The world’s eyes have been opened over the last two weeks, not only to a tragedy of unspeakable proportions, but to a nation that has been suffering long before this natural disaster befell it. Tonight, eyes will continue to focus on helping the Haitian people as major television networks broadcast a “Hope for Haiti” telethon.

During this period of opening the world’s eyes to Haiti’s past and present plight, the site Spoken Stories offered a video of Haitian author Edwidge Danticat, speaking after another natural disaster and reading from her work.

(Following a long introduction, Danticat starts speaking about 9 minutes into the video; the entire presentation is about an hour.)

This is also a good opportunity to call attention to the site that presented the Danticat video. SpokenStories.Org says it has “one short-term goal, one mid-term plan and one lifelong mission: to help Maximize Human Capabilities through Stories, Poems and other human-uplifting arts.” Here’s more from and about the site:

Why We are Different

We believe that the best way to bring the best out of people is to empower and inspire them with awakening stories. This is the basic premise and the foundation of the work we do. We tell and write stories that will nourish your life; stories that will strengthen your spirit and soul; stories that will help you sustain your senses; stories that will help you embark journeys that you never thought about before; stories that will help you preserve your inalienable human dignity; stories that will enlighten your ‘bad’ days, and lift you up!

Many of these stories are real-life experiences. Thus, the intention is to teach you a lesson that you would otherwise had no chance.