A round-up of the first presidential debate in Haiti, sponsored by INURED and Haiti Aid Watchdog. More debates are being planned for the upcoming campaign season, October 26-November 26, so please check back soon for updates, information, and translated videos.
Below are video photos from the first debate, held on September 18 in Port-Au-Prince.
Moses Shumow and Tod Landess are co-founders of “KozeAyiti”, which means conversations with and about Haiti. Koze Ayiti is an initiative devoted to creating better communications between Haiti and the world. Koze Ayiti was created by faculty, staff, and students at the University of Miami School of Communication. Koze Ayiti is working in partnership with several NGO’s, universities, media and volunteers from the Haitian community. This video opens a small window in the life of KozeAyiti. More videos to come
A Day In The Life Of Koze Ayiti (No.1) (Creole)
Moses Shumow ak Tod Landess fè pati ekip moun ki te mete tèt yo ansanm pou yo te fonde “KozeAyiti”. Mo sa-a vle di “pale ak Ayiti” ou byen “pale de Ayiti”. KozeAyiti se yon mouvman ki fèt pou etabli pi bon kominikasyon ant Ayiti ak le mond antye. Se pwofesè, anplawye ak etidyan UM yo, nan Fakilte Kominikasyon ki te fè yon tèt kole pou pwojè sa a te rive kanpe sou pye. KozeAyiti ap kolabore ak lòt ONG, ak lòt media, ak anpil volontè nan kominote Ayisyen an. Video sa-a ouvri yon ti fenèt sou KozeAyiti. Nou gen pou nou pataje plis video sou kozeAyiti.
This is a podcast that originally aired on WLRN Miami Herald Radio. During the month of July 2010, three Miami-based organizations: Koze Ayiti, Konbit for Haiti and FANM, were working with MIT students to test out a new program called Konbit. For millions of illiterate Haitians, it could make finding work significantly easier. WLRN-Miami Herald News reporter Flora Thomson-DeVeaux has more. And KozeAyiti covered the story.
Following the Miami beta test story, KozeAyiti reporter, Yanick Landess, interviews the Konbit developers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Media Lab, in Boston on July 22, 2010.
We returned to PaP this afternoon via the same long and winding road through the mountains. It was a six hour ride. We left shortly after sunrise at 6am and arrived in PaP at noon. We stopped only twice along the way.
First we stopped at another permanent housing project, where the sounds of hammers echoed in the mountains. This project was different in that it was an entirely Haitian project. Deep in the Pine Forest National Park, old colonial homes from the 1940’s were being restored and made available for rent to tourists, NGO’s and Haitians alike through the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. So, it is untrue that the government is not building or planning anything. Yes, the Haitian government is participating in the rebuilding effort.
The second stop was at Soryet to take a break and play in a cool mountain stream with some timoun playing, bathing and washing clothes. After leaving Soryet, we were told the story of a group of houses and families washed away by the river a few years ago. It was in Fonds-Verrettes. We visited the market there.
A view from the mountains in Haiti’s rural countryside
Several cities were on our way back to PaP: Fonds Parisien, Ganthier, Croix-Des-Bouquets. We drove through the busy open air market of Petion-Ville which was like trying to drive an SUV through the crowd of the famous Calle Ocho Festival in Miami. It’s a very colorful market. The merchants sit under multi-color umbrellas and praise their products loud to attract customers. A few sellers were selling as they were walked up and down the busy street.
We arrived for our noon meeting with Soeurette at CECOSIDA to plan for our KozeAyiti press conference on Wednesday, make important phone calls and use the internet. Like most things in Haiti, what we thought would be a quick one hour meeting turned into a four hour lay over. Technical problems plague Communication in Haiti. Problems range from no signal for cell phone service to slow internet speeds and computer hardware/software issues to not having electricity. But, CECOSIDA has a generator and we have been able to accomplish our goal there: plan and connect.
We left CECOSIDA having completed our invitations and press release in French and pre-setting all the A/V technical equipment. We also had a good meeting to cover our presentation and pro-actively anticipate Haitian media questions.
Heavy rains hit in PaP around 5:00 pm and the pedestrians had the advantage over cars. The rains were intense, like the strong tropical downpours we get in Miami. People started streaming into the streets like ants while cars and trucks stood idle in the rising street floods. As we drove past Portail Leogane and Cite L’eternel, we saw people pushing the huge mounds of trash on the side of the street into the water rushing into the canals. It’s been a long drive. We reached our destination, Grand Goave, at 8:00 pm.
In recognition of the six month anniversary since the earthquake in Haiti, KozeAyiti is pleased to present the work of a group of students in the School of Communication at the University of Miami with the multimedia website, “Meditations: South Florida Haitians Tell Their Story.”
Below is a video on a Haitian artist featured on the site:
Check out the website to see the rest of the portraits.
Kozeayiti.org and the University of Miami’s igKnite student organization are currently competing in the True Hero’s Haiti Assistance Competition for projects that assisted Haiti after the quake. True Hero will award $2,000 to each of the top five schools receiving the most votes now through June 30, 2010. We will use the funds to continue and expand our Flow Project to empower more young Haitians with the tools to aid their communities in America and in Haiti.
Please help us – every vote counts! Vote for our project on Truehero.org
Voting will take less than 2 minutes of your time!
During the Flow Project, the IgKnight student organization from the University of Miami collaborated with Konbit for Haiti in a visual art and communication workshop for fifteen middle school students culminating with the showcasing of those students’ photographs as part of a fundraiser for a Haitian orphanage. The purpose of our endeavor was not only to raise funds for an orphanage in Haiti, but also to empower young Haitian children in our own Little Haiti community by allowing them to see how their work could positively impact the lives of others—both locally and internationally.
Nadine Patrice has been an environmental activist for the past 20 years. She is the Executive Director and Founder of Operation Green Leaves, a 501(c)3 organization based in Miami, Florida.
Benjamin Francois, Haitian Environmentalist and founder of APRECIAB (Association pour la Protection de l’Environnement et des Citoyens de l’Arrondissement de Belle-Anse), talks with John Brian James, former Chief of Forestry for the Island of St. Lucia at a Volunteer Workday near the Miami Metrozoo’s pine rocklands on Saturday, April 10, 2010. The event was hosted by The Institute for Regional Conservation’s (IRC) Pine Rockland Initiative.
A new installation at the Miami Science Museum by artist Xavier Cortada is aimed at raising awareness about the importance of reforesting mangroves in order to preserve the land for the people and provide a habitat for many native species, a project that could have a positive environmental impact in Haiti.
University of Miami School of Communication film student Kemy Joseph talks to Steve Halloum, School of Communication Alum, Port Au Prince resident and earthquake survivor while touring a Displaced Persons Camp.
Alex Georges, a Haitian businessman who lived through the earthquake, speaks about his experience, the effect it has had on him, and how Haitian’s were the true first-responders and will be the key to moving forward. As the co-founder of ENERSA (Energies Renouvelables S.A.), a three-year-old Port-au-Prince business that has manufactured and sold more than 500 LED solar streetlights with battery storage in 58 towns and villages throughout the island, Georges is one of a group of advocates and entrepreneurs pushing for greater use of solar, renewable, and other small-scale energy in the rebuilding of Haiti.
Haiti’s former Prime Minister, Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, discusses her reaction to the earthquake and the various initiatives she is spearheading in response to her country’s needs.
Soeurette Policard-Monjoie, chief operations officer at CECOSIDA, a Haitian organization that promote HIV and public health issues in Haitian media, shares her experience during the earthquake.
