Hello everyone. my name is Sylas Ruhweza from Kampala, Uganda. My home city is Fort portal Uganda.
This post is to briefly explain what i share on google maps and what inspired me to keep sharing always.
I remember I was at my hostel and one of my colleagues fell sick in the middle of the night, we did not have any car at the hostel, but as a student leader by all means possible I had to look for an immediate solution and this is when I remembered of Uber which had just started operating in Uganda, I picked up my phone, downloaded the app and when I tried to enter my pick up location (MISH hostel) guess what!! after the long search, a message pop up appeared on my screen, no results found on google maps but lucky enough I was given an option of adding it on the map and I did. I ordered for the car and in 2 minutes the car arrived and guess what, a life was saved! It’s from that background that I realized the power of google maps and then started my journey of becoming a google local guide with the aim of giving back to my community through sharing my local content and trying to make the map more Eco-friendly.
I also realized that I can use google maps to tell stories about my community’s tourism potential not only to help visiting tourists from outside Uganda but to also help the native tourists. This aids people wherever they are in the world to know more about the different tourism sites, with much emphasis to western Uganda which I have really explored and exposed. I also like posting about hotels and places which host public gatherings and conferences. This is simply because I believe the business people specifically managers don’t read the comments that clients leave in their suggestion boxes. Thus google map reviews have replaced the ordinary suggestion boxes, which many managers put on their business profiles for formality. I strongly believe that answering questions about different places I know can also help people in choosing which places to go to in case they are new in a given area.
Last but not least, I love unfolding the beauty and wonders of the pearl of Africa through adding new places on google maps but most importantly giving more attention to details in form of pictures, reviews and videos as evidence about a given place with subsequent captions such that a tourist or any visitor can have a clue of what to expect from a given place.