Habitat for Humanity International (HfH) and GLTN have joined efforts to implement the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) pilot in Ciudadela Sucre community, which is located in the Municipality of Soacha, Colombia. Hosted by Habitat for Humanity Colombia (HfHC), a 5-day consultative meeting was held from 9th-13th December 2013. The meeting’s objectives were to showcase the capabilities of STDM as a progressive land records tool as well as to undertake a detailed user needs assessment study in order to determine the specific requirements of HfHC in applying the STDM tool to implement a comprehensive neighborhood upgrading project.
The participants, drawn from HfHC, Colnodo and Universidad Catalica, were taken through the household enumeration and settlement profiling processes, followed by an introduction to the technical aspects of the tool.After they were familiarized with the concept behind the tool, the participants engaged in refining the technical requirements and expected analytical capabilities of the customized version of the STDM tool. A community mapping workshop, based on transect walk activities, was conducted on 14th December 2013 in Bella Vista neighborhood (within Ciudadela Sucre) to gather all relevant information concerning public spaces, utility services and infrastructure in the neighborhood.
Rafael Marcos, the HfHC Project Manager, remarked that STDM will provide the community with complex analytical capabilities such as the visualization of gender, ethnicity and tenure using cross tabulation in a GIS environment. A production release of STDM, customized for HfHC, is expected to be operational by May 2014.