Solidar’IT recently completed a video report precisely on Radio Boukman, the community radio of Cité Soleil: Hurricane warnings… from Cité Soleil.

On Friday 10 September, we received a call from the programme director, Jean Lesly Hilaire, to inform us that one of his reporters had been assaulted by policemen right in the middle of the central police station of Cité Soleil! We met the Radio Boukman team again in Cité Soleil, still under shock for this new event. Jean Lesly explained that he was not so surprised: he had advised the journalist to switch on her audio recorder before entering the police building. He had even said “you never know what can happen”…

Orpha Dessources, journalist at Radio Boukman, was given the task to go to the police station to find information. It seemed that a man, Jean Bony, one of the leaders of “Race Cabrit” gang, had just been arrested following the assassination of another gang leader named Boujoly. Around midday the journalist left the Cité Soleil radio and some ten minutes later she reached the central police station of Cité Soleil. What happened next, a clear breach of the laws that protect the freedom of the press, can be heard directly through Orpha’s voice here (English version available soon):

Jean Lesly explained to us that it has never occurred to a journalist to be assaulted by a gang member, but on the other hand, this was the third time it happened by the hands of policemen! For this reason, they have decided to formally sue the policeman, Alex Dominique, to avoid the same to happen again in the future (English version available soon):

One important surprise is that, as per Jean Lesly’s advice, Orpha did switch on her voicerecorder before the assault. We propose here an extract in Creole, which contains death threats, insults of all kinds, and explicit violence. This extract has been broadcasted several times over this weekend on Radio Boukman:

Ralph is the author of “A camp per day”, a feature of a 20-minute programme called ENDK (“Enfomasyon nou dwe konnen”, meaning “Useful News”) and produced by Internews.

He visits a different camp each day, and talks to the people there to understand where the major urgencies are. His reports represent a direct line for the displaced people living in the camps to express their feelings and needs, and at the same time receive news about the other camps.

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We followed Ralph in his visit to the camp in Saint Anne’s square, in Port-au-Prince. The camp is right in the commercial centre of the capital, the area that saw the worst effects of the earthquake. Piles of rubble from collapsed buildings, including those of Saint Anne’s Church, surround the camp from all sides. More than 5,000 people have found refuge here.

In the audio portfolio that follows, we can listen to Ralph’s voice as he describes his day, his experience and learnings, and how he takes in the difficult human stories that he witnesses daily. What emerges is the touching view of a Haitian young man on the tragedy affecting the entire population of his country.

ENDK is broadcasted daily by a network of 35 radio stations in Haiti. The programme was conceived and set up immediately after the earthquake to provide emergency information to the population. Today the format has evolved but the focus remains on social and useful information.