Haitians given voice--and little else

This article is about the recent installation of suggestion boxes in Haitian refugee camps in which they have no social services and little food availability or contact with the outside world. Suggestion boxes are being used by residents of the camp to voice their misery, make requests or demands and in some cases just to vent. On one hand this seems like a helpful outlet, introducing a kind of alternative media to allow these disenfranchised people to express themselves. On the other hand, though, it also comes across as a misdirected kind of outreach that ties into the Mody and Lee article we are reading for tomorrow which details some theorists' argument that introducing forms of media into the Third World would necessarily result in development. Mody and Lee point out that "Western innovations selected for diffusion did not address the reason why up to one third of the people in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America did not have basic levels of food clothing and shelter" (pp 95-96). Similarly, in this article about Haitians' use of suggestion boxes and what happens to the letters after they are submitted--they are all read, some aloud on the radio station that is part of the International Organization for Migration communication program--the results seem quite discouraging, especially at the end of the article when the reporter explains that "the $400,000 program was intended to give voice to the voiceless and not food to the hungry or money to the destitute." Perhaps the program will raise awareness and ultimately be helpful in raising funds for these refugees, but it does seem a bit cruel that they are invited to express their plight and make pleas for assistance with the caveat that it is unlikely that anyone will respond.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/americas/20haiti.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th