Haiti, Social Media and Being Connected

As was demonstrated in Haiti’s earthquake crisis this year, Social Media can play a key role in evaluating crisis issues. Already fibre connections have been restored (many thanks to NetHope and their work) and there are Internet Cafe’s popping up in the tent cities people are still living in.

Think about that for a moment: people are still living in tents, yet they want to be connected to the world.

To me, this says loud and clear how critical Social Media tools have become on a societal level to citizens. These free tools are connecting families and relief agencies, enabling family ties to remain close in desperate situations. That’s powerful.

And from our research, prices are not ridiculously expensive for access. High, yes, but not much more so than pre-earthquake.

The most popular use of these tent city Internet cafe’s is of course, Social Media tools.

A large portion of Haitian Diaspora live in Montreal, Canada and then in France. Interestingly though, for donor nations, France is third for aid support behind the U.S., Canada and UK. And France is a former colonial government.

Haiti was a fragile nation before the earthquake, although just about at the tipping point of impressive recovery, now once again a very fragile nation. On the upside is that there is no threat of conflict from another nation.

Social Media tools are drawing our world ever closer, creating a level of global fragility we’ve never known. It is also enabling families to stay connected unlike ever before, and when getting access to communicating with family over having a house is a priority, well it shows the heart of humanity and our need to be connected to one another.