I discovered the local guides program back in 2015 when I was a second year student studying Computer Science. I had always wanted to make an impact in my community. Make a positive contribution and help leave a mark. I realized not everyone can be a firefighter, a nurse or a police officer. Some had to take a rather unorthodox approach to make an impact in their communities.
So with the little knowledge I had I sat down one day and started thinking of what I could develop to help the people in my community. I came up with an idea to make an app that people could use to rate and review places, the Yelp for Africa. On top of that I realized that there was a need to also make an app that people could use to help them navigate Nairobi using a Matatu(Nairobi buses). The app would show them all the stops leading to their final stops. Long story short, I get on with my projects and started on my research when I realized there was no need for me to do all that work, there’s Google Maps dummy!
.Better yet, Google Maps allow people to contribute and make it better. So instead of making an entire app to add, rate and review restaurants, why don’t I just add the business on Maps and rate it. And that’s simply how my relationship with Google Maps started. I started taking photos and reviewing almost all the places I was visiting then I discovered there was this awesome Local Guides community where several other people like me were sharing their stories and contributions.
Discovering the local guides community was one of my most important discoveries in the last decade. Reading all those stories and experiences of fellow local guide gave me the drive and motivation to get out of my comfort zone and contribute. I’ve always been a nerd and an introvert but the people I met on the local guides community through meet-ups have helped me develop my social skills and become more of an ambivert, if not extroverted.
The community has virtually become my second family. I’ve made more friends, some of which I’ve never met but we talk and connect as if we’ve known each other for years.
Local Guides are some of the few people that you can really count on. I usually refer to them as superheroes. If I ever find myself in a new town, I can almost always count on a local guide to show up and make my stay bearable and enjoyable. The Local Guide community is like the bat symbol which when projected to the sky in any town, a local guide always responds to come to the rescue. I’ve never met polite and kind people like local guides in my life. The Local Guides program is proof that faith in humanity has been restored. For total strangers to go that extra mile and support local businesses, help other strangers make informed decisions and even add pictures of places is truly an amazing gesture. These people inspire me everyday to be a better human being. The gift that keeps on giving. Thanks to local guides, persons with disabilities can now make informed decisions and have fun as much as any other person when visiting places.
The program has become an essential part of my life. I find myself almost always checking my local guides connect profile everyday to catch up with my fellow local guides and read inspirational and fun stories from all around the world.
The best moments in my life have been experienced with other local guides. And it is other local guides that have always made my travels so successful. I’ve always said that people make places memorable, but local guides make memorable places awesome.
The local guides program has really changed my life. Thanks to the amazing local guides, I have learnt to be more kind, selfless and more loving. Through the program I have met people from all corners of the word. People from different cultures and backgrounds who have become my friends. I am proud to say that through the program I now know at least a person from all the inhabitable continents. There are just not enough words to stress the importance and impact this program has made in my life. That’s why I will always go out there to share my experiences and review places so that I can help anyone out there, even if it’s a single person. Changing the world, one review at a time.
Thank you, cheers!