From: Steve Askin <saskin@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 31 Aug 92 19:55 PDT
Subject: NCR:Using Peacenet to help Somalia
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1471700095:000:4001
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!saskin    Aug 31 19:55:00 1992


 
DISABLED TEXAN FIGHTS FAMINE IN AFRICA WITH HER COMPUTER
     By Carole Collins, U.N. Correspondent
     National Catholic Reporter (c) 1992
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     New York, 4 Sept. 1992 -- Somalis that do survive the
current famine will have people like Dorothy Morse, a disabled
but feisty Texan in her late 50s, to thank for moving Western
governments to action.
     "I'm pretty badly disabled by rheumatoid arthritis," Morse
told NCR, "and if it weren't for computers and 'the kindness of
strangers,' I would probably be dead under a bridge."
     Morse works 40 hours a week as a typesetter for the Texas
State Bar.  She uses a special transit service for the disabled
to go to and from work. It only costs her "$15 a month. Obviously
some damn liberals thought it up. Hooray for them," she said.
     A self-confessed "grudger/hater of technology," ("I learned
word processing at age 45, got my first modem at age 54"), Morse
has become an electronic activist, using her home computer to
mobilize people to demand more food aid for Somalia.
     She recalled first hearing of the Somalia famine on the
radio: "I was just lying there when I heard on June 25 the story
of the boatful of Somalians in 120 temperature unable to land at
Yemen, many of them jumping into the sea, many dying.  The story
ended up 'Most were women and children.' I'm a mother."
     "I wrote a check to Oxfam," she said. "That's in general how
I deal with the unspeakable - I try to do a little positive
something about it every day, then go on about my business.  But
I also listened for more news and never heard any."
     "So one day I called Oxfam. They told me the overall story,
said they'd had to pull out, and gave me the phone number of
Doctors Without Borders, to whom I talked, and who referred me to
the Red Cross, who faxed me a press release that made my hair
stand on end."
     It was then that Morse turned her computer on. "There are
local electronic bulletin boards aplenty here in Austin," she
said. "I uploaded an appeal there."
     Her appeals for information and action sparked lively
electronic mail (or 'e-mail') responses from near and far. An
Arizona student 'messaged' Morse for help locating information
for a leaflet. A Swedish academic offered to forward faxes -
urging more aid for Somalia - for free from the University of
Uppsala via an electronic network. Ghanaian Peter Mwaniki asked
'conference' readers to please provide addresses of African
ambassadors at the U.N. 
     Morse updates her electronic correspondents almost daily
on the relief effort, and advises how best to reach a "live
person" at the U.N. or State Department, how to word appeals
("use an earnest tone, since some will be looking for a chance to
call us 'Somalia wackos'"), and whom to press for action.
      Morse "has gotten a lot of people galvanized around this
issue," MSN's Leah Arnold told NCR, "and around making sure that
government people don't forget this issue."
     Morse is angry at the media's earlier failure to cover the
tragedy. "I feel like the government and media people who have
power and do nothing are committing 'negligent genocide with
malice,'" she said, "and 'with wanton and reckless disregard of
human life.'  And I do mean the New York Times."
     Given her limited mobility, said Morse, if it weren't for
computer networks, "my work for Somalia would be much less, and
my anguish much greater." But she keeps going because, "as the
International Red Cross said in July, 'millions of lives depend
on our capacity to care.'"  (END)