Monday, May 15, 2006

Flood in Suriname

It was only a few weeks ago when I posted on this blog on ICT in relation to natural disasters. Now for the first time in people's memory, a natural disaster hit Suriname. We have seen both situations I spoke about in my post:
  1. Radio played a role in bringing the message that the villages were flooding, to the people in Paramaribo .
  2. On the other hand, the Educons Vsat at the school of Langa Tabiki in the Marowijne river, had to be rescued from the water by the local people.
At this time, Vsats would be very beneficial to establish a connection between remote regions who will struggle for some time to come in the aftermath of this event, that took us by surprise. It would enable them to connect to radio stations in the coastal area, allow voice communication and be on 24/7.

At this time telephone companies are covering more and more of the more populated areas of the hinterland and that is a big improvement. Still there are communities that probably will never be covered, due to their remoteness and small size. The people in those villages need the communication even more.

The government should use this technology to connect these citizens. In other parts of the country, expensive roads are being built, which is good. Communication is of the same or greater importance for the very remote villages in Suriname.

posted by Jennifer Simons @ 7:05 PM