Visualizing Palestine is the first project of Visualizing Impact, a collective that employs research, data, social sciences, technology, design and urban studies to produce creative visuals for social justice. It may sound like a lot thrown together, but Visualizing Impact has seen incredible results in just under two years of work.
What are Visualizing Impact’s “creative visuals” anyway? They could be anything from an animation to an interactive website to a single graphic, anything that turns heavy data and statistics into an exciting story, something that gives you insight or makes you see the issue from a new angle.
A Look At Visualizing Palestine
Visualizing Impact began with Visualizing Palestine (VP) in part because the injustices Palestinians face are among the most extensively documented in the world.  There’s more data about human rights abuses against Palestinians than we can fathom, yet so much of it is dry, takes hours to get through, or makes as much sense as ancient Greek.
Over the past two years, VP has grown into the only organization in the Arab region that transforms data and statistics about injustices in Palestine into compelling visual stories. These stories are published online under a Creative Commons license, making them completely free to access, share and download anywhere.
The initiative started in 2011 with a graphic about Hunger Strikes (which included Gandhi’s hunger strike); it’s now kept alive by a full-time multidisciplinary team of eight and a network of hundreds of volunteers. They’ve collaborated with dozens of local and national organizations, from the World Health Organization to different UN Agencies and Al Jazeera.
VP’s work is used and shared by millions of people around the world. It’s been featured in The Guardian, Fast Company, the Huffington Post, and more than 20 other media outlets.
Visualizing Palestine’s most recent graphic, released on Thursday, received over 400 shares and 40 retweets in just 48 hours. They’ve even been endorsed by one of the world’s most famous political cartoonists, and author of the bestselling graphic novel Palestine, Joe Sacco.
How You Can Help Bring Data Visualization to the World
VP is running a 30-day crowdfunding campaign to create more interactive, farther reaching visuals in 2014. They’ve raised $30,000 in just 3 weeks, but they need help to hit their campaign goal before the campaign ends on 8th November.
Visualizing Palestine: Visual Stories for Social Justice from Visualizing Palestine on Vimeo.
Every donation, no matter the size, helps VP stay independent and continue producing projects free for sharing. For your support, you get to suggest an infographic for VP to visualize in 2014. Check the campaign site for details on how. And for just $40, you’ll be listed as a sponsor (if you want) for one of VP’s new infographics. And, for more, you can own a beautiful VP-related gift. Check them all out here.