It's Good to Talk, but Better to Listen

Under a blazing Caribbean sun, Sandra Félicien stood in front of a crowd of impoverished people, who like herself, have been homeless since the earthquake of 12 January 2010. After spending months living in tents or makeshift shelters, their patience was at breaking point.

We called it the Tanbou Project after the Creole word for the Haitian drums whose beat can be heard day and night across Port au Prince. There are now over 140 such Information booths scattered amongst the 1,300 camps where over 1.5 million homeless people had been living since the quake. The booths are a spinoff of a program funded last year by the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) to encourage two-way communication with the displaced.