Via the amazing New Orleans Women's Health and Justice Initiative, affiliated with Incite! Women of Color Against Violence is an update on the work they did to ensure that their clients had the support and information they needed to evacuate safely. From Shana Griffin, the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic's Interim Director:
I just want to give everyone a quick update on our coordinated effort to reach out to all Clinic patients (which took place on Thursday, August 28th and continued on Friday, August 29th), checking-in to see if people were planning to evacuate or stay, and if they needed support developing an evacuation plan and accessing needed resources to assist with the process or info on staying safe if they chose to stay.I'm happy to inform everyone that we made over 700 calls, with 95% of them occurring on Thursday!
We reached out to 610 patients - calling everyone, leaving messages, reaching out to their emergency contacts if we were not able to get in contact with then, and making tons of repeated calls to folks who needed greater assistance.
There are more updates after the jump, as well as a couple of extra pictures. It's amazing what these women were able to do and just further highlights the inability of our government to step in and help the people of New Orleans, even during natural disasters. It seems little has changed since Katrina three years ago. This was a particularly frightening part of the crisis for me as a Latina:
Many of the Latina women we called (most don't have papers) were very afraid, stating that they didn't have anywhere to go, and needed support evacuating (mostly informational and financial). Many asked about the safety of assisted evacuation through the city given their documentation status. We informed folks of what we were told (that screening for papers were not going to be done), but made it very clear that it was not something that we could confirm.
That the anti-immigrant climate is so powerful that this would become widespread belief is scary and unbelievably cruel.
Anyone else think it was poetic justice that this new hurricane and almost crisis in New Orleans struck during the first day of the RNC?
If you want to support the work of this amazing group of activists in NOLA, go here and donate.
More from Shana's update:
Mandisa (with some support from Justina) coordinated an amazing team of volunteer interpreterss (5 people total, including Jennifer and Narda who regularly interprets at the Clinic) who called approximately 120 Latina women who's preferred language of communication is Spanish.Most of the people we made calls to were either planning to leave or had evacuation plans in place. Many families inquired about assistance (informational, financial, and evacuation supplies/support) . Lots of folks came by to pick up disaster preparedness kits we had assembled, picked up water and flash-lights w/batteries, and some were able to receipt financial assistance from us.
On Friday, we were able provided over 10 families with Wal-Mart gift cards and cash stipends for gas and food, and on yesterday afternoon, Mandisa was able to help assist three additional families with cash gas stipends. Pam Nath was able to get $400 in donations to assist families in dire need of support. The funds raised by Pam and left over Wal-Mart cards from a previous event were used to support this effort.
About 15 - 20% of the patients called, phones were either disconnected or non-working numbers. Lots of people stated that they were watching the news and were planning to or had already registered through 311. Almost everyone contacted expressed an overwhelming sense of gratitude with the call they received, and lastly over 22 people assisted in this effort including a board members, staff, volunteers, interns, and members of WHJI/INCITE! New Orleans.
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Re: the issue of Latina women and papers. I read on nola.com that people were indeed being asked for their papers in order to be evacuated by gov't services. How fucked is that? If you live in NOLA, papers or no papers, you need to be evac'ed if there's a hurricane. Sheesh. That's criminal to require sbdy to have status in order to get to safety.
"Anyone else think it was poetic justice that this new hurricane and almost crisis in New Orleans struck during the first day of the RNC?"
No.
Much of LA is still severely damaged (including the area around Baton Rouge), as is a great deal of MS and the Gulf Coast. Worst of all, this is not a political football and does affect people's lives, badly. Putting this phrase in a story about grassroots activists demeans not only them, but the work they do.
I expect better from a feminist journal already aware of issues of race, class and gender.
Jessica--
To better explain my comment:
Of course I would never dream of degrading the impact that these natural disasters have had on the lives of people in the gulf coast. It has been a tragedy how much suffering has gone on, especially since so much of it should have been avoided by the protections of the emergency services provided by the federal government.
To me it was the total and complete failure of the federal government to step in and provide support and services for those living in NOLAthat resulted in what could have been a much more minor disaster, with fewer casualties and less damage done.
I place much blame squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration for their lack of response to the suffering in New Orleans, both during and since Katrina. The fact that the levees had still not been repaired three years later is apalling, and the fact that the Republican National Convention took place when another storm came through (thankfully with much less damage) to me highlighted the fact of the Republican administration's total lack of responsibility for the situation in New Orleans.