The Fish Foundation news and events

Today, Darlene Wolnik of marketumbrella.org took us on a three-hour tour of New Orleans, from the Ninth Ward to Lakeview and everywhere in between. It's very difficult to describe the devastation that still exists here, almost two years after Katrina. It's like visiting the Caribbean -- tourist areas like The French Quarter are just fine, but once you step outside that comfort zone, the city shows you its true face, warts and all. Some neighborhoods are doing better than others. Luxury homes are going up in middle-class Lakeview, just a stone's throw from the rebuilt levees, while the Ninth Ward is a ghost town, endless streets of broken windows staring back at you like empty eye-sockets. We deliberately refrained from taking many pictures -- we came here not to glorify a tragedy, but to see what we can do to help people rebuild their lives in innovative ways.

There appears to be little action to promote the development of small businesses in many neighborhoods. Sure, some corporations have returned -- fast-food joints and hardware giants, in particular -- but mom-and-pop stores that provide food and other basic necessities are in short supply. Why return and reclaim your home when your neighborhood still doesn't have a grocery store? Furthermore, most homeowners in poor neighborhoods simply can't afford the construction costs to rebuild their homes. Louisiana's Road Home program, which is designed to give grants to homeowners so they can return and rebuild, is bogged down in red tape. Certainly, this is an opportunity to use privately-funded microfinance initiatives to reshape and redevelop poor communities. Small-scale loans can help redevelop local businesses, and financial literacy programs can teach local residents good financial practices. So, we're going to put our heads together with the people we meet down here to explore those possibilities.

Darlene took us to New Orleans East to show us an area that's very much on the rise -- the Vietnamese community. Even though they were hit hard by Katrina, the Vietnamese community banded together to rebuild quickly and efficiently. They've set-up a temporary housing area to help the displaced, and then they work together to find and rebuild housing for these families. They've sucessfully lobbied Mayor Nagin for economic and environmental reforms -- you can read more about their efforts here. Looking at this community today, you'd find it hard to believe that any hurricance touched this area.

If anything, our trip through New Orleans East's Vietnamese community showed us the importance of strong communities. The pre-Katrina community structures of church, family and small business helped this community rebound far quicker than areas like the Ninth Ward and Gentilly. If these communities shared the same communal bonds, we might be looking at a very different New Orleans in 2007. Our hope is to use digital technology and FISHNET to create the kind of community space where ordinary citizens and grassroots groups can communicate, collaborate, redevelop and rebuild.