The volunteers are working in Kathmandu, Dhulikhel, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. They are offering their mobile phones to the victims so that they can make international calls through Skype.
In response to the destructive Richter 7.6 magnitude earthquake on April 25, Skype has opened up its landline and mobile calls to and from Nepal free of cost. With most people focusing on distributing relief materials like tents, food and medicines, this initiative comes as a surprising but welcome support.
Suvasini Shrestha, Public Relations Manager for Microsoft Innovation Center Nepal, says, "We started providing this service to people from Saturday, May 2. We must've reached out to almost 100 people by now."
The volunteers have visited different places to provide this service, and people have been calling their family members and relatives to assure them that they are safe. These calls have also been important because people were able to ask their relatives for financial help.
One of the volunteers, Monalisha Dhimal, who visited the Swoyambhu area, says the people were happy to be able to speak to their families.
"The calls were to ask for financial help from family members, friends and to let them know they are fine. Many of them praised us for doing such a great job. I also helped people with their phone settings and made them aware about Skype calls," added Monalisa.
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