Mapping that matters – volunteering with MSF

Mapping that matters - volunteering with MSF

2026 marks the third year of ACT's global partnership with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

To date, ACT with the support of Ardonagh colleagues, has raised £250,000 in aid of MSF's incredible work. But there are more ways to get behind MSF than fundraising alone.

Operating in over 70 countries worldwide, MSF provides lifesaving medical relief and care in times of crisis and where health infrastructure is chronically inadequate. Maternity wards, vaccine programmes, mental health initiatives and emergency assistance, MSF supports communities when it matters most.

The Missing Maps project offers a unique yet simple way to contribute to MSF's operations. By donating your time to map out areas of the world that aren't properly recorded, you can help MSF teams on the ground reach people in need and deliver care effectively.

We joined the Price Forbes team at a Missing Maps volunteering session to share what it's all about.

Why mapping?

In many cases, MSF field teams must navigate isolated regions to reach people in need living, quite literally, 'off the map'. Isolated rural communities, small settlements, places beyond main road infrastructure.

If you zoom into Google Maps, you'll realise just how many regions have not been truly recorded. These blurred out areas aren't always uninhabited, they're just not 'commercially attractive' to fully map.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Papua New Guinea are just some of the countries with vast areas that have yet to be mapped, making it much more difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify communities that may need support, once identified how best to reach and deliver care, and in situations like epidemics to understand how disease spreads.

This is where Missing Maps comes in.

Putting communities on the map with Missing Maps

Missing Maps is an open collaborative initiative led by MSF, the British Red Cross, the American Red Cross and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.

Through the project, volunteers around the world help review satellite data collected by OpenStreetMap to identify buildings, roads, waterways and other forms of infrastructure in regions currently without adequate map data.

The maps created are free, accessible and without restriction forever - offering a vital source of information for not only MSF, but other aid agencies and more who need them to do good. Not only this, but the maps are live, meaning that anyone can add to, correct or develop them. Essentially, a Wikipedia of maps.

Since it began 12 years ago, the project has seen 500,000 volunteers put nearly 1 billion people on the map in vulnerable communities.

Taking part - insights from Price Forbes

In February, the ACT team joined colleagues from Price Forbes to try out a Missing Maps volunteering session for themselves.

Gathering together in the board room at Minster Court in London, 20 colleagues got out their laptops, not to check Outlook, but to spend two hours mapping.

Led by a representative from MSF, Anthony Wright, first up was an introduction into MSF and the benefit of maps to support teams on the ground, followed by a short tutorial on how to use the Missing Maps software.

Then the mapping commenced. Together, we spent an hour mapping areas of Ouaddai Province in rural Chad in Africa.

Looking at satellite images, the team's task was to identify buildings - many of which were spread out rather than in close-knit settlements.

Deciphering round from square buildings might sound simple enough, but it's surprisingly challenging to discern structures from trees, rocks and uneven terrain from the often-blurry satellite imagery.

By the end of the hour, the team had identified 1,114 buildings - adding approximately 4,000 people to the map who simply didn't exist in data before. Not bad for two hours of time donated by each colleague.

We hope this example inspires many more Ardonagh colleagues and teams to dedicate some of their annual volunteering leave to support MSF and its work around the world.

• Find out more about how Missing Maps works on the MSF website or by visiting the Missing Maps site.
• Read more about how ACT has supported MSF on the dedicated partnerships page of our website.