Haitian radio host Carel Pedre, based in Port au Prince, was among the more prominent voices tweeting soon after the earthquake struck on 12 January.
Along with other tweeters, Carel was also sending digital photos of the destruction caused by the quake. Many of the images appeared in mainstream newspapers and on TV channels shortly afterwards.
Earlier this month, he picked up a Special Award at the “Shorties” in New York. The annual event honours the best producers of short, real-time content. He was also nominated in the best Innovation on Twitter category.
At the United Nations, international donors pledged more than $5bn in financial aid for Haiti’s recovery.
Below, Carel Pedre gives World News America his assessment on how far his home country has come since that devastating day.
"It has been three months and yet it seems like three weeks. Things are moving rather slowly from what I’ve seen. People are still living in the streets; many of them have no shelter, no tents, no living spaces. And when it rains it is catastrophic.
I am an ordinary person but at the same time I still have a job, I have my house, my family is safe, I am going about town normally. But for those that I pass on the streets of Champs de Mars still stranded in front of our National Palace, I can’t imagine how they are feeling, all I know is that they are surviving not living.
It is sad to say that on our side, we still haven’t seen what the government is doing, or has been doing. And though we hear and see so many international organisations working towards rebuilding, truly we don’t see the work yet.
In six months we will definitely still have people in the streets and I believe that we will probably be in the same scenario. The government heads and the community leaders have taken too long to give a definite answer as to what needs to be done and what resources have been set aside to start making a difference, and because of this I think that recovery and rebuilding will take much longer than it needs to.
To be totally frank, the UN and the international organisations like the NGOs have been in Haiti forever now and it is now that we need them the most. It is now that after so many years that they need to flex their muscles and get things done. They need to rebuild Haiti for the sake of our people, and our nation. They need to act and act now.
For the physical reconstruction of the country there needs to be building codes set in place to ensure that the magnitude of the devastation never happens again.
But the real recovery and reconstruction needs to come from education. Educating people in all shapes and forms and forming a stronger nation through their education. We need to have health insurance set up for the people as well. The country needs to work on its infrastructure, its government, its social security, and also its agriculture, so that we can cultivate Haiti and make it liveable. We need to make it so people want to stay there, rebuild there, live there, and grow there.
Still now I can’t believe that I have lived through any of these things and have seen what I have seen. It was a regular day, the country was preparing for carnival, we had just started celebrating our new year, spirits were high and the last thing on anyone’s mind was an earthquake.
Growing up in Port de Paix (northwest Haiti), I had felt an earthquake before, so I thought this was the same. Nothing out of the ordinary, I was driving in my car, I continued to drive and it was not until I saw people who were hurt passing me by and seeing houses that had collapsed that I realised this was at a whole other level.
My first reactions were fear, concern, frustration. Was my family safe? Would my house collapse? Was the world coming to an end? But as it happened I also had the first instinct to get on my phone and Tweet “Am I the only one who felt that?”
Then as I looked around and witnessed the devastation I quickly tried to find my daughter’s whereabouts. I parked the car at the radio station, and I walked a mile and a half to my house to make sure she was fine then I walked right back to the radio station in the midst of it all because we still had power and were able to keep broadcasting.
Before the earthquake, Twitter for me was a form of entertainment, a way to keep up with some friends, make new ones and share my life with those interested. Once the earthquake hit, I realised that the world was curious and eager to hear about Haiti and so I used Twitter to let people know what I saw, what I was living. Twitter helped us save lives, get much needed medication, tents and survival equipment to families and to those affected most by the earthquake. From Twitter to Skype I could reach out to the world and let them hear from Haiti directly.
We can clearly see the result social networking has had in Haiti and even in Chile after their earthquake and the effect on United States news broadcasts and internationally. It was a means of communication straight from ground zero.
I was very surprised to get a Shorty award. I never even knew the Shorty Awards existed before any of this. I was humbled and honoured to even be nominated but for them to create a special award just for me blows me away. I can only hope that every year they can make the “Special Humanitarian Shorty Award” a tradition to inspire others to work towards making the world just a little better.
In a year from now I can only hope that the people are no longer living on the streets and that there is a sense of normalcy when you look outside your window. I hope that there will be a foundation and a base where people will have the simple and basic necessities to live not just survive. And in the upcoming years, we will continue to hope for bigger and better things, I believe it is possible and it will happen!
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