Category:Open Solace Haiti

From CrisisCommons Wiki

Contents 1 This Page 2 Public Site 3 The Open Solace Haiti Project 4 Objectives 5 Project Summary

[edit] This Page

This page is the mediawiki "Category" page - the closest mediawiki software comes to a folder. To create a new page that appears in the list of associative pages below, include the category "tag" [[Category:Open Solace Haiti]] at the bottom of any page of content.

Our team now also has a public facing website at http://opensolacehaiti.org - We are using this CrisisCommons wiki as a backchannel to coordinate our activities behind the scenes. So, for example, we are using pages in this wiki to prepare content before we are ready to publish it on our main http://opensolacehaiti.org site.

[edit] Public Site

If you are looking for our main, public facing website and blog, please visit http://opensolacehaiti.org

[edit] The Open Solace Haiti Project

The Open Solace Haiti Project aims to set up independent channels of communications between Haitians currently living in Haiti and Haitians outside of Haiti. Our analysis indicates that lots of effort is going into getting data out of Haiti, and representing it to professional NGOs and western audiences. Very few projects are focusing on creating sustainable flows of information into, out of, and with Haiti. It has also been demonstrated that a community's social and emotional needs are best served by locally produced independent media.

Our first priorities are:

• To connect with grassroots efforts on the ground to restore minimal mass media (e.g. low power FM radio, high power copy machines, blackboards, and projectors), and relief workers and journalists.
• To establish the Haitian Video Postcard Exchange Network as a mechanism for video messages to get into and out of Haiti. These 3 minute videos can be shot in Haiti using very inexpensive hardware, and played back using very inexpensive handheld video projectors. The data can be exchanged over the internet when services are restored, but they can also travel on foot, over a so called sneakernet, stored on SD memory cards or USB keychain drives.
• To establish the Haitian Micro Text Interchange where (very) short messages, or Tweets, from abroad are curated and filtered, and then selected for rebroadcast over low tech mass communications tools in Haiti. The return trip can take a similar trajectory.

On a psychological and spiritual level, this open platform seeks to be an intracultural relief effort that deals in the cycle of grief, compassion and the flow of dialog. Specifically, through the exchange of these postcards people will be moved to unload, intra-culturally. The cross cultural sharing and unburdening of grief through speech, eye contact and affirmation are at the root of crisis management. Without it, people will not be able to move on or heal. It is our goal to provide an open platform that facilitates the spiritual and psychological re-building that Haitians in the country and in the Diaspora will need to move forward.

[edit] Objectives

Our immediate objectives are to establish a protocol for American Haitians, starting Brooklyn NY to send video messages of love, compassion, and support to their relatives in Haiti. We also plan to get video messages out of Haiti and deliver them to the Brooklyn Haitian community. Additionally, we want to encourage anyone to compose video postcards of hope to be sent to Haiti, but Haitian postcards will have first priority over others.

We have observed that most of the communications efforts going on right now are focused on getting information about the Haitian situation into the hands of journalists, professional relief workers, and audiences. This is important, but we feel that it is also essential to create flows of information into, out of, and within Haiti -- from Haitians to Haitians. Independent, locally, produced media, by and for Haitians.

For more background on the analysis that led to this strategy and project, see Humane Communications over Human Networks.

For an understanding of just how essential information can be in a crisis, see The Red Cross World Disasters Report 2005: Focus on information in disasters.

[edit] Project Summary

Project Twitter hashtag: #ccophp

• Brief Description This new project aims to set up independent channels of communications between Haitians currently living in Haiti and Haitians in the Diaspora, first, through the Haitian Video Postcard Exchange.

• Status

Transitioning out of startup phase. We have a proof of concept, a demonstrated need, and content (video postcards) are starting to roll in. Looking for content to ship (priority goes to messages from Haitians in the diaspora to Haitians in Haiti), volunteers, organizational allies, publicity, and funding to equip our first video messenge

• Project Communications: Jonah Bossewitch, jonah at alchemicalmusings dot org, twitter: @mrenoch, Adriane Stewart
  • irc:
  • twitter:
  • code or data repositories:

• Skills and Other Resources Needed

Unlike many other relief efforts currently being advertised, you can participate in the Haitian Video Postcard Exchange project without donating any money!

• Create a video postcard Record a video postcard to Haiti and upload it to youtube. Your video should be under 3 minutes total in length, due to severe bandwidth constraints. Please tag your video opensolacehaiti and also email the link to one of the project organizers. We cannot guarantee the delivery of your message to Haitians, but we will do our best to deliver it as soon as it is feasible. Priority will go to messages from Haitians living in the Diaspora

• Know someone traveling to/from Haiti? Please put them in touch with us! We need couriers to transport memory cards with the video to and from our video messengers on the ground in Haiti, as well as more video messengers!

• Donations Of course, if you believe in this cause, we would certainly appreciate donations (of money or equipment). Since this is a pure, peer-to-peer, community driven volunteer effort, our overhead is non-existent. All donations will go toward the purchase of hardware to build out the network transporting these postcards.

• Objectives or Goals (bullet list)
• Our immediate objectives are to establish a protocol for American Haitians, starting Brooklyn NY to send video messages of love, compassion, and support to their relatives in Haiti. We also plan to get video messages out of Haiti and deliver them to the Brooklyn Haitian community.
• Additionally, we want to encourage anyone to compose video postcards of hope to be sent to Haiti, but Haitian postcards will have first priority over others.