IOM is partnering with a cell phone operator in Pakistan to provide
free phone service for flood victims to get vital information, seek
help and access relief services offered by the government and aid
agencies.

Zong, which is the Pakistani subsidiary of China Mobile, the
world's largest mobile phone company, has donated 100 cell phones
to IOM for use in relief centres run by the Al-Khidmat Foundation
and other community-based organizations in the worst flood-affected
areas of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).

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Each phone has a pre-paid SIM card with 800 free minutes a day
for at least two months. The phones can also be used to call the
toll free helpline number +92-(0)322-55-55-737 at IOM's
Humanitarian Call Centre in Peshawar.

The centre, which was set up last year to help people displaced
by conflict in Swat and Buner districts, has five staff who provide
key information and contact numbers for local disaster management
authorities and humanitarian focal points dealing with shelter,
food, health, water and sanitation.

"The floods have caused massive displacement and destruction of
infrastructure, including telecommunications. This free phone
service will allow people sheltering in these camps to communicate
with the outside world and access information that is critical to
their wellbeing," says IOM Pakistan Emergency Response Manager
Brian Kelly.

IOM is also expanding other aspects of its 2009 mass
communications outreach programme.

It has produced a series of public service announcements (PSAs)
for radio in Urdu, Punjabi, Pushto and Sindhi languages, targeting
flood-affected communities nationwide.

The PSAs, which are broadcast around the clock on 14 radio
channels, cover different topics including prevention of diarrhea
and malaria, water purification methods, mother and child health
during the fasting month of Ramadan, child protection issues,
treating snake bites, setting up durable shelters and fire safety
in camps.

BBC Radio will also run the messages for its listeners in
Pakistan and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)is repeating mother and
child health messages through local radio channels in Balochistan
province.

Many displaced families who lost everything in the floods have
no radios. But IOM plans to distribute 2,000 radio sets donated by
the Internews Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) this week.

"It is very important that these messages reach the most
vulnerable – women and child-headed households, the elderly
and the disabled. These people are often not mobile and cannot read
and write. So radio is clearly the best way to reach them," says
IOM Mass Communications Project Officer Maria Ahmad.

For more information on IOM's activities in Pakistan and flood
relief pictures, please go to: "paragraph-link-no-underline" href="/jahia/Jahia/pakistan" target=
"" title="">http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pakistan.

For additional information please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92.3008560341

E-mail: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int

or

Chris Lom

Tel. +66.819275215

E-mail: "mailto:clom@iom.int">clom@iom.int