Citizen Journalism Contest

It has been two years since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, but a significant amount of the reconstruction still lies ahead. While resources and funding have flooded in, the challenges are numerous and remain significant. Are underlying problems not being disclosed? Or are these challenges due to Haiti's devastated infrastructure making it nearly impossible for aid organizations to effectively mobilize?

To get to the contest, click the map to the right →→→

We are extremely excited to announce a new Helium contest "Haiti's Earthquake: Two Years After" in collaboration with UniversalGiving and GlobalPost.

In the spirit of citizen journalism, we're asking you to dig in and learn what you can about the issues, then bring your knowledge back by writing to the contest titles.

Contest Details

This unique collaboration offers numerous opportunities for writers to win, and prizes are not mutually exclusive.

The GlobalPost Overall winner:

There will be an overall winner (or winners) for the best overall article. A panel of professional journalists will review the top four Helium-ranked articles written to each title, and this panel of judges will determine the winner. The recipient of the best article prize will receive $250 and will have his or her article published on GlobalPost's Fault Line Special Reports page. In the event of a tie, each winner will receive the $250 prize and be published as well.

Helium winners:

To be one of the winners in the Helium contest, your chances to win are greatly increased by writing to multiple titles in the contest. Writers are more likely to win if they compete on most or all of the titles in the contest. Writing quality is the key, because you gain points by being ranked higher in each title. For this contest, there will be one $75.00 first place prize, three $25.00 second place prizes, and five $10.00 third place prizes. But that's not all.

The UniversalGiving winner:

UniversalGiving will also have judges choose a best article or articles which will be published on their blog and possibly used in their newsletters or on their website.

In Preparation

As a part of writing to one of the titles, it will help if you review these projects that UniversalGiving has qualified as top performing NGOs in Haiti.

To prepare yourself for some of the titles in the contest, you also might want to spend some time on the Fault Line Special Reports page at GlobalPost.