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katrina

Video Profile: Dr. Enoch Choi

I recently caught up with Dr. Enoch Choi, a family physician from Palo Alto, California, at MashupCamp. He shares his experiences helping Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans, aided immensely with the use of portable wireless computers.

 Dr. Enoc Choi

This video is part of NetSquared's video profile series. You can subscribe to this RSS feed with your favorite video catcher, such as iTunes, Democracy or FireAnt.

Questions and Answers About New Orleans Voices For Peace

Q : What is the New Orleans Voices For Peace Project?

A: Providing the tools, technologies and training for communication.

Q: For Who?

A: Communities effected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

New Orleans Voices For Peace

Supporting organization: 
Plenty International
URL: 
http://www.neworleansvfp.org
Location: 
New Orleans
Project Description: 

Providing Internet access, website hostng, media development and training for partnering organizations and communities effected by the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Coming Soon:

New Orleans Voices For Peace Mobile Media Lab

* Our goal is to assemble a Web 2.0 mutual empowerment mobile media labs which will provide technological access in the name of solidarity.

MISSION:
*With an understanding of culture, class and racial divides we strive to engage in mutual empowerment of residents, activists and grassroots organizations in the Gulf Coast region who have been left without a voice in the digital age. In short, to give voice to the voiceless.

*In order to create fusion in ideas and put those ideas to action the Mobile Media Lab will provide a common ground where organizations working from all over the spectrum can unite in order to bridge the disconnect often found between local organizations and our natural allies working on a national level.

*We will do this by providing free internet access and conducting multimedia training(s) in a mobile media lab where Gulf Coast residents and area organizations can create testimony to their continuous struggles and document progress made since the disaster. To properly address the clear connections between the disaster in New Orleans as a microcosm of the injustices created by Western Society, we will provide technological assistance and education to aid in the assembly of folk stories related to the tragedy of New Orleans. This project can be conducted both locally and throughout the diaspora.

PROJECT:
*Create a mobile news team to document events in NOLA, and around the country (demonstrations, disaster relief, educational tours, etc.). In addition, we will promote training with partnering organizations in media production.

*Provide an open source web portal to both socialize and focus the information of all participants. This will be conducted through the following hosts: http://www.neworleansvfp.org, http://neworleansnetwork.org http://www.commongroundrelief.org, http://www.ivawdeployed.org, and others.

*Create a mobile computer literacy lab to remove the technological hurdles to equal media access (including printing, fax, internet skills, social networking, & access/management of information that has been recorded).

POSSIBLE COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS:
*9th ward history project -mapping the history of the residents in the 9th Ward, documenting their survival, rescue, relocation and recovery through collaboration with residents, volunteers, universities, faith-based groups, and grassroots organizations.

PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS:
United Peace Relief (http://www.unitedpeacerelief.org)
Common Ground Relief (http://www.commongroundrelief.org)
New Orleans Voices For Peace (http://www.neworleansvfp.org)

PASSED INTERNET ACCESS AND MOBILE MEDIA LAB PROJECTS:
Veterans For Peace, chapter 116, Internet access, IMPEACHMENT BUS
CAMP CASEY I, Internet access, Crawford, TX
Camp Covington, Internet access, Covington, LA
Common Ground Relief, Internet Access, New Orleans, LA
Emergency Communities, Internet access, Buras, LA
Four Directions Solidarity Network, Internet access, Dulac, LA
Camp Liberty, Internet Access, Slidell, LA

PROGRAM NEEDS:
*media equipment - imacs, audio/video equipment, satellite Internet, digital video and still cameras, digital videon projector, PA system.

TRANSPORTATION NEEDS:
*Bus - Retired school buses or entertainer tour buses.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Mobile Media Lab will generate operating capital and travel budgets through grants, contracting of production services, retail sales of concessions, tickets and soliciting donations.

More information (http://www.neworleansvfp.org/node/2269)

Contact: gordonsoderberg@mac.com
504 613-0174

Creating One Economy's Katrina Help Center

As I sit here participating in Web 2.0 via the blogs of everyone lucky enough to be there physically, a colleague from One Economy sent along a real-time example of the web's potential -- One Economy & Cisco's Katrina Help Center:

www.katrinahelpcenter.org

Here's the e-mail:

Dear Friend,

One Economy is a national nonprofit organization, with a San Jose office, that uses technology as a tool to augment and enhance existing systems and community development activities to better support the needs and potential of low-income people.  Our belief is that through innovative uses of the Internet and by partnering with local nonprofit organizations who are already serving low-income people, we can break through the barriers caused by the social and economic isolation of poverty.   

Tabasco Shortage Averted

Lester, my Acadian friend sent this letter. I'm not sure how it fits into the hunnerd dollah laptops for po' folks model of world changing intentions, but it's poignant and it resolves one of my questions regarding the recent bad weather. Avery Island survived with little damage...
fp

Dear Friends,

A few years ago my wife and I, my son Lucas, and her daughter Jody, spent part of our vacation in Holly Beach, Louisiana. It's fondly known in south Louisiana as the Cajun Riviera, and to reach it one drives south from Lake Charles across miles and miles of marshland populated by waterfowl, nutria, and alligators. There wasn't much to it--a few rows of houses and cabins raised up off the beach on on pilings made of telephone poles, a few trailers, a little store and gift shop, a seafood wholesaler, the water tower. The year-round population was only about 175. The beach was a rather dark-colored sand and the Gulf waters were far from clear--they were sort of muddy, actually. But that didn't keep us from enjoying the beach and the surf. Lucas, who is blind, was bothered a bit. It was hard to get him out of it. We stayed overnight in a "resort"--a few trailers owned by a family who lived in one of them, and a couple of mature fig trees with delicious fresh figs ripening on them. One of the children had a chronic illness, and my general impression of the family was that they had a hard time making ends meet.

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