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Latin America and the Caribbean

Haiti

Rebuilding Haiti's Media After the Earthquake

Since the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti January 12, Internews has been working on the ground with local Haitian media and humanitarian aid agencies to get critical information directly to the people who need it most.

News You Can Use

With a team of local reporters, Internews is producing a daily humanitarian news broadcast, Enfomasyon Nou Dwe Konnen (News You Can Use) currently airing on 25 local radio stations.The programs (in Creole) can be found on the Enfomasyon Nou Dwe Konnen web site.

The show began January 21, 2010 on 11 stations, and reports critical information about water distribution points, status of displaced persons camps, public health advisories, and more.

Most stations air the programming as soon as it arrives, via CDs distributed personally by the Internews team. Stations typically air Enfomasyon Nou Dwe Konnen four to six times a day, at regularly scheduled timeslots.

Internews has hired local reporters and producers to gather news and produce the programming, and is also providing humanitarian reporting training to the staff.

See a spotlight on the ENDK team in a video about USAID efforts in Haiti.

ENDK was honored in June 2011 by Haiti’s Ministry of Culture and Communication for the program’s quality and important role in informing communities in Haiti.

Distributing Wind-up Radios

With so many homes and property destroyed, many Haitians no longer have access to radios to listen to the news, or have run out of batteries for the small radios they have. In January 2010, Internews distributed nearly 9,000 wind-up radios provided by the U.S. Military, through 19 local radio station partners. The stations signed agreements to distribute the radios to those most in need, with an emphasis on getting radios in the hands of women-headed households and the highly vulnerable. The radios do not require batteries or electricity – they are powered through a built-in hand crank.

Getting Haitians the Information They Need

Our team in Haiti is working with local media outlets, many of which lost reporters and facilities to the earthquake, to assess their needs. Internews is also interviewing survivors, to determine how people are getting news, so that information can be best targeted to the local population.

By serving as a communications link between providers of aid and local media, Internews ensures that Haitian reporters receive and distribute aid information – such as the mobile short code 4636 launched by Ushahidi, which helps gather reports of local needs.

Coordinating Humanitarian Media Assistance

Internews is a founding member of the Inter-Agency Group on Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) that includes UNOCHA, key agencies, such as the Red Cross and Save the Children, and other media assistance providers, such as the BBC World Service Trust and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.  UNOCHA has charged Internews as the lead agency on the ground to coordinate CDAC members’ humanitarian information and media assistance activities in order to achieve maximum impact across the Haiti’s ravaged media landscape.

CDAC - Haiti Flyer (PDF)

Funders

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) helped fund Internews response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and continues to be the main funder of its ongoing humanitarian media program there.

Other funders of Internews' initial humanitarian response work include the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the MacArthur Foundation; the Arca Foundation; the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Fund, a donor advised fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; and individual donors with the assistance of Global Giving.


Media Landscape in Haiti

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with the bulk of the population living on less than two dollars a day. Severe infrastructure problems hamper media development: electricity and Internet service are unreliable or unavailable in many places, impeding radio production; many roads are in dangerously poor condition; and sometimes chest-high rivers must be forded on foot, with goods and equipment held overhead. Civil unrest and natural disasters have also created significant challenges.

However, the Haitian people are very resilient and resourceful and their thirst for news and information is great. Internews works in this challenging yet ultimately hopeful environment to empower Haitian community radio stations to serve the information needs of their communities.


Previous Projects in Haiti – 2007-2009

Internews began working in Haiti in 2007 under a three-year grant from the US Agency for International Development. The project built the technical and journalism skills of 40 community radio stations throughout Haiti that form a network called RAMAK (Rasanbleman Medya pou Aksyon Kominotéé).

Project goals were: greater independence, professionalism, and financial sustainability of the community radio stations; increased citizen involvement in community affairs; and public dialogue on key issues affecting communities.

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