“This blog is about what I saw through my lens… hope, dignity, success, need beyond my worst nightmares and love greater than my wildest dreams” is how I started this Upbeat blog three months ago. It’s also how I must start this latest entry. This time, while I wish I were on the ground seeing these real and raw images through my own lens, I am instead seeing them on my computer screen and TV routers around CNN as I work with friends in the field to bring the world the best coverage of Haiti’s natural disaster.

Here are some facts about what’s currently happening in Haiti:

January 10, 2010

• A small tree—carved fishing boat capsizes… cars crash into each other… children are stuck beneath their collapsed classroom roof…
• A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits Haiti, affecting at least 1 million people living around Port-au-Prince
• Today is 11 days in to the catastrophe and aid is just beginning to arrive at the epicenter
• Doctors abandon patients and Sanjay Gupta runs from reporting to performing surgery
• Aid does not arrive fast enough and Anderson Cooper pleads live on air, so real and raw, for people to help
• Hope is alive as people are found under the rubble
• Children still smile simply because they are alive

January 11, 2010

• Around 300,00 thousand children in Haiti are restaveks, child slaves
• Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere
• 70% of Haitian people live in poverty-annual income of $400 per year
• There are at least 200,000 orphaned children in Haiti

Now:

• You can step up and serve – donate – pray – love
• Visit CNN.com/impact to see vetted charities acting on the ground in Haiti
• Stay up on the latest stories of survival – follow what we gather at twitter.com/makinggoodnews

This weekend

• Watch what we’re working on: Celebrity Telethon with George Clooney
• One of my favorite bands, Old Crow Medicine Show, sings a song which has been resonating through my mind for days. You can listen to ‘I hear them all‘:.

Circling back around to Upbeat…

As I’ve mentioned a dozen times, 100% of profits from the film go directly to building out more Music for Life centers. In light of the devastation in Haiti, the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children there (descendants of former African slaves in the first black-led country) the African Children’s Choir and Music for Life are hoping to expand Music for Life to serve these precious kids. Please consider donating to the film to secure the hope of these efforts. Thank you so much!

Hoping for Haiti,
Team Upbeat