Photo by Nicolas Jolliet

Toronto – PTV Productions is proud to announce that Inside the Haiti Earthquake has been nominated for a 2011 Webby Award, in the category of Best Writing in Online Film & Video.

Users can vote for the project in the Webby “People’s Voice” competition, where ITHE is competing against several comedy submissions, including an Old Spice ad:

http://webby.aol.com/media_types/online-film-and-video?focused_on_category=899#cat_id_899

Inside the Haiti Earthquake combines documentary footage with an original script to allow users to experience the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake from the perspective of a survivor, aid worker, or journalist.  The simulation was written by Michael Gibson, a previous Webby Award honoree, and co-directed by Gibson and Nicolas Jolliet (bios here).

“Michael was tasked with creating a script structure out of a documentary that had not yet been shot, then bringing it to life with the real-life footage and stories our crew brought back from Haiti.  We gave Michael a near-impossible task and he wildly exceeded all of our hopes and expectations.” says producer Katie McKenna.

Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Award closes April 28th.  Webby Award winners will be announced June 13th.

Inside the Haiti Earthquake is a previous winner of a 2011 Applied Arts Interactive Award (Gaming), a nominee for the 2010 Canadian New Media Awards (Best Cross-Platfrom Project & Best Web-Based Game), and a nominee for the 2011 HistoryMakers Awards (Best Interactive Production).

After seven years in exile, Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide will return to the country this week.

In today’s New York Times, author Amy Wilentz describes why Aristide’s return is a threat to Haiti’s elites, who are vastly outnumbered by the country’s poor — many of whom are intensely loyal to Aristide:

SAY the name Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti this week, and it’s as if the revolutionary slave leaders Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines were still riding over the plains and mountains here, astride Delacroix-worthy steeds, making their descent with sabers drawn upon the vast plantations of the French masters.

[...] Cut off their heads and burn down their houses, Dessalines told his troops, who went on to win a historic and singular victory over the French Army in 1804. Two centuries later, the elite, some of whom are descendants of the French colonists, still have a profound fear of the poverty-stricken general population. They understand fully that the triumph of the slaves never brought about the structural changes in Haitian society for which those early, bloody battles were fought. The ruling class still fears the overturning of the customary order. Revolution is a scary thing.

When the slaves gathered in 1791 to plot the end of French rule, there were about 500,000 of them on the island, and some 40,000 French colonists. Today the demographics are even more skewed, with about nine million people living in unimaginable poverty, while a microscopic elite guards among themselves whatever wealth is to be had here. Among all this flits the aid and development community, who have arrived in droves since the January 2010 earthquake, with their airy expensive apartments, S.U.V.’s, vans and pickup trucks, and packets of money to hand out.

[...] It’s perfect volatile tinder in which to toss the match of Mr. Aristide’s return.

It’s a great piece that draws on Haiti’s fascinating and contradictory history to make sense of this week’s sure-to-be major political development.  You can read the whole thing here.

Toronto – “Don’t give up on Haiti”: that’s the message of an op-ed in this week’s Newsweek Magazine penned by MDs Paul Farmer and Jean-Renold Rejouit, members of Partners in Health and longtime health practitioners in Haiti.

In one month, Haiti’s cholera epidemic has already killed half the number who died over the course of a year in last year’s cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe.  Farmer and Rejouit argue that those numbers, combined with the virulence of the cholera strain in Haiti, demand an aggressive response from the international community.

The two MDs make the case for widespread use of antibiotic therapy and oral cholera vaccines, a response that is relatively expensive and complex compared to the current treatment in Haiti, which focuses on oral re-hydration once the patient has become ill.  But Farmer has never believed that the world’s poor should settle for lower standards of health care; in this article, he argues that we’re all in this together:

The Haitian cholera epidemic exposes the fallacy of setting goals based on a country’s GDP. Pathogens like HIV, cholera, and dengue move within a complex web of global social connections, binding the richest and the poorest countries together in vulnerability. But while those microbes jet around the world, their remedies remain stuck in customs.

The full article can be found here.

Marie's Beauty Studio - part of Hait's micro-economy. Photo by Oxfam International.

Toronto – How can Haiti move from crisis to active reconstruction?  Last weeks’ article on micro-lending from the New York Times demonstrates the basic infrastructure challenges that are still keeping the country’s recovery in limbo.

Daniel Costello’s “Can Microlending Save Haiti?” explores the economic challenges that are still facing the country almost ten months after the earthquake.  Not only is the economy expected to contract a massive 9% this year, but only 15% of the $8.75 pledged to Haiti’s reconstruction has arrived.

The article asks whether micro-lending could spark Haiti’s economic recovery:

MICROCREDIT banks, or microbanks, were pioneered by Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, which started 40 years ago by giving loans of a few dollars each to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. In 2006, Mr. Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize for this work.

In most cases today, microcredit clients start off with loans of as little as $25 to start a small business. The loans are often given to women who tend to spend their earnings directly on their families and communities. Many borrow in groups of five or more, and all members of the group work together and are responsible for repayment.

Some microlenders provide only loans, while others also offer education and health services. Partly because costs are so high, effective interest rates are often significantly steeper than those at traditional banks. In Haiti, rates range from 30 percent to 55 percent a year.

The micro-credit model has become a global success story, but faces unique challenges in Haiti.  One of the largest groups, Finca Haiti, “wrote off almost a third of its portfolio after many clients died in the earthquake or lost their homes and businesses. A staggering 53 percent of its borrowers were late on their payments”.

Overall, 18% of microcredit clients in Haiti have defaulted or are at risk of doing so — more than double the rate of a year ago, and far higher than the international standard of 2 to 3 percent.

Despite the challenges, some micro-credit banks are doubling down on their investment in the country.  One of the biggest, Fonkoze, wrote off 10,000 lost loans with funds from the Red Cross and others: “The bank then gave each client a new loan and a one-time cash payment of $125, at a total cost of $8.5 million.”

Will these small loans be able to kick-start the massively-damaged economy?  Unlikely, but they are playing a crucial role in Haiti by allowing thousands of small-business owners to stay afloat during a time of crisis.

Red Cross Hygiene promotion volunteers visiting residents in La Piste. Photo: British Red Cross

The Guardian newspaper has confirmed what many have feared for weeks – Haiti’s cholera outbreak, previously confined to the country’s rural regions, has spread to the capital in the wake of hurricane Tomas.  The outbreak has already killed 544 people in Haiti, and now endangers the 3 million residents of Port-au-Price who are still living in tent camps nine months after the January earthquake.

From The Guardian:

At least 114 of the people suspected of having the disease in the capital are in the Cité Soleil slum, the oceanside shantytown at the city’s north-eastern edge and its closest point to the valley.

Since its discovery in late October, the disease has spread to half of Haiti’s 10 administrative regions, or departments. More than 200 people have been hospitalised in the West department, where Port-au-Prince is located.

Cholera had never been documented in Haiti before its appearance last month. In little more than three weeks it is suspected of infecting tens of thousands of people, though only about a quarter of people infected normally develop symptoms of serious diarrhoea, vomiting and fever. Nearly 4% of the thousands taken to hospital have died, most from extreme shock brought on by dehydration.

UN experts are calling for an investigation of the origin of the outbreak, which some claim may have been introduced by UN peacekeepers from Nepal, where the disease is endemic.  Full article here.

Toronto – Ten months after the January 12th earthquake, the rubble is beginning to be cleared out of Port-au-Prince.

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a story by Deborah Sontag about the American “disaster entrepreneurs” who are leading the cleanup in Haiti, which is expected to cost $1.2 billion USD.

Many of the business owners are veterans of post-hurricane cleanups in the U.S.; Randal Perkins’ Haiti Recovery Group has been in Haiti since a few days after the quake.  The company “partnered with a Haitian conglomerate, imported a dozen shiploads of heavy equipment and set up a state-of-the-art base camp here — but then, nothing”.

Now, the wait appears to be over as the first substantial rubble removal contracts are meted out, focusing mostly on downtown Port-au-Prince.

One interesting takeaway from the story: the Haitian government is paying $32.50 to $58 a cubic yard for debris removal via no-bid contracts, “considerably more than the American government paid contractors after Hurricane Katrina.”  At the same time, Haitian workers on the projects are paid approximately $1000 USD per month, while their American counterparts make $400-$500 USD per day.

Perkins told the New York Times, “People always say you make money off other people’s misery.  But, listen, somebody’s got to do the work.”

Toronto – The nominees for the 2010 Canadian New Media Awards were announced yesterday in Toronto, and Inside Disaster is proud to share the news that we’ve been honoured in two categories: Best Cross-Platform Project for Inside Disaster: Haiti, and Best Web-Based Game for Experience the Haiti Earthquake.

A year in production, Inside Disaster: Haiti and Experience the Haiti Earthquake are interactive educational properties designed to deepen users’ understanding of the Haiti earthquake and humanitarian work in general.

The two projects are based on footage from the three-part documentary series about the Red Cross response in Haiti, Inside Disaster, original research, and photo and video shot by Nicolas Jolliet in Haiti in January and August 2010.

Both projects build off the success of Phase I of Inside Disaster online, a blog with original photo, video and written reports from Haiti that launched the same day as the earthquake, and continues to this day under the title Haiti Today.

Inside Disaster online is produced by PTV Productions, and funded by TVO, the CMF, the Bell New Media Fund, CIDA, and the OMDC tax credit.  You can learn more about the team behind the project in our site credits and advisory board.

The Canadian New Media Awards will be presented December 1, 2010 at the Design Exchange in Toronto, Canada.

Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage from Khalid Mohtaseb on Vimeo.

New York-based Director of Photography Khalid Mohtaseb shot this stunning montage in his “free time” during a week-long shoot in Port au Prince, Leogane, & Carrefour.

The images were shot with an advanced consumer camera, the Canon 5D Mark ii, similar to the Panasonic GH1 used by Nicolas in his Haiti shoot. Here’s what he had to say about it:

Due to the situation on the ground, all the footage was shot in 2 days, under direct sunlight and a great deal of pressure. As demanding as it was, it taught me how to pick shots on the fly, and in “not so perfect” lighting or shooting conditions.

In regards to equipment, we traveled very lightly as security and logistics were our main concerns at that time. Once again the Kessler Pocket Dolly proved to be an essential tool in capturing my images.

Amazing example of what’s possible with affordable technology and a great eye.

Nico Jolliet in Port-au-Prince, January 19th. Surgical masks are the favoured accessory in the capital to block out the smell of death and human waste.

Dear friends,

Do you have a moment to write a message of support to Nico in Haiti? As many of you already know, Nico is the “solo journalist” who is directing, shooting, editing and writing all of this website’s reports out of the capital and surrounding areas.

Since arriving last Thursday with the Inside Disaster documentary crew, Nico has been working 18-to-20 hour days to collect and share human stories from the aftermath of Haiti’s January 12 earthquake. Stories like this one from St-Therese, where no other journalists have visited, and where thousands of Haitians are supporting each other without humanitarian assistance. Or this intense, heartrending story from cameraman Tony Wannamaker, which was featured (unattributed to Nico!) on CTV News in Canada last night. Or these moments of quiet beauty and calm, from a Red Cross camp in Peguyville.

It’s fair to ask: does this work matter? Should Nico even be there right now? As one member of the DOC community pointed out on a listserv discussion this week, his work is not saving lives.

But he is sharing real, human stories from an epicenter of pain in this world. And if you’re visiting this website, you probably believe that storytelling matters, too.  Even, and especially, in the worst of times.

Today was day seven of the crew’s 35-day shoot in Haiti. Like almost everyone else in the country, Nico has been sick and fighting exhaustion, sadness, and shock for the past week. When I talked to him on Skype last night, I asked if he was losing weight.

[19/01/10 4:53:36 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: I did lose quite a bit. But today I ate lunch (tuna can)
[19/01/10 4:53:43 PM] Katie McKenna: wow, big lunch
[19/01/10 4:53:52 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: I [got] some rations, but they were stolen
[19/01/10 4:54:00 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: there is no food here
[19/01/10 4:54:14 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: we sleep outside without tents
[19/01/10 4:54:23 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: we are humid and sticky in the morning
[19/01/10 4:54:29 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: had only one shower last week
[19/01/10 4:54:36 PM] Katie McKenna: whoa
[19/01/10 4:54:36 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: no water

I told Nico that we were getting great feedback on his work on the website:

[19/01/10 4:50:30 PM] Katie McKenna: great response to your work here
[19/01/10 4:50:48 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: paste it
[19/01/10 4:50:55 PM] Katie McKenna: ?
[19/01/10 4:51:07 PM] Katie McKenna: what people are saying?
[19/01/10 4:51:14 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: the response
[19/01/10 4:51:28 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: you mean my friends
[19/01/10 4:51:37 PM] Katie McKenna: not your friends!
[19/01/10 4:51:31 PM] Katie McKenna: i’ll send it to you for morale
[19/01/10 4:51:45 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: yeah, send I need morale

Then he signed off with,

[19/01/10 5:04:41 PM] Nicolas Jolliet: send me the moral boosters please

Friends: will you help me send Nico the “moral boosters”? I’ll be collecting messages from the website and our various social media tools over the next few days. Leave your message for him in the Comment thread below, or send it to me by email and I will onpass everything to him over the next few days.

Note: For those of you in Ontario, Nico will be interviewed by phone Thursday morning between 7-7:30am on the Radio-Canada show Y a pas deux matins pareils. The interview with also be archived and available later that day on their website here.

“Being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience, the cumulative offering by more than a century and a half’s worth of those professional, specialized tourists known as journalists”

- Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

As international journalists have arrived in Haiti over the past 24 hours, the web and television have been flooded with images from the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake. So many of them are images of chaos; of dust-covered bodies; of lives in ruin; of rubble, rubble, and more rubble. On this website, we’ve shared – and created – many of those images already, and we’ll share and create many more before the month is out. They’re real, they’re immediate, and they’re an essential part of capturing the enormity of the country’s suffering.

But as we try to get a handle on the now-constant stream of stories, images and data about Haiti emanating through our news and social media networks, it’s useful to keep another truth in mind: that more information does not necessarily equal greater understanding. Consuming images of suffering alone does necessarily bring us closer to the people on the other side of the lens. Multiplied in the thousands, these images can eventually have the opposite effect: they become numbing, dehumanizing, exhausting.

I thought of this as I was looking through a new batch of Flickr photos from Port-au-Prince radio and television host Carel Pedre. Pedre has been one of the most prominent Haitian media voices since the earthquake; he’s been interviewed around the world, and his Twitter updates from the capital are now followed by close to 4,700 people, and included on 329 lists.

His set of 245 “Random Haiti Earthquake Photos” is filled with imagery that is brutal, shocking, and sad. But what struck me most were the images of life continuing, not ending, in Haiti:

Images of people holding each other up:

Of friends supporting each other:

Of everyday life going on, within the pain:

Moments of stillness:


Of quiet suffering:

And one, small, glimpse of peace – whatever that means:

I think they’re a beautiful reminder that Haiti is, and always has been, defined by more than its suffering.

Thank you, Carel, for sharing them.