Ronel Paul has won the ”Prix du reportage haïtien” for his documentary entitled ”Haïti: Le calvaire des mères célibataires”. He received the award this Friday, June 16, 2023, from jury president Pierre Haski, president of Reporters sans frontières (RSF) and geopolitical columnist for France Inter, and Dany Laferrière, honorary president of the Prix Philippe-Chaffanjon.
The French reporting prize was awarded to Clément Di Roma and Carol Valade of Arte, authors of Centrafrique: le soft power russe.
For its tenth and final edition, the Philippe Chaffanjon prize, created in tribute to the former RTL and Radio France journalist, honors a committed press worker like Ronel Paul, who travels to the remotest corners of Haiti to shine his spotlight on the most underprivileged sections of the population.
From the moment he joined Zoom Haiti News, Ronel Paul quickly submitted to the demands of a journalist’s social responsibility, working around universal values in the treatment of his subjects. His choice to focus on the daily lives of single-parent families and single mothers in Haiti is in line with his desire to contribute to social transformation.
Her commitment to these noble causes led her to travel thousands of kilometers. Obstacles didn’t scare her. Nor intimidation…
At the end of 2023, after his report “Haïti: Le calvaire des mères célibataires” was broadcast on our networks, Ronel Paul received serious threats. The report aroused the curiosity of many and raised awareness of this category of women, working in sand quarries. Audiences exploded. Overt violence against Ronel Paul intensified. Individuals accused him of tarnishing the country’s image, of working for foreigners, and threatened to beat him up. He subsequently received numerous intimidating messages and suspicious phone calls on his mobile.
His life was thus put in jeopardy for having shed light on (brave) women who take sole responsibility for their children, engaging in arduous activities that no one dares to talk about.
Ronel Paul is on a roll. His report in 2021 entitled “l’urbanisation anarchique et ses conséquences sur la production rizicole dans la plaine des Gonaïves”, earned him a distinction in the national competition for reports on the economy and finance in Haiti organized by the Haitian Association of Economic Journalists for Sustainable Development (AHJEDD).
For “Cohabiter à tout prix avec des décharges sauvages. Quelles conséquences?”, he won the Prix du Jeune Journaliste en Haïti organized by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
And let’s not forget his many social issues covered in the news editions of Zoom Haiti News and broadcast on our social networks.
Also a correspondent for Radio France Internationale and a journalist with Radio Référence in Gonaives, Ronel Paul perfectly embodies the “citizen journalist” advocated by theorists of the social responsibility of the press, including Professor Vario Sérant and author Theodore Peterson.
Here is the youtube link to the report produced by Ronel Paul, with the participation of John Becker Jean and Onelson Paulemice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JbcDZCYMss
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