The web-search giant Google unveiled in June 2007 a new program designed to help charities and other nonprofit groups. Google Earth Outreach enables any organization to quickly and easily get the resources it needs to create compelling stories to raise awareness, recruit volunteers and encourage donations.

A new initiative was launched today in Geneva which will track refugees from around the world, to aid in humanitarian operations. The project is a partnership with the United Nations and will allow users to download a Google Earth application that enables them to see satellite images of Darfur, Iraq, Colombia and other refugee hot spots.

"All of the things that we do for refugees in the refugee camps around the world will become more visible," said UN deputy high commissioner L. Craig Johnstone.

Rebecca Moore, head of Earth Outreach for Google, said that the company could add video interviews of refugees, photographs of displacement crises and educational text to the satellite backdrop to educate even casual users about unfolding crises, Reuters reports.

"Use Google Earth to tell your story," Moore urged in Geneva. "We realized that Google Earth had the potential to be a much more significant and meaningful tool," she said.

Google says more than 350 million people have already downloaded Google Earth.

Organizations already using Google Earth in this way include the Jane Goodall Institute, the United Nations Foundation, Earthwatch and the Global Heritage Fund. For example Google Earth was the application used by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to call attention to atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan.

"Google Earth is a very powerful way for UNHCR to show the vital work that it is doing in some of the world's most remote and difficult displacement situations," said UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner Craig Johnstone.