The Road to the Horizon: Niger

swat valley refugees

There is always something going on, somewhere in the world, that keeps us, aidworkers, busy. Here is what is on our mind these days:

8,000 Somalis are displaced in one day of fighting around Mogadishu (Full)
A rebellion seems to be on the raise in Nigeria (Full) and Niger (Full)
Relief agencies still don't have full access to the displaced civilians after the Tamil was defeated in Sri Lanka. (Full)
Southern Sudan seems to fall back into violence (Full)
...while in Darfur, the war is flaring up again (Full)
Pakistan's offensive in the Swat valley displaced 2.3 million people, with aid agencies scrambling to cope. (Full)

Items discovered via International Aid Workers Today and AidNews.

Picture courtesy Reuters

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Another picture sent by Cyp. This one is from Agadez in Niger. It is a solar powered satellite communications system, providing voice (telephone) and data (Internet) in the middle of nowhere. Cyp installed it as part of a project mitigating chronic hunger resulting from frequent locust invasions and a severe drought inherent to Sahel countries: several food warehouses were installed across the country, but their older radio network was becoming insufficient to coordinate between the different parties involved.
So this (relative) low cost, compact Gilat satellite system was installed, providing telephone, fax, e-mail and Internet.

Not only the project, as an example of a longer term impact aid project, is fascinating, but also the picture in itself carries quite a bit of a message. Here we are in the middle of nowhere (look at the bushes in the background), and we can communicate to the world. The bit of chicken wire around it, has an opening in the front.. So it is not to keep the chickens out, but more to keep curious spectators away..