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UNF:
TELECOMS SANS
FRONTIERES RESPONDS TO MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE IN PERU: 22/8/2007 (MaximsNews.com,
UNF)
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UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@
U.N./
- 22 August 2007 –
The United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Group
Foundation announced recently that Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF), a
humanitarian NGO equipped to deploy rapid response IT and telecom teams anywhere
in the world within 48 hours of a disaster, has dispatched an emergency crew to
Lima, Peru.
Deployed from TSF regional headquarters in Managua, Nicaragua, the TSF team
arrived in Lima within 24 hours of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake. TSF’s telecom
team will be among the first of the international aid workers to establish
emergency telecommunication centers that provide United Nations (UN), NGO, and
government responders with reliable voice, Internet, fax, and video connections
using satellite, WiFi, and GSM equipment. Relief workers rely on these centers
for response and relief assessment, logistics, and coordination.
“We are saddened by the tragic loss of life in Peru, and hope that TSF’s
rapid deployment will help save lives and enable the communications needed to
provide relief and stabilize the situation,” said Kathy Calvin, chief
operating officer of the UN Foundation.
“The ability to communicate within hours of a crisis is critical to the
effective coordination of relief efforts,” said Andrew Dunnett, director of
The Vodafone Group Foundation. “We are proud to support TSF’s rapid response
deployment as part of our disaster relief program to get vital supplies and
telecoms services to where they are needed most,” he said.
TSF’s emergency crew is carrying satellite equipment such as Inmarsat BGan and
RBgan terminals, GAN M4 and Mini M, and other IT equipment that may be needed to
install one or more telecom centers offering broadband Internet connections and
phone and fax lines. The TSF team is expected to set up and operate these IT
centers for up to one month before handing telecommunications management over to
the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in
coordination with which TSF has deployed to Peru.
The deployment is being funded in part by the UN Foundation and Vodafone Group
Foundation through their Rapid Response Emergency Telecommunications program,
which supports the partnering of TSF, the leading humanitarian NGO specialized
in emergency telecommunications, with UNICEF and OCHA, the two UN agencies
charged with leading telecommunications in disaster response and recovery
efforts.
Labels: United
Nations, U.N.,
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