People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project Update
**please forward widely**
Hi Everyone,
First, we would like to thank everyone for your amazing work and energy around this project. Since we put out the first call for action a few weeks ago, we have been inundated with calls, emails, donations and offers of support. We have been overwhelmed by your commitment and generosity.
In light of proposals made at the meeting in Baton Rouge, Community Labor United (CLU) has been working to establish a structure with work committees. Based on the concept of a national campaign with local leadership, this committee structure will allow the work to be efficient and transparent. CLU members will finish reviewing the final draft of the committee structure by tomorrow morning and a call for volunteers for committees will be issued tomorrow afternoon.
Below is some information about the work we have been doing. Thank you again for all of your help and support! We look forward to working together!
Sincerely,
Community Labor United
MEDIA ALERT
For Immediate Release
Attention: News Assignment
Community Labor United
People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project
PRESS CONFERENCE:
Monday, September 19, 2 PMSeptember 19, New Orleans -- Mama Dee of 1733 N. Dorgenois has not stopped since the day of the storm, August 29th. She, like so many New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents, is doing everything in her power and beyond imagination to maintain some semblance of everyday life and to rebuild from the shattering of the storm and neglect.
Today she announces that she will turn her home into a local office and collection point for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project (PHRF), representing more than 45 community based, grassroots organizations in the region determined to oversee all aspects of the relief, recovery and reconstruction of their homes, neighborhoods and lives.
She will be joined at the announcement by committee representatives Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United and Malcolm Suber, Executive Director of Urban Heart, an after school program based in four inner city schools focusing on building community schools.
According to Mr. Muhammad of the PHRF: "The government abandoned the people, the black and poor people. Now we are seeing the most remarkable determination, generosity, creativity, and collectivity on the part of those whose lives have been ravaged, and from people far and wide. It is deeply moving, necessary, and hopeful in the face of the horror and neglect that can only be construed as the most blatant racism. Mama Dee is acting in the tradition of the powerful women in our community who have always stepped forward to make life possible."
PHRF stated days after Katrina that "the people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District."
PHRF is calling on the government to:
The PHRF, initiated by Community Labor United, is committed to supporting the leadership and oversight by evacuees in all aspects of this process including documentation of all displaced persons, family reunification, legal and health support, education and delivery of urgently needed supplies. The coalition is also appealing to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.
The People's Hurricane Relief & Reconstruction Project
Statement of Demands
The U.S. government, which has failed to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina and provide adequately for many survivors, has recently announced that it will spend more than $50 billion to reconstruct New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
On Saturday September 8, a group of New Orleans activists and supporters from around the country met in Baton Rouge, LA, to plan a people's response to the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina. This meeting was called by Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of progressive community based organization in New Orleans. The purpose was to ensure that every displaced person be allowed to return to his or her homes, participate in the reconstruction process and call for transparency of the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for relief and reconstruction.
U.S. government officials have deliberately and effectively scattered our people throughout the United States. Thousands of families have been broken up- children from their mothers; husbands from their wives; brothers and sisters from each other.
The attendees came to the general conclusion that the most fundamental demand must be the right of the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to return to their homes and their communities and participate in reconstruction. This encompasses the following:
First, the government must provide funds for all families to be reunited. The databases of FEMA and other organizations must be made public.
Second, the more than $50 billion belongs to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. We demand a Victims Compensation Fund as was done after 9/11 for the people in the World Trade Center in New York City.
Third, the People's Committee demands representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public dollars for relief and reconstruction. We also demand that those most affected by Hurricane Katrina be part of the planning process.
Fourth, we demand public work jobs for the displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must take a lead in the rebuilding of our communities. The jobs must be at union wages so that our population is no longer characterized by extreme poverty.
Lastly, we demand transparency in the entire reconstruction process. Citizens must know where all the monies are being spent and with whom they are being spent.
We must be guaranteed the right to plan our future free from the dictates of the politicians in Washington D.C., Baton Rouge, LA, and at the local level. We must work to ensure that those most affected and displaced by Hurricane Katrina play an integral role in rebuilding our communities.
People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee: Baton Rouge Meeting Report
15 September, 2005
Jackson, Mississippi
In the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, intensified by catastrophic, criminal government neglect and racist repression, Community Labor United -- a New Orleans based coalition dedicated to creating spaces for grassroots organizations to engage in dialogue, strategic planning and build collective work -- has been facilitating the development of a People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee.
More than 42 organizations participated in the convening meeting of the People's Hurricane Fund in Baton Rouge on Saturday September 10, 2005, to develop a People's Oversight Committee with the purpose of overseeing all aspects of recovery and reconstruction for our people. The Committee is dedicated to building and maintaining a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure to help meet the needs of people most affected by Katrina, and to facilitate an organizing process that will demand local, grassroots black and progressive leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans.
The evacuees from Hurricane Katrina call on the world community to support our demands for determining our own future. The population of New Orleans is 67% black, 40% illiterate, with more than 30 % living below the poverty line. The abandonment, neglect and militarization by the government have led community leaders and evacuees to determine that we will take the necessary, comprehensive steps to redevelop our communities, our homes, our lives, attend to our well being. The official entities -- federal and local government agencies -- have criminally failed the black survivors of Katrina, and are engaged in the militarization of our city, constituting a form of ethnic cleansing, what we believe to be a gross violation of civil and international human rights. We believe ourselves to be operating without a government, and like ravaged and attacked communities throughout the world, we call upon conscious and compassionate people throughout this nation and the world to support us in our claim to determine our destinies.
We are committed to creating space to engage all those who want to work in support of our recovery and reconstruction, within the United States and throughout the world community.
We are developing working committees and will call for volunteers to begin to sign up for committees on Tuesday, September 20, 2005. Some examples of the work that needs volunteers is:
International Call
We will be presenting a petition on behalf of New Orleans and Gulf Coast Region Survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions that brought about the worst disaster in U.S. history and to help ensure social justice for the Survivors, their rights to return to their communities, economic redress for their losses, and a speedy reconstruction of new communities with affordable housing for all and repaired levees and other protections against preventable tragedies.
We call on international human rights communities to join in the demand to keep the spotlight on the actions of the U.S. government, to hold it accountable for its actions, and to support the self determination of Katrina survivors.
We call on international human rights monitors to come to New Orleans to show the world the disgraceful actions perpetrated against the people in our communities.
Principles: Community Labor United
CLU devoted its first three months to developing the following Principles of Unity:
We are community leaders, labor leaders, and cultural workers committed to ending the exploitation of oppressed peoples everywhere.
We believe that all people have the right and responsibility to determine their destiny.
Our organizations and unions are committed to building a society where the realities of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation are not barriers to human progress.
We are committed to building a society where the bottom line interests of corporations and the rich are not balanced on the backs of workers and the poor.
We are committed to building local, regional, national, and world economies that are democratic, just, ecological, and do not exploit labor, culture, and natural resources.
We are committed to building an organization of organizations and individuals, focused on educating, organizing, and mobilizing the masses within our organizations and communities from the bottom up.
We believe in the prospect of multiracial and trans-generational efforts to develop our communities.
Please let everyone know that tax-deductible donations should be earmarked for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and checks made out to:
Vanguard Public Foundation
383 Rhode Island St., Ste 301
San Francisco, CA 94103
For more information about the People's Hurricane Relief Fund & Reconstruction Project, please email bbelcore@hotmail.com.
Website coming soon!