How Can Cadasta Help?

Dear Friends of Cadasta, 

I hope you and your families are doing well during this difficult time around the world. I know that we are all figuring out how to adjust our work to accommodate our families, new restrictions, and quickly changing circumstances.

Last week I sent a message to our community mailing list summarizing Cadasta’s response to the impact of COVID-19 on our work. All Cadasta staff and trainers are actively taking steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by working from home and following the World Health Organization (WHO) and United States Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidelines. 

I want to reiterate Cadasta’s commitment to supporting your work and mission during this critical time. We are aware that most of you have suspended on-site partner training, data collection, and other activities in the field. Even if groups of people cannot be trained together or data collectors cannot do their community work, there are other important activities that we can support.

Cadasta staff will be reaching out to all partners in the coming week to understand how the spread of COVID-19 is affecting your organization’s work and what we can do to better support you at this time. 

In the meantime, here are a few ways we can support you at this time:

  • COVID-19 Disaster planning resources. As you may know, the Cadasta Platform your organization is using is built on ESRI technology. This same ESRI technology is being used globally to inform and coordinate response efforts. Examples of these tools include Cadasta’s COVID-19 site, Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Operations Dashboard and WHO’s Emergency Dashboard. If your organization is considering using the Cadasta Platform tools (Survey123, Web Maps, Operations Dashboard) to support the COVID-19 response in your country, please let your Program Specialist know. Cadasta is available to support your efforts with remote technical assistance. In addition to Cadasta’s support resources, Esri’s Disaster Response Program is available to support your response efforts. Together, Cadasta and Esri can support your organization’s emergency operations with data, software, configurable applications, and technical assistance.
  • Remote train-the-trainer sessions by videoconference. Most of us prefer in-person training. However, we are willing to work with you to train your trainers remotely if they have access to reliable internet. This can include training sessions for mobile data collection and working with data on the platform. If you want to discuss this and see what topics we can cover, please send us a message at help@cadasta.org.
  • Online training materials. We are in the process of building a new Partner Training and Knowledge Portal that will provide our partners with on-demand resources at any time, including on-line training modules. We are still in the early stages of this, but in the meantime, you can access a range of resources and information at faq.cadasta.org.  
  • Esri video library. There are many learning and troubleshooting resources from Esri you can access at the Esri Academy and at Learn ArcGIS. Access to these resources is free to all Cadasta partners through their ESRI login credentials.
  • Data migration. Many of our partners have existing data they would like to move into Cadasta’s GIS environment in order to use our dashboards and other platform resources. This is a good time to do that. Please contact us if you would like to discuss this option.
  • Project Planning, Design, and Agreements. We are available to support your pre-data collection activities so that you are ready when it is possible to be in the field again. 
  • Partner Communications and Marketing stories. We want to help tell your story. What is your project trying to do and why? Have you seen any results? What are some successes you would like to share? Would your work benefit from storytelling and communications training? If so, reach out to our communications team. We are available to work with you to share your impact stories through text, photos, and videos and/or to schedule a training. 
  • Data Analysis and Visualization. Many of you already have your data collected and need some additional support to analyze, visualize, and present that data to public audiences. If this is a good time for you, reach out here.

Cadasta’s success is linked to your success. We are all in this together, so please do not hesitate to reach out to me at acoughenour@cadasta.org or your Cadasta point of contact with updates, questions, or requests for support. 

With warm regards, 

Amy Coughenour Betancourt 

Chief Executive Officer, Cadasta Foundation