The Fish Foundation news and events

"Katrina didn't destroy New Orleans," says Colette Pichon-Battle. She's the executive director of Moving Forward Gulf Coast, an organization that's working with grassroots organizations that are rebuilding the region. As we stood on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Colette described the 30-foot tidal surge that swept in from the Gulf of Mexico and battered her home here in Slidell, Louisiana. "The water sat here for nine hours," she says, gesturing out at the battered remains of homes along the shore. The wall of water eventually receded and traveled south, destroying the levees that flooded New Orleans. It was a man-made disaster. Oil pipeline production has all but destroyed a chain of barrier islands that would have stopped the wall of water. And the Army Corps of Engineers concluded that "the levees it built in the city were an incomplete patchwork of protection, containing flaws in design and construction and not built to handle a storm anywhere near the strength of Hurricane Katrina" ("Army Builders Accept Blame Over Flooding", New York Times, June 2, 2006). But regardless of whether Mother Nature or Uncle Sam should take the fall for the disaster, the fact remains that thousands of American citizens are still in need. "Eighty percent of New Orleans was flooded," says Colette. "Imagine if Manhattan, from Battery Park to Midtown, was under water. What would it take to recover from that?"

For grassroots organizations like Moving Forward, the recovery needs range from the basic to the complex -- everything from administrative professionals and software training to community centers. Most of all, Colette stressed to us the need for basic tools and infrastructure so that volunteers and social entrepreneurs can get their work done. "What we need are buildings," she says. "We can talk about microfinance and psychological care all we want, but we need the space for people to put those kind of ideas together." As we noted before, there's a serious lack of infrastructure -- local businesses, community centers -- in areas like the Ninth Ward and Gentilly. Moving Forward is actively working toward funding a multi-purpose building that could house financial services, community space, non-profit offices and other resources -- a central space that communities in New Orleans can gather around and rebuild.

Moving Forward is also using media advocacy to raise awareness of the ongoing issues in the Gulf Coast. Trupania "Trap" Bonner, the Director of Media Programs, is producing a series of films called "Recover and Restore" that details how Katrina has affected communities in the area and answers the questions of local residents about rebuilding. The films cover issues like health care, contractor fraud, environmental health. You can watch a trailer of his film "Crescent City Exodus" here. We're going to help him get some more of these important films online and to a wider audience.