Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) has once again offered their assistance, and is providing standby support to aid groups after the devastating earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Accessing UNF-VF Partnership funding to move forward TSF creates satellite-based telecommunications centers offering broadband Internet, phone and fax lines that are vital to coordination in relief efforts. 
Photo on right: Emergency TSF vehicle arrives to assist earthquake victims.

In L'Aquila, all mobile networks are operational and rescue teams mainly coordinate using radio equipment. Landlines have been affected in some parts of the region, and TSF installed a satellite-based fax line at the Italian Civil Security’s coordination center. TSF’s team also carries satellite-based terminals enabling them to deploy broadband Internet and priority phone lines for rescue teams, if needed.

Several camps have been set up to house over 17,000 homeless. In Paganica, the biggest camp where 2,300 people are sheltered, rescue teams installed generators so that those affected could charge their mobile phones and call their families. TSF is continuing to assess surrounding villages to make sure all survivors have been able to contact their relatives in Italy and abroad.

The death toll rose to 281 after three bodies were removed from a collapsed student building in L'Aquila, and more than 1,000 people have been injured. A series of aftershocks has been complicating rescue efforts, which should continue at least through Easter Sunday. A funeral for the victims of the Abruzzo earthquake is taking place as Italy holds a day of national mourning for its 281 dead.

This is TSF’s second mission to Italy—The NGO intervened in the Aoste valley in 2000 after heavy floods.  In the past 10 years TSF has deployed to 11 earthquakes worldwide.

This mission is funded by the Vodafone Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, Inmarsat, Eutelsat, Vizada, AT&T, Cable & Wireless, PCCW Global, the Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine and the city of Pau.

Preparing for such emergencies as well as avoiding sniper fire, the World Food Programme recently concluded its biannual Information and Communications Technology(ICT) Preparedness & Response Training Program, held in Pisa, Italy. Twenty participants from 16 UN agencies and non-profit aid groups completed the training, which includes modules on sniper fire and mine avoidance. The program is part of a $6.1 million partnership between the UNF-VF Partnership and WFP, and is designed to standardize telecommunications practices in disaster relief, and prepare emergency telecoms “first responders” for the dangers they face in the field.
Find out more at this site seen at left.

  Mobile Health (mHealth) for Development

Photo on right: A doctor surveys the damage to a medical facility in the Gaza Strip during the conflict in 2009. International humanitarian law urges combatants to respect the neutrality of health facilities, staff and ambulances during conflicts to ensure they are not caught up in the violence and can continue to provide care.

Last week marked World Health Day, a day set aside to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization. On the occasion, Dr. Daniel J. Carucci, Vice President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation wrote this blog discussing how mobile technology can promote healthcare delivery “on the last mile” in resource-poor environments.

An excerpt from Dr. Carucci’s blog post puts the urgency of communications in the proper perspective:  “To put the opportunity of mobile technology for healthcare in context, consider these figures. Today, there are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world, compared to 305 million computers and only 11 million hospital beds. Mobile technology is…a powerful new tool that has the potential to extend the reach of health care to the “last mile” and may play a powerful role in meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.”
Find out more at this site.

This week sees the expansion of the UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation-backed mHealth program in sub-Saharan Africa. The training now underway Swaziland follows a recent announcement by the UNF-VF Partnership, World Health Organization, that the free, open source EpiSurveyor mHealth tool (developed by DataDyne.org) would be expanded to over 20 countries in the region.
Photo on left: In over-crowded Ugandan refugee camps, without telephones or even electricity, Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) reconnects families and offers a peace of mind in the midst of a difficult situation. TSF's Oisin Walton reports from the field.