The UN Mapper of the month - February 2023

Sajeevini Sivajothy is our Mapper of the month for February 2023. Sajeevini is a Geography student, passionate about GIS, at the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Batticaloa, who contacted us a few months ago to organise a training course for students at her university. During the training, Sajeevini was very active and committed to the involvement of the participants. We asked her to tell us her story.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi!  I am Sajeevini from Badulla, Sri Lanka.  I am pursuing my Bachelor of Arts in Geography at the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Batticaloa. I am a final year student.

How did you know about UN Mappers?
A few months ago, I came across an advertisement on Facebook concerning a mapathon by UN Mappers. Our lecturer, Mr. Suthakaran, also mentioned it. I sent an email to UN Mappers to organize a training together. Through this course, I learnt about all the tools of OSM and JOSM and learned about the work of UN Mappers and their collaborative mapping efforts in support of peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Thus, I had the opportunity to join the community and contribute as much as possible.

I am really thankful to UN Mappers!

When do you map?
It has almost become part of my daily routine. Every day I dedicate at least an hour to mapping.

Do you enjoy mapping? Why?
I really love mapping. Maps are a great tool for disaster response and urban planning and they give me the opportunity to learn about other places in the world. Moreover, I would like to become a GIS specialist. So mapping is part of my career and I enjoy sharing my knowledge with my friends. For these reasons, I am eager to learn more about mapping. UN Mappers projects and mapathons are very appealing to put my skills into practice.

Mapping is a turning point in my life.

In which countries do you map the most?
So far, I have been mapping mostly in Sri Lanka, Somalia and Bangladesh; and hope to give my contribution in other countries in the future.