Google announced Tuesday that it had partnered with UNHCR on a Google Earth kml file that “takes you on a virtual reality tour with the UN refugee agency of some of the world’s major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.” If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, you can check it out here. After the success of “Crisis in Darfur,” also a Google Earth tour of the devastation in the Darfur region of Sudan, it’s clear that web mapping – either in a browser or through a free application like Google Earth – can easily distill the size of the problem that a group like UNHCR is daeling with and can provide a really useful advocacy tool. Think of this in contrast with a typical type of advocacy, like a web page or a brochure that describes the conditions of one camp. Someone looking at this type of evidence might be moved by it, but they can’t interact with it, nor can they see how widesprad a problem this is. When people take a look at this new mapping layer at their own pace, I think each idividual story becomes much more powerful when seen in the context of all the stories on the map. Take a look at it and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Google and U.N. Put Refugees on the Map (New York Times)

Download Google Earth here.