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.

Watch the premiere of Inside Disaster Haiti on TVO tonight at 9pm ET.

Jean-Pierre Taschereau, one of the aid workers featured in the Inside Disaster Haiti series, led the International Red Cross response immediately following the earthquake. Jen Mayville from the Red Cross asked him some questions about the film, and what it was like to be part of it:

1. Have you watched the film yet? Was it emotional watching the film?

Yes, I have. The first time watching it, 5 minutes in I had to stop watching it. It brought back a lot of emotions that I didn’t know were there, especially watching the story about the kid that we helped at the base camp. It was amazing that it was caught on film.

2. What do you think about it?

It reflects well the dilemmas we were facing. A year later, listening to what we were saying then, it shows how clearly we knew how complex responding to this disaster was going to be. A year later, there is still so much to do. It’s kind of weird, but it shows what we accomplished then, but because of all the challenges after that, it looks like a drop in the ocean.

3. How does it feel to be one of the central “characters” in the film?

Read the rest of the interview at Red Cross Talks.

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.

Since 1997, when he went to Fort Liberté with his family during the holidays, Ralph Jean has been making wonders out of rocks. The colours and shapes of the rocks he discovered had an impact on him. He began looking for rocks shaped like hearts and other common shapes. When he finally found one that pleased him he started to cut it with a nail clipper. He wanted to make something special for his girlfriend, but wasn’t sure what to do. He simply wrote her name. She was happy with that.

Later, he thought about cutting graphics into the rocks: names, logos, honor plates and so on.

The process required four steps. As his tools were limited he first had to find a specific kind of rock generally found by rivers. Secondly, he had to hire a “tap tap” and three or four other young people to help him transport the rocks to his workshop. This cost him about $40.00 U.S. The third step is to pencil draw the desired shape onto the rock and begin cutting in with various tools such as a drill, saw, hammer and other self-made iron tools. Ninety per cent of the work is manual and it takes a full day to make one of his beautiful “Happy Birthday” rock impact designs. The final step is to spray the customer’s desired color over the finished product.

On January 12, while the terrible quake was occurring, Ralph was returning from work in a van. He only realized the quakes effect when he reached Canape-Vert (St. Marie), the neighbourhood he had lived in. Eighty per cent of the homes had collapsed although his home was not affected.  He had to move to avoid the rubble and corpses. Unfortunately, looters took everything left in the house eight days later.

However, Ralph did not give up. He knew life would have to go on and that he had to earn a living. He gathered what he could and started a new workshop in the camp where he lives today. He displays most of his work on Facebook but he also wants to create a large souvenir catalogue for tourists

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi blogs weekly for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, connect with him on Facebook or through his business, Haiti Fixers.

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement (FAD), profiled by Nicolas Jolliet earlier this year.

Port-au-Prince – Last Friday I finally went to Malpasse to find out what made it a preferable location to buy certain products . Most people, instead of buying at local Haitian markets, choose to shop in Malpasse even though both locations offer the same products.

I woke up early in the morning, got prepared and then called a motorcylists to take me where the mini-bus departs to Croix-des-Bouquets. Arriving at twenty-three past seven, I waited another fifty minutes for the mini-bus to transport fourteen people, including the driver, to Croix-des-Bouquets. Only three of the passengers, including me, were men.

Approximately forty minutes later the driver finally started moving. On the way, we saw different landscapes, from a green garden, to no man’s land, to Lake Azuei - a lake that has continued expanding since 2007.

When I arrived in Croix-des-Bouquets, I was expecting to see an abundance of trade – whether it would be Dominican people buying Haitians products, or vice versa. There were many people representing the two nations but the Haitian merchants were selling Dominican products to Haitian people. This was an interesting reality that I did not expect.

The constant and overwhelming sales pitch, “Mirando, Mirando Mamita, mirando papi”, became very familiar to me only after a few minutes. This is how the merchants grab your attention to look for what you need among their products. I started to look from side to side to find what made it preferable for Haitian people to travel one hour or more to buy similar products that could be found along streets and sidewalks closer to home.  Most of the Haitian people shopping in this market didn’t speak Spanish, and most of the Dominican merchants didn’t speak Creole. You should see how do they negotiate a deal: the buyer touches the desired product and with their fingers shows how many products they want to buy.   The merchant then displays on a calculator the cost of the product. If buyer wants to bargain, they use the calculator to show their offer.

I walked around some more to see what else was going on around the market. My eyes caught a woman carrying a large load of toilet paper over her head. It was amazing! I definitely wanted to have that picture to include in my story.  While trying to take that picture a Dominican soldier walked into my camera’s field of vision. My attention was so concentrated on that woman I did not notice the soldier until after my second shot. Suddenly I saw somebody look my way as if I had done something I shouldn’t have. I then realized it was a soldier and he said something to the effect of “dame la camera”. Even before I answered the soldier, he said “ven” and then started walking away with my camera.  I had to follow him.

He walked to a kind of tent with a sheet-iron roof on four poles and no walls. Under the tent were several uniformed soldiers with some kind of distinction on their arms or their chests. They all looked Dominican. On the other side was a woman wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, long skirt, and sandals. Her badge, with the word ‘official’ written on it, kept bouncing on its tightly tied chain around her neck. Four armed men in plain clothes were also there under the tent; two of them were Haitian. When saw them, I felt more confident resolving what I thought to be a simple misunderstanding. I was wrong; they made it worse.  They said I must go to jail for showing lack of respect to the Dominican.   The soldier who took me there said he already contacted his Major, therefore, it was not his responsibility to decide anything now and we would have to wait for the Major to come. The Major came four hours later; he didn’t look happy. They showed him the pictures on my camera.  The Major looked at me and said something that sounded like “preso” or “priso”.  I could not figure out what the Major meant so I asked the soldier and he said in Creole that I was going to jail. At that moment I thought I better inform my superiors before they decided to take all of my gear away.

A few minutes later my boss asked me for a number on where to call. I told the Major and soldiers and they all started saying “no hablo ingles”. The Major’s decision was to let me go free, without my camera.   I said that would be no problem but asked if they could provide me with a paper that said why my camera had been confiscated, including a valid phone number to call for any follow-ups. He thought about it for a second and then said he would give the camera back but not the memory; then he said let’s just erase the pictures and keep the memory in the camera. I showed him how to erase the pictures. The Major erased all the pictures with the Dominican flag in and the two pictures with the soldier.   Despite the fact they held me for hours, I was never mistreated. I remained calm until they finally gave me my camera back.  The soldier showed me to the gate and said if I ever return to the Dominican I can meet him there.

The key to success in this kind of situation is to remain cool, calm, and wise at all times.  Knowing your rights, faults, and duties will never let you down when you’re not wrong. Even though you may be wrong sometimes this behaviour can get you out of trouble faster than being nervous and disrespectful.

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi blogs weekly for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, connect with him on Facebook or through his business, Haiti Fixers.

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement (FAD), profiled by Nicolas Jolliet earlier this year.