In this episode of Blog Beat, we’re take a look at a student initiative that has collected close to Rs.700,000, an idea about solar lamps and some important sites that you may want to bookmark if you’re following the Flood Relief work being done across Pakistan.

Gul Zaib Shakeel is the General Secretary of the SZABIST Student Council. And speaking about electricity, Prof. Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad from GIK refers to an obvious challenge that the millions of tents and camps face in terms of having readily available light at night and suggests that perhaps economical and rechargeable solar lights are the answer.

According to Dr. Ahmed, Solar lights are available at large stores such as Metro across Pakistan.

Here are some important links for you bookmark, which may help plan, coordinate or perhaps even collaborate with relief efforts.

Ushahidi Incident Reporting for Pakistan can be accessed through Pakistan.crowdmap.com which allows you to update the areas that need specific kinds of help – whether it is food, water and sanitation, health, which areas are experiencing an emergency or which areas simply need volunteers. You can also get alerts or submit a report to have the map layer updated. If you’d like to submit a report, simply send an SMS to 3441 and make sure you add FL to the beginning of the message.

Google also has a Crisis Response page up for the Pakistan Floods which you can access through google.com.pk. They have a list of tools and resources that you can access or embed into your websites which will also help with the collaboration of timely information and reports.

If you’re on Twitter and wish to stay tuned to the relief-related messages, then you should follow the PkFlood or PakRelief hastags.

If you’re interested in joining SZABIST’s initiative and helping them with the relief efforts, please join their Facebook group.