Social media and famine in the Horn of Africa

August 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Collecting water at Ifo camp, Dadaab

Collecting water at Ifo camp, Dadaab (image from Oxfam - Flickr)

The United Nations has declared the Horn of Africa a disaster area with “as many as 38 million Africans living under the threat of starvation” http://bit.ly/pZqe2q

This sort of emergency is being recognised by organisations such as Oxfam who recently developed this interactive map to show where food shortages and famine are likely or exist. http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/food-price-volatility-map

Other bodies are using twitter, flying in bloggers, broadcasting concerts and holding online fundraising as a way of raising awareness and funds for the area –  http://mashable.com/2011/07/29/africa-famine/

For more background see: http://bit.ly/o7P4mI, http://bit.ly/qJJ7mR

 

UPDATE: An Australian East African Appeal has been launched, promoted primarily through radio and social media platforms:

http://www.abc.net.au/eastafricaappeal/

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EastAfrica

 

 

 

 

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