KATHMANDU, May 22: Admire Nepal, a non-profitable organization, has launched a campaign titled ‘The Mission One’ with an aim to provide relief to the earthquake victims across the country.
The campaign was announced jointly by renowned personalities like Bhagwan Koirala, Madan Krishna Shrestha, Hari Bansha Acharya, Rajesh Hamal, Paras Khadka, Anuradha Koirala, Mahabir Pun, Uttam Sanjel and Sanduk Ruit among others amid a function held in Kathmandu on Wednesday, a statement said.
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Under the campaign, those living in Nepal can donate at least Rs 100 through SMS, while at least US$ 1 can be donated by the Nepalis residing outside the country via the website of the Prime Minister Disaster Relief Fund or Admire Nepal. “As the whole country is reeling after the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks, every Nepali must display a great deal of solidarity to help each other and cope up with the crisis,” Nita Paudel, president of Admire Nepal, said in the statement.
Ncell traffic data making relief efforts efficient
Ncell is providing customer macro data to the Flowminder Foundation that is processing the data to better understand population displacement and mobility patterns pre and post-quake, according to a press statement issued by the private GSM operator. “The initiative is a part of the WorldPop project, which provides open access to global demographic data, which can be used to help tackle major challenges, including emergency response situations,” Ncell said in the statement, adding: “The Flowminder team pioneered the analysis of mobile network data to support responses to natural disasters and epidemics.
They used the same technique when Zanzibar was affected by malaria 2009 and on Haiti in 2010 after the massive earthquake and following cholera outbreak.” Nepal has 23 million mobile phone subscribers out of a population of 27 million people. The population estimates have been calculated by analyzing the movements of de-identified Ncell SIM cards, and combining with WorldPop demographic data, according to the statement. The first results are currently being distributed amongst all agencies involved in the earthquake response via http://www.worldpop.org.uk/nepal.
“In emergency situations, there are mass movements of people, but no reliable way to get quick estimates of where people have gone to for directing resources, understanding needs, and assessing changing risks. These data provide a rapid, easy and ongoing approach to provide those estimates and have been proven to be accurate previously,” according to Ncell.
