, people first, local first, openness & transparency, innovation, and hacktivism. The whole premise behind HOT is that local comes first, that the world’s map is created by the world’s people, and that humanitarian action is local. Part of HOT’s vision statement <https://www.hotosm.org/strategic-plan> is that everyone can engage and contribute to the map. This extends to the staff team - to make the best decisions that support the objectives of many diverse OSM communities, the HOT communications and staff teams should represent the diversity of those communities. Unfortunately, the final cut of this video does not reflect the diversity and core values of HOT. Video production: The video is produced by AWS, and whilst HOT was not responsible for producing or editing it, we are represented in the video and we need to review why and how a video was produced which is not in line with our core values, and to understand what steps we can take to stop this happening in the future. The video does not align with who we are and how we communicate about our work. This statement is not an “excuse”, but we hope this detail will help to explain why and how this video was produced, and what we’ve learned. After completing an internal review, there are three core things that contributed to this outcome: - Video content: the overall purpose of the video was to showcase HOT's technology. This is because the technology is supported by AWS, and their Now Go Build series showcases the technologies that they support. While this film does showcase the technology, it does not fully acknowledge the complexity of the local context it is sitting in including years of mapping work prior to HOT’s current project in the Philippines. There are aspects of the story which are not in line with what HOT communicates, for example references to medieval maps. - Filming process and location: having spoken with HOT Philippines staff who were present during filming, feedback was given to the production team around better representing the OSM Philippines community’s work and including other community voices in the film for example filming with the Local Government Unit. Unfortunately the pieces on the OSM Philippines role did not get included in the final edit, nor did several other suggestions. - HOT Team resources: we need to acknowledge the HOT Team has been far too stretched with too few people taking on too much work for a long time. This was particularly true at the time of planning and filming in January-February 2020. At the time of filming, HOT’s entire communications team was one consultant two days a week, who had a huge number of additional responsibilities. This film was made in far too short timelines, and decisions were rushed and not-well thought through. When the team is resourced like this, things slip through the cracks. What is shown in this video does not reflect HOT’s actual team composition in the Philippines, for example our current HOT Philippines team is made up of only women and one man from the LGBT community. Our Microgrants have supported mapping in the Philippines for LGBT, mental health, gender and disability inclusion with MentalHealthaWHEREness <https://www.hotosm.org/projects/mental-health-awhereness-philippines-reducing-stigma-and-increasing-access-to-mental-health-services/>, MapBeks <https://twitter.com/mapbeks/status/1301537665796300803?s=20>, and Action for Resilient Communities <https://www.hotosm.org/updates/eight-new-communities-selected-for-2019-hot-microgrants/> all receiving grants in the past few rounds. Our biggest lesson learned from our team is we did not have one person managing this video process end to end: a lot of people were involved in just a tiny portion each, and there was a lot of transition in the staff team. One of these people is the Country Manager, who is represented in the video and was replaced one day after this filming happened. If this video had been filmed just a few days later, frustratingly, this would have resulted in a very different video. This video does not fully represent the actual role and work of HOT in the Philippines, and the work of OSM in the Philippines. As a staff team, we need to address these learnings with process and stronger guidelines and training. We need to make sure we have a stronger role in the creation of, and review of stories. We need to increase our team size to have the capacity to do this - and we do now have a Senior Comms Manager in place who will take things like this on. We also need to promote stronger dialogue in HOT Community programs. Going forward, as HOT sets up it’s regional hubs, the regional hub Communications Managers and Community Managers will be responsible for increased dialogue with OSM community leaders, ensuring HOT communications supports and contributes to the goals of local OSM communities. Actions taken: In Progress: - We have discussed this with Amazon to request that significant edits are made to the video, and that the video is taken down while these edits are being made. We are waiting to hear follow up on this and are actively working with our Amazon partners to achieve this. Completed: - This video is not publicised by HOT & removed on HOT public accounts - We now have a full-time Comms lead who will take responsibility for end to end review on items like this going forward. Please reach out to her ( gihan.hassan...@hotosm.org) with any questions or ideas you have. - Appoint local leadership in country and regional offices - more of our country teams are now led by nationals of that country (Indonesia, Philippines, Tanzania). All core HOT Philippines team members are women or members of the LGBT community. HOT regional staff will be nationals of countries being served by our hubs. - Promote the diversity of voices and opinions throughout HOT - 50% of HOT’s Senior Management team are women, and 44.7% of staff are women with a goal to reach 50% by end-2021 - Global gender lead appointed in July 2020. Please reach out to her ( rachel.vann...@hotosm.org) with any questions or ideas you have. To do: - Take a stronger role in the production process for future communications pieces of this nature, including negotiating with our partners in advance on ensuring we have final input into the story arc and communications that depict HOT. This is notoriously difficult to do with journalism, and something we need to increase our experience in, and the time that we dedicate to it. - Engage with the HOT community to produce a Communications Team strategy both globally and for regional hubs and country offices. HOT Communications is, and should be, a platform to promote community voices. Currently, much of HOT Comms focuses on promoting OSM Community stories and efforts are made to provide media/speaking opportunities to local communities. However, we also need to focus more on engagement around ideas and approach, not just updates on achievements. HOT Communications teams and Community Teams need to work closer together, which will be achieved in HOT’s regional hub set-up which will have both a Community Manager and a Communications Manager in each regional hub. - Provide communications training to HOT global staff team. - The HOT Code of Conduct specifically refers to individual behaviours. The OSM Philippines community have suggested, and we support, that the HOT Governance Working Group could review this with a view to: - Updating it to refer to collective behaviours for example elevating community voices as a commitment of all HOT community members and staff members. - Including explicit commitment to anti-racist and anti-sexist values. All staff and community members must commit to this CoC. We would like to thank the OSM Philippines and HOT Philippines teams for their productive discussions and recommendations around this topic, and are invested in working together to improve these efforts going forward. We greatly value our dialogue, and understand that this video was damaging to historically marginalized groups. Many of the suggestions raised during the discussion with the Philippines community are included in the actions that are listed above. We are all working together towards a common goal: inclusion in OpenStreetMap, and a world map that represents all the world’s people. If anyone reading this would like to provide further comment to HOT’s staff team, please feel free to reach out to HOT’s Executive Director tyler.radf...@hotosm.org, Director of Partnerships & Community rebecca.fi...@hotosm.org, Senior Communications Manager gihan.hassan...@hotosm.org, or Gender Lead rachel.vann...@hotosm.org. Best, Tyler on behalf of the HOT management team *Tyler Radford* Executive Director tyler.radf...@hotosm.org @TylerSRadford *Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team* *Using OpenStreetMap for Humanitarian Response & Economic Development* web <http://hotosm.org/> | twitter <https://twitter.com/hotosm> | facebook <https://www.facebook.com/hotosm> | donate <https://hotosm.org/donate> On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 1:01 PM Mikko Tamura <mikko.tam...@gmail.com> wrote: > Too many lives have been lost due to the pandemic not knowing what they > actually contributed to the world. Let us not be like that and give credit > where credit is due. <virtual hugs to everyone> > > On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 12:49 AM Blake Girardot <bgirar...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 12:14 PM arnalie faye vicario >> >> <afsvica...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> > Encourage one another to speak up, and take time to listen. Reflect. >> Good leadership does not cre fear. >> >> > >> >> >> >> Dear friends, >> >> >> >> Thank you and OSM PH for making sure this gets addressed, corrected >> >> and we do what we can to avoid it in the future. >> >> >> >> I encourage you all to post the OSM PH statement to your social media >> >> and mention folks who will amplify the message, and amplify the ones >> >> you see. >> >> >> >> Everyone I know should read the OSM PH's statement so we can all >> >> better recognize, avoid and call out these colonialist narratives >> >> going forward. >> >> >> >> Respectfully, >> >> Blake >> >> >> >> -- >> >> ---------------------------------------------------- >> >> Blake Girardot >> >> OSM Wiki - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Bgirardot >> >> HOTOSM Member - https://hotosm.org/users/blake_girardot >> >> skype: jblakegirardot >> >> >> >> -- >> >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to membership+unsubscr...@hotosm.org. >> >> >> >> -- > > > *MIKKO L. TAMURA* > *Lead Advocate* > *Map Beks Initiative* > > *Externals Head* > *Pilipinas Chubs X Chasers* > > *Volunteer Mapper* > *OpenStreetMap Philippines* > > *Contact Number: +639173290655* > > > > -- To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscr...@hotosm.org. -- Maning Sambale (mobile)
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