The Local Guides Program means all about volunteering for me. It is not just about contributing the Google Maps as a Local Guides; it means a lot more than that.
The skills, connections, friends, Googlers I met through this program have made changes to my life. The change I loved most is, it helped me to become a better volunteer to the community and society. The Local Guides program has taught me how to respond to an emergency as a volunteer.
At the moment, I am working with the Ministry of Health as a volunteer to develop an identified Pharmacy Locator for the patients who are locked down due to the Coronavirus. This application helped to identify pharmacies and order the medicines through WhatsApp or Viber. To locate the selected pharmacies on the list on Google Maps, I requested help from the Sri Lanka Local Guides. The response of the Sri Lanka Local Guides was impressive. We are working on preparing a Google My Maps to help the Ministry of Health. One thing I learned as Google Local Guide is you have to work with others to achieve something good for the society. In this volunteer work, we joined hands with the Sri Lanka Archaeology team.
The product we developed as a volunteer group has identified by the Ministry of Health, a tool that can help people during this crisis time, and they have given a direct link to this tool from their website (http://www.health.gov.lk/moh_final/english/others.php?pid=209). If you visit this tool (http://pharmacy.health.gov.lk/), you will see “Sri Lanka Local Guides” on the footer as a partner of this tool for the contribution made by the fellow local guides.
After contributing to Google Maps for the last five years, it has helped me to identify my genuine desire.
The knowledge I gain from this program has taught me that you always have to help other volunteer work. I was so happy to plant a tree with a volunteer group “Thuru” to promote their tree planting campaign. They identified me as a Local Guide and asked me to help them to support their cause. See the video below.
The friendship of people around the globe is also something I learned from this program. When I visited London last year to participate in the Google Street View summit, I met a few Local Guides I came to know through this program; it was a great pleasure. I can not forget @SoniaK as a friend I met through this program, then @Kwiksatik @MahabubMunna are always in touch.
It was a great pleasure to see uploading over 100,000 photos spheres to the Google Street View, and here are some friends I met at London.
So, for me, the Local Guides program means volunteering and friendship. How about you?