On disaster, technology, and community

Yellowman/ Starting all Over

Today, like everyone else, I'll be waiting with drooling lips for the Apple tablet/slate announcement. It's the promise of transformational device, the surrounding mystery, and the possibilities that stir my interest.

But sometimes it's the small things that blow my mind.

When a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti two weeks ago, I learned about it on Facebook. I sat horrified and in disbelief as I saw status updates from close friends and colleagues with messages that ranged from asking for prayers for Haiti to listing missing family members. Despite the connectivity that technology offers us, though, I was frozen. Something just didn't seem right. We were all glued to our screens tracking and responding to status updates and messages. For me, it seemed so cold, so disconnected. I picked up my phone to call people who I knew must be in pain. But words failed me.

I am Jamaican. I remember when Hurricane Gilbert hit. My heart still seizes up when I remember reports of the hurricane passing completely over my homeland, its evil eye blanketing our small island. Back in he U.S. we waited for news from family. There was no Facebook or Twitter in 1988, so we waited for a phone call. A word.

But I remember what happened after. We leapt passionately, almost violently, into relief efforts. Anything. Collecting clothes and food. We donated. We gathered at Stone's, one of a small handful of Caribbean food markets in Southern California. And we worked. I remember seemingly endless days of gathering and toiling. But I also remember that very strong feeling of community I experienced.

We had no Facebook then. But we had each other.

When I read news about the Haiti earthquake, I sent a couple of messages to friends, offering to "be there" for whatever they needed. I didn't want to impose my need for answers on their grief. But it also felt distant. Clean. Mechanical. People were hurting and I offered a text message on Facebook.

So on a Thursday evening in the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, five graduate students gathered to do something. Everyone, it seemed, was collecting money and supplies. What could we do? We were all disturbed by the media's insistence on writing Haiti and Haitians as lost, un-salvageable; and having sealed their own sad fate when they made that "pact with the devil," well, you know…

In about an hour, we had decided that as academics, education was the best form of "aid" we could offer. We decided on a teach-in, called or emailed professors who immediately said yes. I reached out to the undergraduates in the one way I knew I could get them–through Facebook. Within a matter of 24 hours, using just Facebook and email, we had sent hundreds of invitations to our teach-in. But because it was Martin Luther King's birthday, a holiday, and although more than 100 people responded, we expected at most, 50 people. I watched nervously as the tally on Facebook climbed. Word came that the Charlottesville community had heard about the event and wanted to participate.

On Monday afternoon, the students trickled in. Then came a flood of people. We exceeded the fire code and had to move to another room. We did a general count: there were roughly 150 attendees. The enormity of the event hit me. We needed to do this.

In addition to using Facebook, we also used Ustream to connect with those who wanted to "be there" but could not. And for two hours on January 20, we were all in that room together, talking, making human contact.

A colleague originally from Ghana, and living in the U.S. contacted me to say that he had watched the live-streamed event and appreciated "being in the room" with us, though he was 3,000 miles away at the time.

Professors, graduate students, and undergraduates are now working together to plan a series of educational events centering on Haiti. We hope you will join us–in the flesh or virtually.

And I'll leave you with a song I keep in mind when I see the devastation wrought on my Caribbean neighbor–our way of dealing with disaster.

Tags: Facebook, Haiti, Hurricane Gilbert, Jamaica, University of Virginia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 1:44 pm and is filed under blog, education (.edu), technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.