On an immediate basis, NPI has been using the Internet to educate tsunami victims, and relief workers, on basic survival/ health protection techniques such as construction of improvised solar stills to produce potable (safe) water from polluted water, or salt water. (See the “Potable Water” topic, on this website, for this one technique taught by NPI.)
As recovery efforts proceed, NPI will provide information on its unique self-help, self-sufficiency technologies, microenterprise systems, “zero net-energy” home/ structure construction techniques, and other appropriate methods for the recovery effort(s). NPI’s staff is experienced in large-scale recovery projects, and development of emergency care systems for refugees. Our self-help technologies, such as solar-powered cooking ovens and solar-powered refrigerators, were developed to help refugees and impoverished villagers overcome extreme hardships and shortages of resources.
NPI will give priority to long-term recovery efforts, and we will do so with a Radio School located in Andhra Pradesh Province in India ----- near a coastal area hit by the recent (December 2004) tsunami in the Indian Ocean/ Bay of Bengal area. The Radio School will allow the best instructors, foreign language translators, and technicians to be concentrated at a single location for optimal program delivery. Broadcasts will be in every language needed to reach primary tsunami victims. Refugees and villages, in the tsunami area, will be given radios powered by hand-crank generators. Each refugee camp or village shall be organized, for Radio School broadcasts, under the direction of local volunteers who will be trained in the necessary organization techniques.
The Radio School shall offer a series of classes for local volunteers interested in any one subject area; e.g. water, food, health, sanitation, shelter, security, microenterprise or cottage industry development, and so on. There will also be infrastructure redevelopment classes, and specialized classes as needed for the recovery efforts. Broadcasts will often include some traditional music appropriate for various Radio School audiences. There will be some news broadcasts designed to improve morale, and provide updates on recovery efforts. A major advantage of a Radio School is the ability to enlist and organize victim populations in providing their own redevelopment. On a long-term basis, a Radio School is far more effective than trying to have outsiders attempting to provide direct assistance for many thousand villagers scattered over a very large area.
NPI is already preparing to start a Radio School for Iraq
to assist villagers in areas too insecure for outsiders to provide
direct assistance. Radio Schools are not new, and they have
a proven record of providing quality & effective assistance
in areas where outsiders
cannot be sustained on a long-term basis. One of the early Radio
Schools was located at Puno, Peru where broadcasts were used
(in the 1960s) to assist many remote, very impoverished, Quechua
Indian villagers threatened with extinction. Based upon NPI’s
related experience, we are confident that a Radio School is
the best long-term solution to provide and effective means of
recovery for tsunami victims. (NPI will provide progress reports
so that donors may confirm positive results of our Radio School
effort.) Please give us your support via the Donation section
on this website.
Thank you.
David A. Nuttle, President