Many have asked for it and now we are proud to make our neighborhood newspaper, The Trumpet, available to you here on our website.
Inside: The Anti-Crime Crowd, Today’s MLK Day, Youth Leaders, Dangerous Debris and more.
Marching In
Dangerous Debris
Melia Means Laborer
Today’s MLK Day
Youth Leaders Breathe New Life Into New Orleans
Community Events
You just gotta laugh
by Catrina McFate
In difficult times, laughter is the perfect medicine for life. It heals, lightens, opens doors, and brings joy. Since Hurricane Katrina, the International Association for Human Values (IAHV), an international non-profit NGO, has been inspiring and inciting laughter by offering a free trauma and stress relief workshop called Breath Water Sound.
The course is a five-day escape from everyday stress. Participants learn powerful breathing techniques to calm the mind and deal with negative emotions. For every emotion there is a corresponding rhythm of the breath. Anger is associated with fast, shallow breaths, while happiness is linked with longer deeper breaths. One can use the breath to clear away negative emotions. With negative emotions gone, laughter returns, making way for a happier New Orleans.
Through their Youth Leadership Training Program (YLTP), IAHV has empowered youth to become community activists by training them to teach the Breath Water Sound course. YLTP Director, Bill Herman, said that the program is best described by the following statement:
“If given the tools to see clearly, young people have the vision to do something positive in their communities. They also have the energy to translate their vision into action...YLTP creates a platform for youth to make a difference in their own world.” A graduate of the New Orleans summer 2006 program stated that YLTP instilled a “renewed trust in humanity and a great desire to be of service to and for others.”
These youth leaders have teamed up with organizations and taught courses all over the city. For example, IAHV has worked with everyone from Common Ground and the Woodlands Housing Project to the Ashe Cultural Center and Whitney Bank.
One participant of the trauma relief programs said, “The course gave me much more than I expected. I was able to feel free and relaxed. I was able to find some peace where I had none. I had a feeling of peace, greater awareness, and relaxation: something I didn’t think I would feel again.”
In the month of February, IAHV is hosting a symposium for leaders of New Orleans to work together towards creating a violence-free stress-free society. In the next few months, the International Association for Human Values will partner with local youth empowerment organizations to create the largest ever Youth Leadership Training Program in the world. In addition to bringing out light and laughter by teaching Breath Water Sound, these youth leaders will hold a benefit concert to inspire and empower youths to lead stress-free, violence-free lives. Held in the Superdome, this event will feature national hip-hop artists and demonstrate practical tools for dealing with everyday stress, while communicating the overall message that a healthy, non-violent community starts with individual change. ♦
For more information about our programs or to have a course at your organization or workplace please contact the IAHV New Orleans center at 504.994.4990 or visit www.iahvneworleans.org.
Wish you were here
by Emily Zeanah
Indeed, these students are not struggling for themselves alone. They are seeking to save the soul of America…This is the challenge of these young people to us and our ideals. It is also an expression of their new-found faith in themselves as well as in their fellow man.”
-from MLK’s “The Time for Freedom Has Come”
1961
The Civil Rights Movement was a great testament to the power youth possess to create meaningful and lasting social change. Therefore, as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day in New Orleans, it is fitting that we turn to the youth of our community to lead us into the next phase of the hard work of rebuilding our city. Many have lamented the lack of leadership in New Orleans, but perhaps that is because they have not been looking in the right place. Some of the most powerful leadership and work in New Orleans is emerging from below: grass-roots, youth-driven initiatives are taking hold of our city with a creative, idealistic practicality we haven’t found in City Hall. This year, the youth of our community answered Coretta Scott King’s vision of Martin Luther King Day as “a day on, not a day off,” through their service to the community. Over 600 volunteers converged on John McDonogh high school to paint, rake, clean up trash, and create murals. Meanwhile down the street, representatives from various youth-centered projects gathered at St. Luke’s Homecoming Center to learn a little about civil rights history in New Orleans, share their work with each other, and hear what is going on around the city. The assembled young people ranged in age from about ten to thirty years old and represented many different parts of New Orleans, from the East to Uptown, from Central City to Mid City. Their work is varied, but all is grounded in Martin Luther King’s vision of a Beloved Community.
Several middle school-aged youth who participated in the Gulf South Youth Action Corps 2006 summer program represented their experience. Staffed by volunteer college students from around the country, the program included classes about environmental awareness, yoga, and critical media. As part of a media course, some of the kids participated in the production of a documentary film titled “Weathering the Storm” about kids’ experiences in Katrina and a testimony to the resilience of New Orleans’ youth. Bryanna Cooper, one of the participants who was only 12 when Katrina hit, said the GYAC program was her first chance to talk to other kids about their experiences during Katrina and Rita. Regarding her experience with GYAC summer 2006, Bryanna said, “It really made me feel better to hear about what other kids were going through.”
Youth Rebuilding New Orleans is a student-initiated effort that began over the summer with the task of gutting some of their teachers’ homes, and grew into a weekly activity. They held an event in Lakeview to clean up green spaces as a way of contributing to the whole community, rather than just one individual family. This spring YRNO has plans to host a Coastal Awareness Day as well as shift their general focus from gutting houses to rebuilding houses. They are open to all high school students and have already established chapters at several area high schools.
Kids For Community began as Kids For Clean, a program that started just days before Katrina and was disbanded as a result of the storm. When the kids returned, they pushed hard to start it up again but this time with a broader community focus. When I asked them why they wanted to be a part of Kids for Community, Destany Parker replied, “Because if people see kids helping, maybe adults will want to help too.”
ReThink began as a six week summer program inviting local students (aged 10-16) to participate in a creative project to “rethink” the school system in New Orleans. What did they want out of their education? What needs were not being met? When I asked two girls what they thought was most needed, one responded that bathrooms need attention-that they often lack toilet paper and proper plumbing. Another said more variety of food options. She is vegetarian and always has to bring her lunch and the same is true for some Muslim students. The program culminated in a press conference where the kids laid out their vision to the community. Because of all of the momentum generated by this experience, their work did not end with the press conference. Now, they are well on their way to publishing a book about New Orleans Public Schools before and after Katrina. Ashley Nelson, 18, who has already published her own book in conjunction with the Neighborhood Story Project, advises the kids at Rethink about how to interview, and Jim Belfon, a photographer from Harlem who came to New Orleans for a week-long photo workshop and hasn’t left since, provides them with cameras and instruction. They gave a brief presentation at the Homecoming Center, but spent the majority of the day two blocks down the road at McDonogh High School where they conducted interviews and took pictures for their book.
Also represented were the Young Leadership Council, an organization comprised of 600 volunteers between the ages of 21 and 42 who offer service projects, training sessions and work with high school students on how to become involved with non-profit agencies; a teacher from the group “Students at the Center” a group that formed in 1996 to address policy issues in the New Orleans public School system and continue their work today; a group of recent college graduates working with VAYLA-NO (Vietnamese-American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans) presented about some of the work they have been doing with the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East and Biloxi; and of course, St. Luke’s Homecoming Center who hosted the event. St. Luke’s is the oldest African American Episcopal Church in Louisiana and The Homecoming Center, run by Shakoor Aljuwani, is dedicated to the rebuilding process in New Orleans, and to that end, provides a wide array of support services, including a meeting place for various youth based initiatives, such as the FYRE youth squad. Aljuwani said the Homecoming center is becoming known as “a place where it happens.”
The meeting was initiated by the Interfaith Works Youth Roundtable. “We started as six adults sitting around the table representing different faith groups and it became clear from adults and youth alike that we needed to hear directly from the youth themselves,” says Erik Schwarz, a founding member of interfaith works and the youth roundtable initiative. Now, youth do sit at the table and help guide the process. There has not been this kind of opportunity for all of these different groups to sit down in the same room before. And that is exactly what the Interfaith Youth Roundtable seeks to address: a need for collaboration. They also have grant money available for youth projects and are excited to begin working with people as early as this Spring. Schwarz hopes that by providing them with this leadership opportunity, the young people of this community will be empowered to become change agents and leaders in the community. The message of the day was clear: we need to empower our youth by giving them the resources they need to create meaningful change. And we need to listen. After all, who could say what they need better than the young people themselves? ♦
“We don’t have any ‘sit-down’ people here. Everyone here was always good about looking out for each other.” - Cheryl Diggins
by Gill Benedek, Cheryl Diggins, Dora Bourgeois, Steve Brooks, Adrienne Crumpton and Jeannette Jackson
On a bright Saturday in January I am standing in Ms. Jeannette Jackson’s driveway. Trailers, lined up and down the street, deflect the rays of sun covering the bundles of building equipment in a high gloss. Later on that day the Saints would send the city into a whopping celebration. But right now work can’t stop, there’s much to be done in the neighborhood called Melia subdivision. After all, Jeannette Jackson reminds me, “Melia means laborer in French.” I’m not sure if that is an exact translation, yet the residents of Melia certainly take pride in their hard work. As a dozen Melia residents hug and wave goodbye after the weekly neighborhood meeting, more conversation begins to spark.
Ms. Cheryl Diggins, a proud resident for over thirty-one years, runs back home to see if Benny, her husband, needs a hand setting up the rental property. They’re like yin and yang, in perfect balance.
“We were watching Larry King Live and Benny still wouldn’t believe that our house was under water, he’d say ‘you know Cheryl our house is higher than everyone else’s.’ I found men took the devastation of their homes harder than their women.” But the Diggins’ are tough to shake. With the insurance money the Diggins purchased a few houses around the neighborhood and rent them out to returning neighbors below the astronomical market prices.
Cheryl returns to the group in the driveway with her usual sense of purpose. Just yesterday she walked the street for hours handing out fliers about neighborhood meetings and an upcoming festival. Or as her former neighbor and close friend Ms. Dora Bourgeois says, “Those two people are working like Trojans back there. I seen her walking up and down the streets giving polls and holding meetings.” You don’t need to know that Cheryl had distributive schooling at Booker T. Washington or worked at BellSouth for twenty-three years to see her work ethic. But organizing neighborhoods is particularly hard work. I’ve once heard that organizing neighborhoods in New Orleans is like herding cats. Aren’t trips to Lowes and scrounging for finance papers enough?
Mr. Steve Brooks of Babylon Street would give a solid “no” and a strong stare. A thirteen-year resident of Babylon Street, Steve and his family are recent arrivals.
“I remember how everyone was before the Storm. Family oriented, y’know. But now I’m meeting more people on the other blocks. Everyone speaks with each other more now cause they share the same interests.” Which is a good thing because that’s why five more families are returning to Babylon Street. They heard people were coming back and working to start again. In fact he has only been back for two weeks in the FEMA trailer. Even the McWilliams commute from Gonzalez every Saturday back to the neighborhood for the meetings.
BEEP BEEP! His family impatiently honks the horn but Steve doesn’t budge. With an anxious stance, Steve’s mind is racing with memories pre-storm and hopes for the post-storm.
“If I could just stand on a stage and get some organizations to sponsor us and get our neighborhood back to the way it was. To get our voice out to the ones who are not here. Lots of people are still in the dark. They’re in Texas, Oregon, Michigan…” He trails off and submits to the pressure of his family. As he leaves Steve adds, “It’s still not over for us.”
I don’t doubt him for a moment. Dora, who moved to Mississippi after the storm and lived on Stemway for over fifty years, still casts her maternal presence over Melia. Neighbors old and young still call to check in on her and husband Donald. I spoke with Dora by phone and her love for friends and neighbors bursts over the phone line like a firecracker. Dora is the historian of Melia. recounting details and habits of every family around the neighborhood.
“The water pipe once broke by the side of my house, and Benny [Mr. Diggins] jumped over the fence stopped the water and then went to the hardware store to fix my pipe. That’s the way it was we were always looking out for each other.” And on the streets of Stemway, Babylon, and Prentiss, that is still the way it is.
As we stand recounting the history of Melia, a neighbor shouts over to Jeannette offering a trip to Esplanade for some shopping.
“No thanks honey, I’ve got to wait on the cable man. But you should go check out Bombay on Esplanade, they’ve got good sales,” Jeannette’s calm voice announces to the other side of Stemway. The conversation keeps on rolling when I turn around. Apparently Louisiana Pride, the joy of Melia for fresh seafood, is considering opening its doors again. And the friends around Melia would not have it any other way.
The Domino Effect
Roughly two months ago Cheryl and I met out near Village de L’Est at a festival and again at the UNOP District 9,10,11 meeting a week later. Cheryl, Ben and Ms. Linda Williams of Rosedale subdivision
“I went home to my wife Patrice and just said how great it would be to do something for the neighborhood. A festival with music and food. Just to bring people together and have fun and share information.” Wasting little time Carlos realized that his organization, EcosLatinos, could bring musicians with their grants from the Arts Council of New Orleans, Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the Southern Arts Federation among others.
This spring Melia neighborhood will be hosting a Brazilian block party to unite. There is no doubt that work will get done on the streets of Melia subdivision. Cheryl hands me a piece of notebook paper, with a list of her neighbors and their children. The storm took away more than rugs and dinning tables. It scattered friends and family. The festivals are more than music and home cooking. It’s a way of rebuilding by looking out for your friends and neighbors. Again, Dora’s motherly instincts are right on the money.
“It’s only things. We’ve got each other. When you see someone in the same boat as you then you tend to reach out and open up to them.” ♦
by Kristen Ardani, Sustainable Urban Renewal Project Manager
More than one year after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, progress in the rebuilding effort is apparent. Commerce is increasing, neighborhood cohesion is improving, and debris is being cleared from many sidewalks. Neighborhoods throughout New Orleans are looking cleaner with each passing day: But if the debris is out of sight, is it really out of mind? Hardly.
The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that nearly 30 million cubic yards of debris was generated after the hurricane, and with the remaining 30,000 houses that need to be demolished, an additional 12.5 million cubic yards will be funneled into the city’s waste stream. Currently, the debris is hauled to, and then deposited in, three different landfills: Old Gentilly, Highway 90, and River Birch. These are three recognized landfills, while there are 26 illegal dumping sights in the greater New Orleans area. Many of these dumping sights are improperly lined, resulting in the leaching of contaminants into nearby water ways and valuable wetlands.
The main concern with hurricane debris is, despite the fact that the landfills have the capacity to accept the large amount of waste, they were not originally designed for storm debris. Furthermore, there is no protocol for regional waste management. For example, Highway 90 is intended to accept conventional construction and demolition debris, but hurricane debris includes white goods, lead paints, asbestos, and sheet rock. Materials of this kind are very toxic and must not be deposited into the natural environment, or it places New Orleans communities at risk of such illnesses such as arsenic poisoning from treated wood.
Residents of the Mary Queen of Vietnam community in New Orleans East are all too familiar with the hazards of landfill contamination. Leo Esclamado of NAVASA points out that Old Gentilly Land Fill and Chef Menteur, issued under emergency operations, loosened federal laws to accept an expanded definition of construction and demolition waste. Mayor Ray Nagin responded to city council and residents’ request to end dumping operations, and on August 14, 2006 the Chef Menteur sight was shut down. While the closing of the Chef Menteur landfill is a step in the right direction, increasingly stringent measures are needed if New Orleans is to avoid the health risks associated with improper debris management. Reverend Luke Nguyen comments on the situation, “We have progressed further than we originally expected, but we are pushing for recycling and the involvement of political leaders.”
The question is, what can we do to combat improper debris disposal? One EPA recommendation that could be implemented immediately is to establish staging sites for debris sorting in neighborhood areas. Separating wood, glass, metals, and sheet rock would filter and control what material is deposited in our land fills. In addition, debris-sorting promotes the reuse of materials. Another measure that assists in debris management is deconstruction, or the dismantling of structures with the goal of preserving reusable materials. Widespread implementation of deconstruction methods would divert as much as 50% of debris from existing landfills in New Orleans.
As people re-establish themselves in New Orleans, incorporating environmental standards throughout every phase of recovery will improve our quality of life and promote a healthy city. Each neighborhood can do their part by increasing awareness about illegal dumping and petitioning our local government for a debris management plan that incorporates the re-use of materials.
Hurricane Katrina worsened pre-existing environmental problems in New Orleans. How will your community act to ensure a healthier environment? ♦
For more information, contact Leo Esclamado and Leslie March of the Greenzone Task Force: greenzone.no@gmail.com.
by Travis Leger
We parked on Decatur near the French Market and walked toward Canal St. We turned on Canal St. to face the gathered crowd at the entrance to the Canal St. Ferry. A red helicopter roared above us.
We stopped and soaked it all in. Signs of all kinds in the air. One asked, MORE MURDERS THAN ROAD HOME CHECK? Another, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS EARTH? COME TO NEW ORLEANS. The head of the crowd started up Canal. We joined the march. A single drum thundered somewhere ahead. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. More drumming began from behind. We progressed up Canal St. and turned left off of Canal. The trailing member of a group of three drummers appeared next to me. I asked him if they had all come together.
“No,” he said, “we just all met up here.” He explained that he was a teacher at Nunez Community College in Chalmette. He said he’d marched before ten years ago after “the Pizza Kitchen murders,” he called them. He said his name was Budda Bill McPherson and introduced me to his wife, Nevada, behind him. She also teaches at Nunez Community College.
“Some of the staff at the college, secretaries, have had their FEMA trailers broken into and stuff stolen. The trailers are right there on campus,” Nevada told me.
“I’m a speech teacher,” Budda Bill chimed in. “All of my students know someone who’s been killed. They show their bullet wounds for show and tell,” he said in disgust. A minute later I saw him venting his frustrations to a reporter.
I spotted a group of teens from Rabouin High School, the school of the recently murdered band director Dinerral Shavers, killed over Christmas break, and student Traydell Keeler, who was killed over Thanksgiving break. Their pictures were on one of their signs. “Stop the violence!” one of the girls shouted, echoing the sign she held. Another sign read VIOLENCE IS CALLING – DON’T ANSWER DA PHONE. I talked to one of the young ladies named Tyra. I mentioned that I read about the English class at her school writing essays on the theme ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. She said they were also creating a newspaper called the R-Report, “because a lot is going on.”
Tyra pointed ahead at a sign and read aloud to her classmate beside her, “Shot in car jacking.” There ahead of us was a woman I had noticed before carrying two signs. SILENCE IS VIOLENCE, it read on the top. ONE YEAR OLD SHOT IN CARJACKING. There was a picture of the child in what looked like a hospital bed. There as a bandage on the child’s head and tube in its mouth. Further on I met a retired woman named Charlotte from Gentilly who was, tired of the crime.” We have to put God first,” she toldme. “People want Nagin fired, but you have to put God first.”
She said she didn’t have any sons but if she did she wouldn’t allow them to get caught up in this violence. She has a daughter who works at City Hall. I asked her if her daughter knew she was marching. “I just called her and told her,” she said.
We turned on Loyola off of Poydras. A helicopter whined above. We turned left onto Perdido.
“I wish the African- American community was more represented,” a man next to me said. “They are the victims of most of the crime.” He told me his name was Luis Michael Velez and he owns the Garden District Bed and Breakfast on Magazine.
I asked him how the violence has affected him. He said just around the corner from his bed and breakfast is Parasol’s, a bar which was re-cently robbed.
“I recommend guests go there. It’s a friendly place,” he said. “The crime definitely worries me.”
The crowd stopped. I looked around and up. CITY HALL. Its red letters falling off.
All of a sudden we heard clapping all around. I turned to where everyone else was looking to see what appeared to be the group marching in from Central City. I joined the applause as they marched on. In a little while the crowd thinned where I was standing. I saw a woman holding her baby on her chest. Inside the three-wheeled baby stroller next to her stood a sign up an out of it. Inside a large heart it read KEEP ME SAFE. And then I saw behind them a sight that made me smile. As an incoherent voice emanated from the steps of City Hall, three little girls, obliviousto much of what was going on, I’m sure, were taking turns rolling sideways down a hill in the park. They rolled down to the bottom, got up and ran back up the hill to do it again.
With all that was going on, all the signs declaring frustrations toward local government officials, the signs remembering the victims of violent crime, all the anger coming from the speakers, these children were there just being children.
The march meant different things to different people. I marched because of the children. I look forward to having my own children in the near future. I want to able to raise them in New Orleans, a safe New Orleans. Watching these children, their parents watching, one sitting at the top of the hill and one standing at the bottom, I saw hope that New Orleans can be that kind of place.
The speeches ended and the crowd dispersed. We walked the streets back to our cars and our workplaces, motorcycle cops stopping traffic for us. ♦
