CNN Heroes

David Mattingly | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

I took this photo late Saturday night. I didn't know it at the time but this was the moment when hope of finding survivors was beginning to fade.

A U.S. search and rescue team was punching holes in the rubble of the collapsed school looking for "voids."

These are spaces large enough where people could have escaped fatal injury. But unlike other building collapses, there turned out to be very few voids...and none of them held any survivors.

Read more about the Haiti school collapse on CNN.com

David Mattingly | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

The air inside the hospital is hot and humid. There is no air conditioning. At the crowded trauma ward there is not a single empty bed.

They are filled with injured children, survivors of the collapse of a school building on the outskirts of the capitol of Haiti.

Most lie quiet. When they try to move their young faces wince from the pain. This is a heartbreaking sight and yet these children are the fortunate ones.

At least 90 of their friends, teachers, classmates and siblings died under the fallen rubble.

Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean and actor Matt Damon distribute food to flood victims after four tropical storms hit the area in Gonaives, Haiti, Sunday, Sept. 14.

Edittor's Note: Yéle Haiti is a movement led by Wyclef Jean that is helping to bring hope back to Haiti. Projects are designed to make a difference in the fields of education, health, environment and community development. The power and reach of music, sports and the media is used to increase the impact of these project

Wyclef Jean
Musician,
Yéle Haiti Foundation

I was born in a village called LaSerre. LaSerre is a village in a region called Croix-des-Bouquets, just a few miles east of Port-au-Prince. LaSerre might as well be 100 miles away from Haiti’s largest city. It is a very small rural village that still does not have a paved road.

I have returned to that village many times over the past few years. I have a lot of dreams of what we can do to make sure that other children like me can get the opportunities that I did. I would have had them, had my father not had vision. Not gone against the odds, not taken risks, and not believed.

In August of this year, four hurricanes hit the island of Haiti in less than two weeks time. I was traveling on tour when this occurred, similar to when Hurricane Jeanne hit Haiti in 2004. Then I was in Paris touring with the Fugees and what was happening in my homeland just took me completely out of myself. It was very difficult to continue on. Keep reading