Helping With Haiti: Lessons in Crisis Communication
By Kevin Curry
It all started with a simple email response to a friend: “If I can help out in some way, let me know.”
I’ve known my friends Joe and Jill Wilkins since our days at Linfield College. Today, my wife Katie and I have season tickets with the Wilkins for Linfield Wildcat football. So, offering to help with their current situation was a no-brainer.
Jill and Joe had been working for two years to adopt a son from Haiti. They were just 6-9 months away from being able to fly to Haiti and pick up their son, Samuel Chancelet. The earthquake on January 12th changed all of that. Suddenly, the safety of their son and the over 150 other children and staff at God’s Littlest Angels Orphanage south of Port au Prince became paramount. What also became paramount was finding a way to get those children, who already had adoptive families in the United States and were simply waiting to clear government red tape in the U.S. and Haiti, safely out of a country that had literally fallen apart.
Jill works in corporate communications for LSI Logic and Joe is a 3rd grade teacher, so both are smart and articulate. It was little surprise that local TV and newspapers picked up on their story as a way to localize the Haiti earthquake. Jill’s experience in communication also made her a natural to help other adoptive parents with children at God’s Littlest Angels connect with their local media and begin bringing attention to the needs of the children there. Just one day after the earthquake, nine media hits had already been made regarding the orphanage and the need to raise money to support it with food, water and supplies.
That was when I sent my email to Jill: “Great work on the media. If I can help out in some way, let me know.”
My phone range minutes later and I began my two week volunteer effort to do what little I could to help Jill and Joe get their son, help them and other volunteers get supplies to the orphanage, and help those same volunteers bring 81 adopted children safely to the United States. During that time, Joe would end up flying to Haiti with other volunteers to deliver supplies and eventually help bring the children home, Jill would end up in Miami to help coordinate efforts from the U.S., and they would make regular appearances on CNN with Larry King Live.
The lessons I learned about crisis communication were invaluable and so I want to share them with you over the next several weeks.
Next Week: You are too close to the situation, you need someone with some distance. Even if you know what to do.
Learn more about the Wilkins adoption effort by reading their great blog.
Here’s Joe’s blog about his trip to Haiti and work with God’s Littlest Angels Orphanage.