Contents of Fall 2005 Collaborative Solutions Newsletter:
Special Issue: Hurricane Katrina and Community
Building
In this issue:
Community Building Responses in the Wake of Hurricane
Katrina
Levels
of community building intervention
Principles
to guide community-development work
The
bigger picture
One model community building model to apply
– Healthy Communities
What others are saying
Resources
In this series of newsletters,
we are covering the six components of collaborative solutions one at a
time. The scheduled topic for this issue was the third component,
Practice democracy and promote active citizenship and empowerment.
Recent storm-related events along
the Gulf Coast give us an opportunity to examine a major set of issues
where collaborative solutions applied now could have far-reaching results
for many people over many years. Practicing democracy is critical to these
discussions. In the next issue, we’ll return to dealing directly
with component three.
For the moment, we have an outstanding
opportunity to discuss widespread application of collaborative-solutions
techniques. We hope you enjoy the vision embodied in this special issue
and will find ways to put it to work.
Community-Building Responses in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
The recent storms in the Gulf
area have produced tragedy on many levels. Yet in the aftermath, we also
discover many possibilities to apply community-building and community-development
approaches to situations that the nation—not only the affected region—now
faces.
Will we take this occasion to
employ community-building processes as we rebuild and recover, or will
we again march down less effective, but well-worn, paths?
If we do take a community-based approach
to repairing the storm damage and to improving our disaster-response systems,
we need to base our actions on the practice of democracy. This means we
need to engage the people who are most affected by the issue in fair and
open processes that lead to decisions that come from the people.
We’ll discuss the community-based
options with regard to Hurricane Katrina. This situation offers one large
example, currently at the front of our awareness. As we cover the points,
you will undoubtedly think of many other situations that would benefit
from similar community-based problem-solving.
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I. Levels of community-building intervention
There are at least three arenas in which
we can consider community-development approaches to the disasters set
in motion by Hurricane Katrina.
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Assisting displaced people and the communities to which
they have now moved. Communities all across the United
States have embraced large numbers of evacuees who have experienced
enormous losses. Both the people who had to flee the Gulf and the
communities that are welcoming them need help on many levels. At
the very least, the receiving communities must build social environments
and systems that will allow them to successfully adjust to this
major change in a way that respects the needs of the established
community and of its new members.
-
Planning and rebuilding destroyed cities and towns along
the Gulf. There is no question that the cities and towns
on the Gulf will be rebuilt. But how will they be rebuilt? And,
perhaps more importantly, who will determine the process and the
outcomes? The most likely scenario is that the previously existing
political and economic powers will design and rebuild the communities,
replicating the social problems (including economic and racial separation
and injustice) that were in place before the hurricane. Those social
problems contributed to difficulties in dealing with the disaster.
In addition, the odds seem high that New Orleans may become more
like Disneyland than a renewed embodiment of the city that it was,
rich in history and diversity. Can we imagine an alternative method
of designing and rebuilding? Instead of the traditional patch-’em-up
approach, can we envision a deep and community-wide process, driven
by residents from all parts of the community, including those who
are poor and black? If we can, we can see an amazing opportunity
to build, from the ground up, model cities and towns that represent
the multicultural nation that America has become. If we build democratically,
we can live democratically.
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Developing community based approaches to planning for future
disasters. Events like Hurricane Katrina remind us of the
need for communities to plan for dealing with disasters. We suggest
that community-building approaches are the most effective way to
get plans in place that will work when they need to. In response
to Y2K and 9/11, some communities developed neighborhood-based systems
for the dissemination of essential information during times of crisis.
E-mail chatter following Katrina described processes in Cuba, where
community-based planning makes it possible to evacuate millions
of people in a cooperative fashion. We should be able to do at least
as well here.
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II. Principles to guide community-development work
In all these situations, our
work must be guided by the well-documented principles of community building.
We must ask that our leaders adopt these principles as the basis for their
work in the affected areas, both near the Gulf and farther afield:
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Incorporate those directly affected at the heart of dialogue
and community building. All the people of New Orleans
and of the other cities and towns affected by the storm and its
dislocations must be part of crafting the solutions.
-
Engage the full spectrum of the community. We
must create and utilize new modalities for involving all sectors
of each community and all of its people in developing and implementing
a common vision.
-
Value racial and cultural diversity as the foundation of
wholeness. We must embrace the great diversity of these
communities as their richness. This is most palpable in New Orleans,
where the blues music that tourists enjoy arises from the rich gumbo
of the city’s heritage.
-
Practice democracy by promoting active citizenship and
empowerment. This is a grand occasion to employ every technique
we know, and to create new methods, to fully engage everyone involved
in the process of designing the future of the cities and towns.
We need to pay special attention to those who have not been engaged
in democratic processes before.
-
Promote collaboration among all parties and sectors.
We define collaboration as “enhancing the capacity
of the other.” The initial responses to the disaster in New
Orleans underlined the inability of local, state, and federal entities—both
public and private—to communicate and collaborate. It became
obvious that we have a long way to go before the local neighborhoods
and the city, state, and federal governments truly collaborate.
-
Build on community strengths and assets. As we
see the damage that Hurricane Katrina has done, we can take one
of two views of the people in the Gulf communities. We can see them
as being in need of charity and help, or we can see them as amazingly
resilient and strong. When we build on the people’s strengths
and assets, the solutions that we all devise together will be sturdier
and more effective.
-
Create a shared vision. We seem to have as many
visions of the future of these communities as we have people talking
about what might happen. We need to create community processes through
which local visions can be articulated and through which rebuilding
can move toward those visions.
-
Ensure access, and remove obstacles, to fundamental and
equal opportunities. We need to create communities where
equal opportunity is part of the fabric of life, and we need processes
that ensure that everyone has access to that opportunity.
-
Address issues of social change and power. The
changes that will make these Gulf communities healthy will require
significant social change and shifts in power.
-
Align the goals with the process. Gandhi said,
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
We can work to create community-building processes that respect
differences, incorporate caring for each other, and embody the high
hopes of communities throughout
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III. The bigger picture
As in all situations, it is
best to understand a problem before we leap to a search for solutions.
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, this involves understanding the larger
forces that have contributed to this disaster and addressing these in
addition to the immediate needs.
These larger issues include:
-
Global environmental policies that lead to environmental
degradation and global warming. There is much research
that has shown that these factors create the conditions conducive
to unstable weather disasters like Katrina.
-
Global and national economic policies that separate rich
and poor. The nation and the world had a rare view of American
poverty in New Orleans. Paying for the Katrina disaster must be
done through policies that reduce economic disparities, instead
of exacerbating them. For example, one method of generating dollars
to pay for reconstruction involves reducing programs for the poor
and middle-class; the people most dramatically affected by the storm.
Another method requires increasing the national debt, for which
our children will need to pay in the future. A third method, the
only one that does not make the situation worse for those most affected
by the disaster, is to immediately rescind tax breaks for the very
rich.
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The long and continuing history of racism in America.
Hurricane Katrina has created a window of opportunity that can be
used to initiate dialogue, reconciliation, and action to eliminate
racism within the American culture and the American economy.
-
Refocusing on the allocation of our resources.
Because of decisions about allocation of our national resources,
our economy was under severe stress before the storm hit. Many of
the people who could have been deployed to assist people in the
Gulf region, and helicopters that might have rescued families in
Louisiana, were overseas. We were overextended and we were not able
to take care of our own people in their own country.
-
Our chronic inability to work in a cooperative and collaborative
manner at (and across) local, regional, national, and international
levels. In recent years, we have been presented with opportunities
to see how our systems do not work; these include Hurricane Katrina
and 9/11. We have the technology. We have the intelligence. We have
the democratic ideals and history. We need to move forward, together.
IV. Community-building approaches to Hurricane Katrina’s
effects
Hurricane Katrina offers
us an opportunity to address the great pain of the people from these communities
and of the nation through community-building approaches. Our efforts in
this direction would not only assist those in need. It would also provide
a broadly different vision of community in America.
There are many approaches to
community-building that could be brought to bear in the situations caused
by Hurricane Katrina. Some can be applied in individual communities. Yet
community-building has not previously been conceived as applicable to
social problems as large as those created by the hurricane.
One applicable community-building
model is the World Health Organization’s Healthy Communities approach.
This approach engages the whole community in an ongoing community building
process that builds on the community’s strengths. The associated
concepts and program offer many positive ideas and experiences and can
be used as a foundation for work in rebuilding after Katrina. (See below
for more details)
We hope that some of the major
foundations may take this opportunity to gather people involved in many
different approaches to community-building and discover ways to maximize
existing resources throughout the Gulf communities and also in the distant
towns and cities that are opening their homes to evacuees.
The United States has enormous
problems as a result of this storm season. As a country, we also have
an enormous opportunity. Hurricane Katrina offers us an opportunity to
address the great pain of the people from these communities and of the
nation through a community building and community development approaches.
This would not only assist these communities but provide a different vision
of community in America
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One Community Building Model to Apply to Katrina – Healthy Communities
A healthy community is defined
as one that provides peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable
ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice, and equity. These are
admirable goals at any time, but especially pertinent to post-Katrina
community development. There are successful working models of healthy
communities across the United States and around the world. The principles
and processes that lead to success are known and can be duplicated in
communities along the Gulf.
The core components of healthy communities include:
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Creating a compelling vision from shared values
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Embracing a broad definition of health and well-being
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Addressing quality of life for everyone
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Engaging diverse citizen participation, and being citizen-driven
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Multisectoral membership and widespread community ownership
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Acknowledging the social determinants of health and the interrelationship
between health and other issues (housing, education, peace, equity,
social justice)
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Addressing issues through collaborative problem-solving
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Focusing on systems change
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Building capacity by using local assets and resources
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Measuring and benchmarking progress toward outcomes
On the positive side, the healthy
communities model has a goal of engaging all the sectors and all the people
in a community to develop a common vision and then to seek solutions.
This approach has a good track record in many communities, and is increasingly
able to use benchmarking and indicators to track progress.
On the downside, this approach has often been unsuccessful
in practice at engaging those most affected, those with the least power,
and those who are economically and racially disenfranchised. These shortcomings
would be unacceptable in addressing the situation in the Gulf.
Resources on Healthy Communities:
http://www.tomwolff.com/resources/ncrhc.pdf
http://www.healthycities.org/lookitup.html
http://www.well.com/user/bbear/hc_how_to.html
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What others are saying -Quotes from the press and the web:
ACORN
ACORN members are turning
sadness and anger into action, organizing a campaign for a just and comprehensive
recovery program that provides living-wage jobs and first-source hiring
for survivors and residents, affordable housing, and right of return for
those dislocated and public services that allow families to live in a
safer and fairer community.
Senator Ted Kennedy
“ What I heard over and
over on my visit [to the affected areas] is that local people want a voice
in their own future. They don't want big outside companies with political
connections to call the shots.
“ Bringing everyone around
a common table is the only realistic way to enable the nation to come
together and support the people of the Gulf Coast with worthwhile jobs
in the modern economy, and to provide opportunity and hope that are so
urgently needed.”
Rick Cohen, Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive
Philanthropy in the Non Profit Quarterly
www.nonprofitquarterly.org/section/752.html
“ The people of the Gulf
have a democratic right to have a say, a major say, in the reconstruction
of the region. The first priority of the nonprofit sector, ostensibly
motivated by the ideas of voluntary associations described by Alexis de
Tocqueville, should be to fight tooth and nail for the democratic rights
of the population of the Gulf. As the scenes in the Superdome and the
New Orleans Convention Center demonstrated, much of the region’s
population has long been disenfranchised through poverty and neglect.
Rebuilding the local, community-based organizations that represent and
potentially mobilize this population should be a core component hard-wired
into the reconstruction process and plans.”
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Resources:
David M. Chavis, Association for the Study and Development of Community:
We have set up a website that has information on community responses to
Hurricane Katrina and will expand as Hurricane Rita's story unfolds. The
Link is
http://capacitybuilding.net/Katrina/ we are looking for more resources
that can be used by communities both in the disaster area and those aiding
evacuees and survivors.
John Green Ph.D., Delta State University, Cleveland, MI.:
A resource for people interested in conducting, applying and disseminating
community based research to understand disasters and inform redevelopment.
http://ntweb.deltastate.edu/vp_academic/jgreen/Institute_CBR/CBR%20and
%20Disasters/CBR_and_Disasters_Main_Page.htm
