The Haitian Earthquake: How to Involve Our Kids + Old News Already?

by redpillpapa · 0 comments

in Advertising+Media,Art+Music,Education,Environment

When the story broke about the Haitian earthquake, I found myself glued to the TV in a state of sadness and shock.  I found the images, as I’m sure many of you did, to be quite graphic and disturbing and made it a point to either turn off the TV or change the channel when my five and a half year old daughter entered the room.  My concern was that if she saw pictures of people’s homes collapsed on top of them, dead bodies lining the streets, and the injured living, she would begin to have fears that the same things could happen to her. I felt that she might start worrying unnecessarily about a similar event taking place where she lived.  At the same time, I did want my daughter to know that there was a place in the world where people were suffering as a result of something that was not their fault, and that there was something that we could do as a family to help ease the suffering of these innocent people.

This tragedy hit close to home for me. As a music producer, I have worked with a good number of Haitian musicians and have a love and admiration for Haitian culture, religion and art.  Haitians visiting the US have been guests in our home, worked in my studio and shot music videos in my living room.  My daughter has grown up around many Haitian musicians and performers and has interacted in her shy way with them.

I would really like to hear from other Red Pill Parents who watched this human tragedy play out on TV.  How did you explain the earthquake to your children and what have your concerns been regarding their exposure to this event? Just yesterday I stumbled upon an article on the Jewish-themed website tabletmag.com about how to explain this event to children without instilling unnecessary fear in them. You can read it here.

The aftermath and rebuilding:

As we are now experiencing in the media, Haiti is starting to fall deeper into news reports and out of the headlines.  In Internet and Twitter time, this story is tragically becoming old news.  For those committed to helping, social media is a wonderful tool. I have learned of countless efforts to gather needed supplies and ship them expeditiously to Haiti. While the news media may not deem it good business to keep this headline fresh, individuals are acting out of human caring and kindness to build the support of the general public and keep them actively engaged.

It is my feeling that the way to keep the general public interested and involved in the care of Haitians living on the island and the rebuilding is to help foster an emotional connection to Haitian culture.  From our position as Red Pill Parents, we hope that we can do our small part to help our readers learn more about Haitian culture and religion. We have provided the following links for you to follow and explore, and hopefully form your own bond to the beauty and vitality that is at the core of these wonderful, life-affirming people:

Here is a very informative video from National Geographic:

Birth of Voodoo

Here is a link to an article from National Geographic, entitled “Voodoo a Legitimate Religion, Anthropologist Says:”

This link will take you to a more recent article from National Geographic, which addresses the Voodoo religion and how it might interpret the event of the earthquake.

This is a link to a Flickr slideshow by a photojournalist. It shows the beauty of Haiti and the daily lives of its people before the earthquake struck. This is the image that Haitians want the outside world to keep in their hearts.

Here is a link to the artist, Manze Dayila, whose CD I most recently produced. You can also visit iTunes or Amazon.com and do a search for ‘Manze Dayila’ to purchase MP3 downloads.






Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: