A makeshift altar with the skull of a 28-year-old woman called Barbara. She was a local Mango, a female voodoo priest. She died in the devastating January 12 earthquake. The surrounding "Fort National" neighbourhood was almost entirely destroyed.
Thomas Kern
A group of men cleaning up and working through the rubble of destroyed houses. "Fort National" was a neighbourhood of mostly illegal constructions built over the years. The debris in this area has to be removed entirely by hand.
Thomas Kern
The narrow streets and alleys of the "Fort National" neighbourhood block access for heavy construction machinery. Reinforced concrete slabs have to be smashed with sledgehammers before the material is carted away in wheelbarrows.
Thomas Kern
A collapsed first-floor concrete slab.
Thomas Kern
A view of the almost completely destroyed middle-class neighbourhood of Morne Lazarre between Pétionville and Port-au-Prince.
Thomas Kern
A makeshift building is set up on a partially cleaned up lot in downtown Petit-Goâves, a small port town close to the earthquake epicentre in Léogane.
Thomas Kern
A collection point for steel reinforcement bars near government offices in downtown Port-au-Prince where many buildings were destroyed by the earthquake and later demolished with heavy machinery.
Thomas Kern
The skull of a Madame Sergo hangs on a steel reinforcement bar. Her husband was the owner of a "Fort National" funeral home. He lost nine family members in the earthquake.
Thomas Kern
Two angel statues and one of the church bells salvaged form the Church of Notre-Dame in Petit-Goâve.
Thomas Kern
Family tents distributed by the German non-governmental organisation Welthungerhilfe in a residential neighbourhood of the port town of Petit-Goâve.
Thomas Kern
A family and their shack made of recycled wood boards, sticks and tarpaulins provided by emergency aid organisations.
Thomas Kern
One of the many "cash for work" programmes trying to involve Haitians in the cleaning up and reconstruction process. These limited programs are trying to bolster the purchasing power of Haitians and allow them to cover basic living expenses.
Thomas Kern
A father feeding his two-year-old son. In an effort to normalise the economy and motivate people to return to work, Haiti’s central government has forced aid organizations to stop free food distributions that have sustained a large part of the population.
Thomas Kern
Hundreds of men and women employed through one of the many "cash for work" programmes are cleaning up streets, demolishing destroyed buildings and hauling away debris.
Thomas Kern
This watch found in the rubble of a Fort National home was a little more than half an hour slow when the quake hit Haiti.
Thomas Kern
Two young men whose family house in the Bourdon neighbourhood was destroyed pose on the roof of the ruin. In the background the Canapé Vert neighbourhood.
Thoms Kern
A camp of displaced people near the shore between Léogane and Petit-Goâve.
Thomas Kern
It is hot inside the small makeshift shack this family built, decorated with children's drawings.
Thomas Kern
The finance and economic ministry in downtown Port-au-Prince, where most government buildings were destroyed by the earthquake.
Thomas Kern
The situation on the island has yet to improve despite international aid efforts.
This content was published on
Thomas Kern was born in Switzerland in 1965. Trained as a photographer in Zürich, he started working as a photojournalist in 1989. He was a founder of the Swiss photographers agency Lookat Photos in 1990. Thomas Kern has won twice a World Press Award and has been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. His work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections.
Billions of dollars have been pledged to rebuild Haiti, but dollars in the bank mean little to families stuck between the need for immediate aid and a world waiting for them to recover their independence. There is precious little money to buy food and clean water, let alone school uniforms for the children or housing. (All pictures: Thomas Kern, swissinfo.ch)
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.