[Peace-discuss] Fw: 5 years after Katrina

[Jenifer Cartwright]

A worthy cause, tragic that it's so necessary. --Jenifer

--- On Fri, 8/27/10, James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org <info at colorofchange.org> wrote:


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Five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is still struggling — but several community groups are fighting to rebuild a stronger, more just city than ever before.






Please support their important work and contribute to the Transform New Orleans Fund today.










Dear Jenifer,

This Sunday will mark five years since Katrina struck the Gulf and devastated New Orleans.  While many residents never came back, life remains truly hard for many of those who have.  Some of the old problems that challenged low-income communities have gotten worse. And as the national spotlight has shifted, less aid and support have come in from the outside.

As government and bureaucrats have largely let down New Orleans, several small, community-based groups have picked up the slack, improving life for the city and its people.  These groups are the true heroes of Katrina, and they need our help.

So as we remember the tragedy of Katrina, and its ongoing aftermath, we wanted to appeal to you and the rest of the ColorOfChange community to support the most effective of these groups, through the Transform New Orleans Fund.  There are 18 groups that will benefit from the fund — and 100% of the proceeds will go to support those groups. Given the small budgets of these organizations, your contribution will go a long way — whether it's $5, $25, $100 or more.  Even better, our friends at the Open Society Foundations will match every donation, doubling our impact.

You can read more about the groups below — they are all doing vital work. And then please click here to contribute, and ask your friends and family to do the same:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/transform/?id=2143-1141418

The organizations benefiting from the Transform New Orleans Fund are fighting every day for regular people.  Some of the groups are working to ensure that the government works well, and is accountable to everyone in New Orleans.  Others are using arts and culture to advance social change, while still others are on the front lines of the fight against inequity in the justice system.  What they all have in common is that they've turned the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina into an opportunity to build a city more equitable and just than the one that preceded it.  The groups include:

Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana is a New Orleans-based advocacy organization that aims to reform Louisiana's broken juvenile justice system into one that builds on the strengths of young people, families, and communities to ensure that children have opportunities to thrive. JJPL seeks to reduce the number of youth incarcerated; improve conditions of confinement in youth detention centers; increase support for evidence-based alternatives to incarceration; ensure that all children have access to effective counsel at all stages in the court process; reduce the number of school suspensions and expulsions; end the practice of transferring youth to the adult criminal justice system; and protect the rights of incarcerated LGBT youth and youth living with HIV/AIDS in secure care facilities.

The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice is dedicated to organizing workersin the Gulf region across race and industry to build the grassroots leadership and civic participation of workers and communities in the Gulf region. Founded in August 2006 in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Center has grown into a constituency organization with 10 staff and close to 4,000 workers and residents from immigrant and African American communities who are the driving force behind the Center’s campaigns at local, state, and national levels. (The National Immigration Law Center acts as the fiscal agent for New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice.)

Ashe Cultural Arts Center emerged in 1998 and has served as a community hub of artistic collaboration, local advocacy and dialogue, economic development, and as an overall centralizing and stabilizing community force in post-Katrina upheaval, distress, and displacement. In addition to hosting community planning meetings, lectures and panels, art exhibits and film screenings, the Center partners with churches and cultural and advocacy organizations in their programming. (Efforts of Grace, Inc., acts as the fiscal agent for the Ashe Cultural Arts Center.)


To view a complete list of the groups being funded by your contributions, click here. You can help these amazing organizations — and the city of New Orleans — continue to grow and thrive by donating $5, or however much you can, to the Transform New Orleans fund. Click here to chip in now:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/transform/?id=2143-1141418

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Dani, William, Gabriel, Milton, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team

    August 27th, 2010

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU — your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/



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