Haiti and Communications

I suffer from an occasional and unfortunate myopia where one issue will draw a significant portion of my thought process. Right now that issue is the crisis in Haiti. Sadly, this blog does not garner nearly enough (any?) readers for me to make a significant contribution with a plea for donations. At the same time, I’m not comfortable, nor have the intellectual capacity, to write about something communications related that doesn’t touch on Haiti.

So, two points regarding communications and the crisis:

The first is this twitter list, assembled by Global Voices Managing Director Georgia Popplewel.  The list features local Haitians who still have internet access and are detailing the ongoing account of the situation. It’s haunting, surreal, sad and occasionally hopeful. But it also illustrates the importance of a service like Twitter. It’s perfect for a situation because a) unlike blogging it is short, simple, and anyone can instantly update and b) unlike Facebook it is asynchronous, so anyone can follow along without approval from the information originator.

While Twitter in this situation isn’t a source for “news” it’s a great source of information, and has been very useful for on-the-ground understanding of just how devastating this tragedy is (and, unfortunately, will continue to be.

My second note regards the text message efforts of the Red Cross and Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti foundation. By texting “Haiti” to 90999 ($10) or “Yele” to 501501 ($5), people are able to quickly and easily donate to the relief. The fact that Red Cross has raised over $3 million and Yele has had success (can’t find numbers, though I assume it is significantly less, but still effective)  proves that this type of SMS digital activism can produce results in the appropriate situation.

I don’t have readers, but if you do come across this, and you do want to donate, Yele, Partners in Health, Haiti Partners, Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, Oxfam and the Red Cross are all good homes for your donations.