Youth-Targeted Haiti Relief Roundup

With all the recent coverage of a devastated Haiti and the thousands of people left homeless by last week’s massive earthquake, we decided to take a break from our normally scheduled programming (see Essentials for Golden Globe/Late Night showdown coverage) and round up a few different multimedia initiatives we’ve spotted looking to help connect tweens, teens and twentysomethings with the ongoing relief efforts.

TV

Nickelodeon launches The Big Help: Help Haiti (pictured here) for kids looking to learn more and discuss the Haiti earthquake and ways to help with the relief efforts.  The site features message boards for kid discussions about the aftermath, as well as a list of organizations that kids can encourage their parents to investigate ways to help the people of Haiti. ) (via Derek Baird:: Barking Robot)

Wyclef Jean joins George Clooney and CNN’s Anderson Cooper in hosting MTV Networks’ “Hope for Haiti,” the global telethon to air commercial-free across ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, the CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT on Friday, January 22, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The telethon will be hosted by Clooney in Los Angeles, Jean in New York and Cooper in Haiti. All donations will directly benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF and Wyclef’s Yele Haiti Foundation. (Ed. note: See this Washington Post piece for a recap of the controversy around Yele and Wyclef Jean’s response)

Film

The Ciné Institute is Haiti’s only film school and home of an innovative program that trains Haitian youth in all aspects of filmmaking… Despite having their school reduced to rubble and losing most of their film equipment, these young filmmakers have been tirelessly been documenting the aftermath of the quake that has devastated Haiti. Luckily they were able to salvage some of their equipment and since then have been sharing the “we story” of their community by uploading on-the-ground reports via Twitter, their website and their Vimeo page. (via Derek Baird::Barking Robot)

Music

Usher teams up with the United Nations (U.N.) to encourage young people to help raise funds for the Haiti relief effort, setting up a partnership between his New Look charity organization and the U.N. Foundation.  The “Powered By Service” initiative is urging young people across the world to each donate $5 to help those hit by the disaster.

Linkin Park’s non-profit foundation, Music for Relief, has teamed up with the United Nations Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and the Dave Matthews Band’s BAMA Works organization’s Haitian relief effort for a project called Download to Donate for Haiti. Linkin Park, Peter Gabriel, Kenna, the Dave Matthews Band, Alanis Morissette, Slash and Beth Hart, the All-American Rejects, Enrique Iglesias and Hoobastank contributed previously unreleased songs for the project, and the artwork was helmed by Shepard Fairey — the album is available now.

Paste magazine launches Songs for Haiti, an effort to aid earthquake victims. Dozens of artists have donated MP3s, and users are encouraged to give what they can. In return, they’ll receive more than 200 MP3s from Andrew Bird, Of Montreal, The Decemberists, Bob Mould, She & Him, Ben Folds and others with several unreleased tracks. (via Pop Candy)

Online Communities

Gaia Online announces its recent initiative to match the donations of users to the Red Cross Haiti relief and development efforts up to $10,000. Also, the online community has created a dedicated online forum to serve as a destination for members to coordinate support and donation efforts.

Zynga began running a special relief campaign in three of their games. So far over $1.2 million has been raised for Haiti through Zynga games. With over 40 million daily users combined between FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker there’s a good chance that more than a million more dollars will be generated in a short amount of time. (via Social Times)

These are obviously just the tip of the outreach iceberg. Ypulse Readers, if your brand or .org is doing something to help or you know of one that is, feel free to leave it in the comments!