Middle and high school students from Lunel facing the exile of a Haitian journalist Anderson D. Michel

Le reporter d’Haïti a raconté sa douloureuse histoire aux ados.

Anderson D. Michel a témoigné sur son vécu et sur l’importance de la liberté de s’exprimer et de la presse.

Haïti. Ils étaient peut-être une poignée à connaître le nom. Probablement moins à le situer sur le globe terrestre.

However, this is the country that journalist Anderson D. Michel fled in June 2019. The 29-year-old reporter spent a week in Lunel, with 400 students from the Mistral college and the Feuillade high school, to bear witness to this forced departure from the nation that saw him born and, above all, to express the need importance of freedom of information.

On this theme addressed during the 2023-2024 school year, the arrival and interventions of the young Haitian were part of the “Special Envoy” from the House of Journalists.

The last of these sessions with Lunel schoolchildren, part of which was subsidized as part of the Educational City, was held this Friday, February 2 with 3rd grade students from Mistral College.

He escaped two assassination attempts

Locally, it’s a super-active pair that allowed Anderson D. Michel to be able to tell without fear this slice of life during which he risked so much of his own.

The one who received many death threats and escaped two assassination attempts was the host of Isabelle Crema, multimedia manager at the Lunel Agglo media library, put in contact with this ordinary superhero by Denis Tuchais, academic delegate for information education at the rectorate and coordinator of the center for media and information education (Clemi).

During his eight interventions, Anderson D. Michel recounted these years of investigation into the world of Haitian corruption. As for what was called “The massacre of La Saline”, this shanty town of Port-au-Prince in which 71 people were shot dead, in 2018, by gangs close to the central power.

Three weeks of press

Not one, not two but three! At the Lunel Agglo media library, the “Press Week” lasts around twenty days, in particular at the request of the city's teachers so that the majority can participate.

Thus, this 2024 vintage, once again set up by Isabelle Crema, multimedia manager at the media library, and her team, will take place from March 12 to 31.

Among the events to remember: the exhibition “D’here” which highlights the testimonies of exiled journalists and Magnum photographers around the notions of exile, reception, repression; a Serious game animation (two board games, two video games); the screening of the film L’Enquête by Vincent Garenq, followed by an exchange with a journalist.

Awareness on the part of young people

Hard, terrible stories, where horror rubs shoulders with – even represents – the daily life of one of the poorest populations in the world. Stories that amazed, sometimes to the point of tears, the middle and high school students of Lunel.

They achieved this, thanks to the young Haitian journalist, whose pen today blackens the white screens of the Guiti news website, an independent online media which allows reporters in exile to pursue their profession , all the importance of freedom of the press, of freedom to inform.

Young people who also understood « the chance they have to live in a democratic country, remarked the young exiled Haitian, at the conclusion of one of the meetings with the schoolchildren. Many of them, after two hours of listening and discussion, move from emotion to awareness. For sure, they now also know where Haiti is.