Joint Press Release - CCRP and Resource Action Group

Volunteers from CCRP are now working with the Resource Action Group in and around New Orleans. More details can be found in our joint press release below:

For Immediate Release

Civilian aid response to hurricane Katrina establishes new paradigm in community based disaster relief.

From the public relations and outreach desk of the Resource Action Group

PONCHATOULA/HAMMOND LOUISIANA. Monday, Nov 21, 2005

As many across the Gulf coast region, and indeed the entire nation watched in disbelief the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, coalitions of common-interested groups and individuals were forming in order to provide direct-community level relief.

From immediate response in isolated communities in Southern Louisiana, to tech support on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and to supply and transportation support in the Algiers community of New Orleans; the Resource Action Group has been one of the most resource effective relief efforts in the region.

Their impact has been consistent as they have been able to provide a considerable range of resources on which the receiving communities depend.

The Algiers community, where RAG was delivering supplies and providing communication tech support to both, the only community clinic and the only distribution/relief centre during the crucial weeks between Katrina and Rita, has become “A light in the darkness for N.O.” according to the Times-Picayune of Nov 1, 2005.

The Resource Action Group has been able to provide truckloads of survival and cleaning supplies to the city of Dulac in the Houma Nation where a department stores stock of shovels was immediately put to use in the community to remove layer upon layer of thick sludge left by catastrophic flooding.

One of the Resource Action Group’s primary projects, NOMESH (The New Orleans Mesh Network) is currently providing a consistently expanding number of public internet access points and wireless “nodes” where residents can access the internet and vital information about recovery programs, find jobs and communicate with loved ones still dispersed across the region. RAG has and will continue to deploy thousands of dollars worth of innovative technology ranging from wireless internet radios which establish internet in a given community to Voice over IP telephony which enable free long distance communication for those in areas where infrastructure has not, and may not for some time, be fully restored.

Between the Hurricanes, the communications support in Algiers enabled countless people to fill out their FEMA forms and trucks containing food water and cleaning supplies from the Resource Action Group were a regular site yet it was and is still almost impossible to keep up with the needs of the various communities the Resource Action group serves. As one New Orleans resident put it, “Palettes upon palettes of water disappear in hours”.

Presently, RAG is supplying trucks to several communities in Louisiana, helping rebuild New Orleans internet at a surprising rate and stepping up scouting activities over the entire affected region. Resource Action Group is also helping in relocation efforts of affected residents.

The responsiveness and success of civilian relief efforts after hurricane Katrina have been historic in proportion, impact and diversity and have changed the way many in the region, the nation and even the world look at their greater global community. As an international organization comprised of organizers, logistical experts, technicians, media professionals, network developers, computer scientists, legal experts, inter-state/national truck drivers and cultural sector professionals, the Resource Action Group is one of the organizations at the forefront of a paradigm shift in citizen responsibility and solidarity which is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook.

We welcome press and community inquiries and look forward to all the help we can get in expanding our profile and activities within the communities affected by the worst natural disaster.

contact@ccrp.info

Second trip

William returned to New Orleans for Halloween, I arrived about a few days after Halloween.

We are staying in an apartment with Gordon Soderberg of Vets for Peace. We are overlooking the levee in Algiers a couple blocks from the Common Ground with a view across the river of the 9th Ward and Downtown.

The Common Ground and Algiers is doing reasonably well. The Times Picayune had a front page story about how Algiers is “a beacon of hope” for New Orleans which misses the point a little because it didn't flood. There are cars parked on the street in front of the houses and people walking around. Most are outside cleaning up their yards, some have a LOT of work ahead of them.

A local guy, who lived 8 or 9 houses down from Common Ground, stopped Will and I today while we were walking by and asked us if we were from the Common Ground. He thanked us profusely and told us that he had been living in the area for years and had not met Maliq [of Common Ground] and that he credited Maliq with looking out for the neighbourhood and helping the community have a place to come back to.

I finally got to see the French Quarter. It ranged from really cool bars, many with live music, on one end, to a touristy section on the other.


- Geoffrey Young

Update - November 7, 2005

After some delays in raising additional funds and border problems, our volunteer William Waites returned to hurricane affected areas last week, thanks to help provided by the Federal Communications Commission, Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network, US State Department and others. Geoffrey Young, another CCRP volunteer, is returning to the area in the next couple of days. The CCRP and our volunteers have been asked by the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network Rapid Response Team to continue work on the wireless network being constructed in New Orleans.

We will post updates on our progress as soon as possible as well as a list of our financial supporters, whose generosity allows us to continue our much needed work.