When disaster hits, the new app can immediately alert relief supporters
Photo by DVIDSHUB
Today's technology creates innumerable opportunities for activism, especially cell phones. During the disaster in Haiti, the idea of using texting to donate money to the Red Cross and other relief organizations gained mainstream awareness. Now, it's easy to use cell phones to make instant donations to causes. Playing off this capability, Oxfam and Nokia have partnered up to create an app that allows anyone with a Nokia cell phone to get updates on when donations are needed, make a quick donation, and follow the fundraising efforts of Oxfam in real time.
Users can send much needed funds to five different projects across the globe, including HIV programs in South Africa and Thailand, emergency work in Pakistan, climate change activism in Haiti, and a children's education project in Tanzania.
According to Oxfam's fundraising director Cathy Ferrier, this kind of technology that makes donation money as easy as pushing a couple buttons will become priceless when disasters strike and funds for relief efforts are needed ASAP.
The app is, of course, free, and can be downloaded from Nokia's Ovi store. Nokia's head of Sustainability Services, Minna Lindholm, nails the real importance of ubiquitous technology like cell phones: being connected to what matters most, and that includes more than family and friends: "[I]t is not the technology but what you can do with it. With this mobile donation application we can harness the speed, accessibility and convenience of mobile technology to connect people who want to help with those in need of support."
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