Can you hear me?
As we wrote last week, radio has played a vital communications role in Haiti in the weeks following its devastating earthquake last month. But what we didn’t cover in that story is the sad state of some Haitian community radio stations which have suffered major damage to buildings and equipment.
According to a series of articles on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) blog, community radio plays an important educational role for Haitian citizens. By broadcasting native language programming it is serving a rural population in which 80% of homes are said to contain radios.
A post from last week reports that,
“In the western and southeastern parts of the country, at least 16 stations are facing serious problems that have suspended their broadcasts, Sony Esteus, executive director of SAKS, a local organization of community radio stations, told CPJ. The earthquake obliterated SAKS’ office in the Bourdon neighborhood, east of Port-au-Prince.”
In a post this week, CPJ shares some video of the destruction at the office of community radio organization SAKS, as well as footage from a destroyed community radio station in Fondwa.
Take a look at CPJ’s entire blog series on Haiti to find additional stories about the role that radio is playing during this crisis and to learn about the state of several other radio stations.
