PAKISTAN – Free Phones Allow Flood Victims to Call for Help, Access Relief – IOM is partnering with a cell phone operator in Pakistan to provide free phone service for flood victims to get vital information, seek help and access relief services offered by the government and aid agencies.
Zong, which is the Pakistani subsidiary of China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone company, has donated 100 cell phones to IOM for use in relief centres run by the Al-Khidmat Foundation and other community-based organizations in the worst flood-affected areas of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK.)
Each phone has a pre-paid SIM card with 800 free minutes a day for at least two months. The phones can also be used to call the toll free helpline number +92-(0)322-55-55-737 at IOM’s Humanitarian Call Centre in Peshawar.
The centre, which was set up last year to help people displaced by conflict in Swat and Buner districts, has five staff who provide key information and contact numbers for local disaster management authorities and humanitarian focal points dealing with shelter, food, health, water and sanitation.
“The floods have caused massive displacement and destruction of infrastructure, including telecommunications. This free phone service will allow people sheltering in these camps to communicate with the outside world and access information that is critical to their wellbeing”, says IOM Pakistan Emergency Response Manager Brian Kelly.
IOM is also expanding other aspects of its 2009 mass communications outreach programme.
It has produced a series of public service announcements (PSAs) for radio in Urdu, Punjabi, Pushto and Sindhi languages, targeting flood-affected communities nationwide.
The PSAs, which are broadcast around the clock on 14 radio channels, cover different topics including prevention of diarrhea and malaria, water purification methods, mother and child health during the fasting month of Ramadan, child protection issues, treating snake bites, setting up durable shelters and fire safety in camps.
BBC Radio will also run the messages for its listeners in Pakistan and UNICEF is repeating mother and child health messages through local radio channels in Balochistan province.
Many displaced families who lost everything in the floods have no radios. But IOM plans to distribute 2,000 radio sets donated by the Internews Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) this week.
“It is very important that these messages reach the most vulnerable - women and child-headed households, the elderly and the disabled. These people are often not mobile and cannot read and write. So radio is clearly the best way to reach them,” says IOM Mass Communications Project Officer Maria Ahmad.
For more information on IOM’s activities in Pakistan and flood relief pictures, please go to: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.
For additional information please contact Saleem Rehmat at IOM Islamabad. Tel. +92.3008560341. Email: srehmat@iom.int. Or Chris Lom. Email: clom@iom.int. Tel. +66.819275215.
VIET NAM - IOM Signs New Cooperation Agreement with Government – The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, Nguyen Thanh Son, and IOM Director General William Lacy Swing signed a new cooperation agreement on Thursday cementing ties between the Southeast Asian nation and the migration agency.
“The signing of this agreement is a measure of the importance that Viet Nam places on migration management and its willingness to cooperate with international partners to address migration issues”, said Director General Swing, who met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as well as Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Gia Khiem, in Hanoi prior to the signing ceremony.
“The new agreement puts the close cooperation between Viet Nam and IOM on a new, stronger basis. It offers new opportunities for enhanced cooperation to meet Vietnam’s 21st century’s migration challenges”, he added.
IOM’s experience in Viet Nam dates back to 1987. In 1990, shortly before the first Gulf war, IOM responded to a request from the Government to evacuate some 17,000 Vietnamese workers from Iraq. In the same year, the country applied for IOM Observer status and in 2007 became an IOM Member State.
IOM’s programs in Viet Nam over the past two decades have included family reunification and facilitated migration programs, as well as close cooperation with the Government to fight human trafficking.
“Viet Nam is today the world’s 13th most populous country and is experiencing rapid social-economic development that is bringing with it increased mobility, both inside the country and abroad”, says IOM Vietnam Chief of Mission Florian Forster.
“Under the new agreement, IOM will help the country to implement programs aimed at safe and orderly migration, while respecting the rights and legitimate interests of migrants. Our shared objective is to help Vietnam to maximize the positive impact of migration on social development and to boost legal migration opportunities for Vietnamese nationals”, he notes.
The new agreement reflects the multi-dimensional nature of modern migration. Cooperation will include capacity enhancement in migration management, migration health, counter-trafficking, information services, the voluntary return of stranded or irregular migrants, the promotion of sustainable labour migration, and coping with migration induced by climate change and disasters.
IOM is an active participant in the One UN Initiative in Vietnam, which aims to combine and synthesize the work of the resident UN organizations within a single planning framework to better support Viet Nam.
As the leading intergovernmental agency working in the area of migration, IOM works closely with the Government, notably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, mass organizations and civil society partners in Vietnam.
For more information please contact Florian Forster at IOM Hanoi. Email: fforster@iom.int , Tel: Mobile: +84 9 03450196
