Civic Engagement in the Wake of Katrina

The Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps

THE STORY OF A LOCAL CBO'S RESPONSE TO RESTORING YOUTH PROGRAMS IN NEW ORLEANS AFTER KATRINA AND RITA

Kyshun Webster and D. Hamilton Simons-Jones

Introduction: Katrina and Rita

HURRICANES KATRINA AND RITA hit New Orleans hard. Eighty percent of the city was flooded by Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Rita resulted in a second evacuation and second flooding of parts of the city just as New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin began declaring sections of the city safe for residents to return. More than sixteen hundred city residents died from the storms. The city's infrastructure was devastated. More than a million people were displaced, scattered around the country, many separated from their families. National and international journalists fetched these stories of survival and catastrophe off of rooftops and out of shelters, hospitals, and even grocery stores for more than a month following Katrina. The images aired and printed in the national media, however, revealed just the beginning of the disaster. The storms not only destroyed housing, facilities, and human lives, but they also tore apart community networks, leaving a dramatic void in services for young people.

The Impact on Youth and Youth Services

Many families with children began returning to the city as schools slowly reopened by early January of 2006. With a second wave of families expected to return as schools let out for the summer, concerns emerged regarding the restoration of youth services and opportunities for the summer. The New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD), the normal sponsor of summer youth programs for tens of thousands of children, had incurred major damage to the majority of its facilities while surviving a 90 percent reduction in its staffing capacity. Local public funds for youth services were eliminated in the financial straits the storms created. Money set aside for youth programs was nonexistent. Likewise, across the Gulf Coast region, parks and recreation facilities were not spared from this wrath. The National Recreation and Park Association released a report stating that the state, county, and local parks, sports fields, hiking and biking trails, waterways, historical and cultural sites, and recreational facilities faced major restoration, reconstruction, or replacement. While communities continued to assess the damage and address the longer term challenges of reconstruction, they were faced with attempting to meet the immediate ongoing needs of their communities. The ravished infrastructure of these public services posed a crisis for returning youth.

Once vibrant playgrounds and recreation facilities for youths and families were converted to shelters. Playing fields, home to multiple youth sports leagues and camp activities, now housed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers. Grassy ball fields were covered with gravel and lined with FEMA trailers, mere feet apart, in an effort to provide a temporary fix to the housing crisis the hurricanes had created. Both inside and outside of the declared disaster areas, parks and recreation centers literally became home to many displaced families seeking shelter. Overnight, public parks and recreation agencies in nearby cities absorbed hundreds of children and families into their existing facilities, sports team rosters, and recreation programs.

In its report, the National Recreation and Park Association pointed out the importance of the infrastructure that recreational outlets provide for community. First, seniors, adults, youths, families, and persons with disabilities frequently rely on these programs as their essential needs are served by the staffs of parks and recreational programs. Second, psychological researchers have found that positive social support programs offered in parks and recreation settings greatly enhance individuals' and communities' ability to recover from trauma. The healing aspects of nature through access to parks can help improve individual and community support for the recovery effort.

Operation REACH, Inc., Takes on the Restoration of Youth Programs

Recognizing this need, the community-based organization (CBO) Operation REACH, Inc., with naive ambition, put together a proposal to bring relief to the local recreation department and restore summer youth services in New Orleans. Operation REACH was founded in 1998 by Kyshun Webster, who was an undergraduate student at Xavier University of Louisiana at the time. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to providing access to high-quality educational opportunities for youths and their families through a variety of community-based programs. Begun as the Home for Homework program in New Orleans' Saint Bernard Housing Development, in which college students provided academic support for youths and their parents in a homelike environment, the program grew to operate in multiple sites around the city.

By 2005, Operation REACH had developed a reputation for providing high-quality, innovative, educational programs to children around New Orleans. The organization came to be known for its community-based approach, its ability to develop public-private partnerships, and its focus on youth leadership development. Since 2000, it had built a strong working relationship with local colleges and universities, as well as NORD, to provide quality programs outside of school time.

In the spring of 2006, while the shortage of programs outside school time continued and local colleges and universities began to reopen their campuses to students, more than ten thousand college students from around the country descended on New Orleans for their spring breaks. The majority gutted flooded homes around the city, helping families get past the massive physical and emotional first step of removing all their belongings and gutting the house down to the studs. For many people, these college students were providing an incredible service, allowing families to see past the devastation to the possibility of returning and rebuilding. The students worked with neighborhood organizations to survey the basics of each neighborhood: who had returned, who was living in FEMA trailers, where piles of debris remained, and what businesses, schools, and bus routes had returned if any. Many slept on church floors, in empty community centers, and in extra dormitory rooms at the local colleges and universities. As Operation REACH staff members spoke with college students and those who worked alongside them, they found them overwhelmingly excited about coming back to New Orleans for the summer. The students, however, expressed an interest in working with more than just bricks and mortar. They wanted to work with people, especially children.

Despite losing its New Orleans headquarters to the storm and the fact that its staff members had evacuated to four separate states across the South, Operation REACH proposed to provide summer camps for middle school students through a strategy that would minimize the costs to NORD by employing volunteer counselors. Building on a record of providing quality youth programs and developing community-focused leadership in local college students, the organization sought to expand the base to include college students from across the country for the summer. In a relatively short period of time, funding was secured, a program skeleton developed, and plans made for 25 idealistic college students and 360 youths to collaborate in operating a summer camp for middle school students across three sites in New Orleans. Thus, the Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps (GYAC) was born. The corps would follow the model of many traditional youth service corps but with a special focus on restoring youth programs after a major disaster. It was launched to take full advantage of the large number of civic-minded college students who came to the region immediately after the storm as a means of meeting the critical need for youth services in New Orleans.

Operation REACH sought relationships with national, local, and city agencies to bring together a public-private partnership to serve children in New Orleans after the storms. The recreation department agreed to make facilities that were not damaged (approximately three) available for the Gulfsouth Youth Action Camps. Universities, private foundations, and other relief organizations joined in to help the organization assist NORD. Local agencies and foundations such as the Institute of Mental Hygiene and the United Way joined national relief organizations such as Save the Children and Mercy Corps to provide funding for the inaugural program. Local universities such as Xavier University of Louisiana and Tulane University agreed to assist with recruiting and screening local college students as well as providing housing for college students from across the country and abroad who would serve as GYAC members. The Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard University, the Lang Center at Swarthmore College, and the University of Minnesota allocated individual fellowships for their students to commit to a summer of service with GYAC. National experts affiliated with these prestigious institutions and agencies, including the National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) served as trainers for the intensive one-week training program required for corps members in June. These national experts also served the program throughout the summer by acting as coaches and mentors to corps member cohorts.

Developing the GYAC Curriculum

In a city that did not have the capacity to service its youth, this public-private partnership came together under dire circumstances to provide them with an outlet to increase their resiliency as they coped with catastrophic stress. Research shows that in times of natural disaster the most vulnerable are children and the elderly. Disaster experts note that as resources become strained communities focus on immediate priorities. However, they assert, reductions in essential services for children often have long-term implications for those children and the families and communities in which they live. Consequently, the lack of youth programs during out of school hours has been identified as a major risk factor for youth associated with violent crime according to the National Institute of Out-of-School Time (NOIST). Complicating matters further, New Orleans children had experienced “catastrophic stress,” defined as severe stress brought on by unexpected events such as the serious illness of a child or family member, natural disasters, or abuse. According to mental health experts, the child experiencing such a crisis is often too overwhelmed to use basic resources to deal with pressure and fear. In an article published immediately after the storm entitled “Children as Victims of Hurricane Katrina,” Dr. Judith Myers-Wall, a national expert on teaching children to cope with major disasters, suggested implementing programs that do the following.

• Help children use creative outlets such as art and music to express their feelings

• Help children and youth find a course of action

• Help older children learn about current events so they will know a lot about the situation

• Take action and get involved in something

The GYAC was informed and inspired by the work of Dr. Myers-Wall. Two international child advocacy agencies, the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children, concurred in their reports on the crisis along the Gulf Coast. While it is essential to ensure that adequate food, water, medicine, sanitation, and shelter are available for everyone affected by the hurricanes, it is also imperative to mitigate the impact of the disaster on children. They suggest getting children back to a normal routine through recreational activities and enrollment in school. According to these international relief agencies, evidence has shown that in times of disaster getting children back to a learning environment is one of the most effective ways to help them feel safe, cope with trauma, and begin their emotional healing.

Taking Dr. Myers-Wall's recommendations into account, Operation REACH searched for innovative approaches to developing this “postdisaster” camp for youth who had suffered the trauma of their entire world being uprooted, shaken up, and destroyed by the hurricanes and their aftermath. While most Americans experienced the trauma from their television sets, some of the youth whom Operation REACH staff knew would attend the camps had more dramatic experiences as they waded through the waters, stood on rooftops, leaped from helicopters, and swam for their lives while watching others drown in the rushing waters. After this set of lived experiences, many youth in “refugee” communities still went without a change of clothes and food for days and continued to be isolated from friends, separated from families, and truant from school for months. Many youth found few outlets for their voices or experiences as they were initially severely downplayed while adults grieved over “more substantive material losses.” The challenge of restoring youth services in New Orleans was great given the trauma of the youth experience of Katrina. Not having the space to grieve like the adults and being disconnected from peer groups left a vacuum, and youth could not embrace each other's suffering as a normal part of their coping and resiliency mechanisms.

At the outset, Operation REACH staff knew that the Gulfsouth Youth Action Camps had to make room in the program design for youth to liberate their repressed emotions, discuss unaddressed questions about their experiences, and debrief unfolding events in their lives. Moreover, many youth who were returning for the first time after their evacuation in the summer of 2006 would experience firsthand the shock of a dramatically changed physical, social, and cultural environment. They would have to quickly assimilate to what many called the “new New Orleans.” Thus, the program design had to create opportunities for youth to phenomenologically get reacquainted with their city. To do this, Operation REACH staff selected critical pedagogy and service learning as the instructional techniques for the camp. Courses were intended to be fun yet intellectually stimulating. They would provoke repressed conversations and agitate youth to action while providing a therapeutic outlet for young people to begin their healing.

The Curriculum: Critical Pedagogy And Service Learning

The Gulfsouth Summer Youth Action Camps' curriculum and activities were developed through the spring of 2006 over a series of conference calls and Internet communications. A national network of college students and volunteer educational experts from around the country gave input to provide a powerful learning experience for both the campers and the college students who volunteered. Traditional disciplines were transformed into intriguing, highly interactive, real world learning experiences with emphasis placed on these disciplines as instruments of social change. The curriculum promoted analytic reasoning, self-expression, and social consciousness through project-based learning. Reading, writing, and analytic reasoning were infused into all course offerings to address the learning regression that had taken place because many of the middle school student campers were unable to return to school following the hurricanes. In addition, campers were exposed to an array of thematic field trips and meaningful community service projects and courses with a provocative social justice bent on media, health, visual arts, and community organizing.

Operation REACH. staff believed these courses would create opportunities for appreciative inquiry into topics consequential to the posthurricane environments in which the staff and students lived. Undergirding each course was a set of critical thinking skills intended to bring about awareness and stimulate youth becoming more civically engaged. Independent program evaluations showed that using critical pedagogy in instruction seemed to increase political and social awareness among youth ages nine to thirteen, especially regarding their newly sophisticated analysis of their hurricane experiences. As a direct outgrowth of the critical media service-learning courses, a film documentary was produced entitled Children of New Orleans: Still Weathering the Storm. This professionally produced documentary was developed by the campers in partnership with a volunteer Florida-based film company. The critical media course taught campers how to use the medium of film to tell their stories of Katrina. As youth, they were a yet to be heard segment of the diaspora whose voices the mainstream media had not amplified. In addition to having the opportunity to have their voices heard and stories told, the youth also learned technical skills by using advanced computer software to edit their compelling accounts of the storm and their most introspective moments.

Service learning was another component of the camp's guiding pedagogy. Service learning has been shown to provide powerful opportunities for youth to reflect critically and constructively on their world and to develop skills for facilitating meaningful social change.¹ Youth were given opportunities to engage in community work as part of their camp experience. Students at the Cutoff Recreation Center were involved in a community beautification project that included preparing and planting decorative plants around the perimeter of the community center. Students at the Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries site were engaged in developing a community garden on land under a freeway crossing. These activities were more intensely covered in the Community Action Capstone course. Despite minor logistical issues, campers reported positive outcomes for the service activities.

Impact of the Curriculum on Youth: Promoting Healthy Dialogue

Focus group conversations conducted by an independent evaluation team revealed that youth thought the service projects helped them to learn some important things about community service. They reported that they learned about the value of service to others. They most frequently described community service as “helping to clean up the community” or “helping to fix things.” One respondent talked about a change in attitude, saying, “At first I didn't know and didn't care, but later [I] realized it [is a way] to make New Orleans better and a way to help around the community.” Developing this ethic of service and change in attitude was one of the ultimate intentions of the service learning program.

Based on Operation REACH's history of youth leadership development, the staff determined that it made the most sense to adapt the teaching methodology from critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy naturally lends itself to creating evocative democratic learning environments. Hence, the Gulfsouth Summer Youth Action Course was designed to be heavily dialogic for the youth, allowing them to have their turn to voice their thoughts, opinions, and experiences “at the mic.” In focus group de-briefings, a team of independent program evaluators asked youth about this instructional innovation and whether the dialogic process helped them deal with issues related to the hurricanes. The results were as follows.

• About a third of the participants thought they had talked about it the right amount and seemed to have found it therapeutic.

• They thought it was good to talk about the problems they encountered and that it helped get “stuff off your mind.”

• Almost half complained that there was too much talk about Katrina and it was an uncomfortable subject for them. Some said it upset them. One young man said it was “too sad to talk about it” because his grandmother and cousin had died. He added, “I don't want to talk about it. I want to move on.”

• Another girl had a terrible experience at the [Ernest N. Morial] Convention Center, and she didn't know how to approach dealing with the aftermath.

• Youth did talk about what made life stressful and uncomfortable. Several mentioned stressful situations such as being separated from their parents (e.g., living in Texas without their parents) and missing friends.

• Seeing the city in ruins and disrepair caused feelings of frustration, especially because of the slow response.

• They mentioned uncomfortable environments in other places such as dealing with unfriendly people or violent classmates in Texas.

• They struggled with reconciling the death of friends, not knowing how to address these hurtful situations.

Clearly, Katrina remained a touchy subject. While the camp helped to alleviate some of the issues related to the disaster, the evaluations showed that the subject needed to be addressed more delicately, noting that not all experiences and reactions were the same.

Some youth were more specific about the ways in which the camp supported them.

• It reconnected them with friends and relatives and provided an opportunity to make new friends. One youth said, “I hadn't seen my cousins and my friends in one place since the storm . . . and it allowed me to make new friends.”

• All the youth felt that the counselors went out of their way to assist the students, in some cases pulling them aside and counseling them one-on-one. They described this as being similar to a minitherapy session, and they appreciated the time. Of the counselors, one student said, “They won't let nothin' get you down.”

• Others felt the discussions about Katrina were helpful and therapeutic. Besides this, they felt the opportunity to have fun and return to a somewhat normal life gave them hope and a feeling that they would be OK. One student said, “Seeing everybody doin' better” made everyone feel better.

While several of the participants were still dealing with the effects of post-Katrina trauma, good relationships with the college student counselors and the proximity of friends at the camp helped many cope with the situation. Thus, evaluators concluded that the goal of having the camp play a therapeutic role in the lives of the youth was achieved. For a camp that was put together in less than three months in an environment severely hampered by the city's ongoing recovery from a catastrophic storm and with a small budget and staff of relatively inexperienced volunteer college students, the overall assessment was that things had worked remarkably well. Participants liked the camp experience, enjoyed several of the classes and the recreational activities (especially the swimming), and had an opportunity to have a relatively stable, socially satisfying experience. Given all the trauma and turmoil caused by the hurricanes and the ensuing disruption during the year, the camp allowed the youth and the college counselors to develop relationships and enjoy each other. These relationships and the positive time spent together appear to have been the most meaningful parts of the camp experience.

Impact on College Students: The College Student Service Experience

In coordinating the experiences of both the corps members and the middle school campers, Operation REACH staff recognized the importance of reciprocity in the service experience. They would create opportunities for both groups to learn and serve in the community together. College students who traveled from afar to be a part of the inaugural year of the Gulf-south corps and camps had a rare opportunity to interact with a group of middle school youth in a community still recovering from a grave natural disaster. In exit interviews, the volunteer camp counselors were asked, “How will you bring GYAC back with you to your own community? How will your work this summer inform the work that you do in the coming months?” In general, counselors expressed a commitment to tell friends and family about life in post-Katrina New Orleans and to lead awareness campaigns back on their campuses. They had begun to see themselves as ambassadors for the region. Some also expressed a desire to engage in community service in their home communities.

The college student counselors also developed personally and professionally. Some indicated that they had developed a greater understanding of youth, the challenges they face, and the ways in which they deal with these challenges. Half said they had a greater awareness of young people's resiliency and how they cope with trauma and disruption. They also learned how to develop strong relationships with youth. Given that this program operated in such a devastated environment, corps members reported that they had developed a greater ability to “roll with the punches” and deal with crises. They learned patience in dealing with challenges and developed a greater ability to reflect in crisis settings. Corps members also learned to be more flexible. Some said they had learned to lead under stressful situations. They also said the experience made them appreciate more what they had at home. A few counselors described feeling that New Orleans was a second home and its problems were their problems. Several expressed a desire to return at some point and continue helping out.

Counselors were also asked about the overall impact of the Gulfsouth Youth Action Camp. Their responses were fairly consistent with the exit interview data. Some of the strongest effects were on their personal development and relationships with peers. They reported that they had developed a better understanding of teaching, with more than 70 percent saying that they had acquired a more “sophisticated understanding of teaching.” Similarly, approximately 70 percent said they had developed a much better understanding of human services, education, and youth development. As for a better understanding of themselves, more than 70 percent indicated that this was a major outcome of the experience.

Developing interpersonal relationships proved to be the highlight of the camp experience for the college students. Almost 90 percent of the counselors rated developing relationships with their fellow counselors as a great outcome, and more than 94 percent said they found the relationships they had developed with the youth to be outstanding. Clearly, the strongest impact in the camp experience was the relationships developed between the campers and their counselors. When the college students were asked to reflect on “the most significant impact of this program on you as a human being,” they said,

“I realized that this is something I love to do.”

• More specifically, they said, “[I love] waking up in the morning excited about teaching and working with the kids and realizing ‘this is where I am supposed to be.’”

• They talked about how rewarding youth work is and especially loving to see the campers grow. They enjoyed the deep relationships with campers and the feeling they had an impact on them. They were overwhelmed by the kids' enthusiasm and creativity and realized that “this work matters.” They felt the kids trusted them and felt the power of having had an effect on others.

• Eight people thought they would go into teaching or youth work. Several had a new focus on public interest careers other than teaching and youth work and expressed a desire to work with low-income families, even connecting a career in art with social justice issues.

• Eight shared that they were interested in becoming a youth worker or educator. Two said that they had initially been interested in academia but now wanted to become youth workers. Two others not only wanted to work with youth but wanted to pursue graduate degrees and start nonprofits or charter schools.

• Five others shared a desire to pursue public interest careers other than teaching and youth work. One planned to become a doctor and as a result of the summer wanted to work with low-income populations. Another found herself less interested in youth work but more interested in social work, perhaps with other women. Another was unsure of her abilities as a teacher but was very intrigued with education policy. A fifth person in this subset was pre-law and had been very concerned about making a sizable salary. Now she was less concerned about money and interested in dealing with people recovering from crises.

“I have a deeper understanding of service.”

• They realized how much life experiences affect people and how challenging teaching can be. They were able to get beyond the notion of service as charity, no longer pitying others but seeing service as a human responsibility. They also learned more about how nonprofit organizations work.

• They learned how difficult it is to run a program that includes service activities, that there are no quick fixes to problems, and that it is difficult to communicate the notion of service to others.

• They said they learned some of the pros and cons of volunteerism, especially “teaching with” as opposed to “teaching to.” They also saw service as a way to build relationships and better understand youth. One counselor said, “I don't feel like the kids need anything . . . [because service] isn't something you ‘give’; [there was] greater faith in solidarity rather than charity as you became aware of kids' autonomy and resilience. There is an importance to learning from the people you serve, the importance of homegrown service.”

“I have a greater awareness of identity, especially as it relates to race, class, and culture.”

• They felt they had achieved a better understanding of their identity in encountering local traditions as outsiders. Experiences of diversity, including being around vegans for the first time, being in a multiracial environment for the first time, becoming aware of their own whiteness (for some), and feeling like an outsider, all made a difference in who they were.

• For others, getting comfortable with their blackness or socioeconomic privilege, or achieving a greater understanding of how to fit into black culture as someone who is white, changed their understanding of racial and community issues.

• They learned how race plays into the picture. Counselors had a better sense of how race affects government policies and a greater understanding of the assumptions that come with whiteness and blackness. They also learned what it means to be a racial outsider.

• Some learned about the role class plays in dealing with social barriers, especially ones that are rooted in racial issues.

“I developed people skills.”

• Several counselors mentioned that they were now better able to work with youth, function as coworkers, and act as managers. The experience gave them real world opportunities to hone their people skills.

“I have more self-confidence and a greater sense of responsibility.”

• Like the youth, the counselors felt a greater sense of self-confidence at the end of the program. They became more self-assured as they worked effectively with youth and peers. Also their impact on the youth and the program gave them a stronger sense of responsibility; they saw themselves as actual agents of change for the young people and the community.

“I have a greater degree of patience in dealing with challenges.”

• Given the number of frustrations with the overall camp, ranging from challenges and snafus related to communication and management to maintaining the control and direction of all the campers, the corps members learned to develop more patience and understanding. “Challenges can either drive you nuts,” one said, “or they can help you to become more tolerant of things when they don't go right.”

“I realized my inability to deal with the stress of the program.”

• Several counselors who faced the stresses of the program on a day-to-day basis realized that the experience had tested their tolerance for stress. Many felt stressed at times because of all the things they had to do and because of their lack of control over situations. But they felt the camp experience had better prepared them to deal with stress in the future.

Conclusion: Lessons from GYAC

The summer camps have continued for three years, and the Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps has since been sought out by the Corporation for National and Community Service as a national model to be replicated throughout the Gulf South. In large part due to the extraordinary commitment of the volunteer college staff, the patience and persistence of the youth participants, and the efforts of the management team to secure funding for the program, a camp was conducted that was both fun and intellectually stimulating. The program and the experience of Operation REACH staff can teach us several lessons about civic engagement in the wake of a disaster.

Crisis gives way to innovation and new uses and combinations of community resources. While Operation REACH built the GYAC program on a successful formula and solid track record, the postdisaster environment required innovation. The program tapped the energy, idealism, and enthusiasm of college students from around the country to serve as counselors to address the lack of staffing capacity in the local recreation department. In addition, the camp drew on a combination of local, national, and international funds, resources, and expertise, including international disaster relief organizations, local and national foundations, state and local governments, and universities and youth-focused organizations around the country.

Service learning and critical pedagogy are keys to restoring normalcy and efficacy not just for youth after a disaster but also for volunteers responding to a disaster. The curriculum, pedagogy, and values of the camp created an environment in which young people were encouraged to lead, act, reflect, and make their voices heard in relating their experiences and feelings about their communities. This democratic learning environment not only empowered young people by giving them a sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy, but it also proved to be therapeutic for them in coping with catastrophic stress. As a result of coordinated research efforts by Joy D. Osofsky, Howard J. Osofsky, and William W. Harris to understand the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Gulf Coast youth, over two thousand young people have been observed through interviews with mental health professionals. Consistently, the research found, older youth worried about themselves, their future, their friends, their parents, and other family members. High school seniors worried about their senior year experiences. Symptomatic of their grief over losing friends and social connections, overwhelmingly this population postponed college pursuits and the completion of prerequisite examinations such as the ACT and SAT. Despite their stress, the Osfofskys and Harris observed from their research with this population that, profoundly, “students sufficiently symptomatic to qualify for mental health services frequently described their first concern as ‘how can I rebuild my community?’”²

Feedback from the participants in the GYAC indicated that, while the program model may have been effective, one needs to balance the amount of sensitive content introduced. In postdisaster settings, greater attention needs to be paid to the presentation and amount of sensitive content in the curriculum. A number of studies report that civic engagement creates resiliency and promotes prosocial behaviors. Post-Katrina, a number of service-oriented organizations debuted for the purpose of engaging youth in the recovery of the region. These models provide forums in which youth can come together around common issues, reflect and divulge collective concerns, and engage in positive visioning. As noted, youth impacted by disasters do not necessarily want to be passive spectators and/or recipients of services. Hence, following disasters more intentional programming should be designed with youth and by youth to address their ambitions for the redevelopment of their communities.

In the face of a major disaster, strong results can be achieved through partnerships between international or national organizations and local ones. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, while the New Orleans community—from individual families to local businesses—struggled to regain its footing, organizations from around the country were raising millions of dollars for relief, research, and programming to impact those who were affected by the hurricanes with few, if any, local connections on the ground in New Orleans. The world opened its consciousness, hearts and pocketbooks to New Orleans and New Orleanians, but there were few local guides. While national organizations were able to provide support to local New Orleans offices and affiliates, local community-based organizations (CBOs) faced a full recovery on their own. The families and households of staff, as well as the programs and infrastructure to continue their missions for their communities, were all in need of assistance.

Operation REACH's Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps is an example of what is possible when national and international organizations seek to support the recovery and rebuilding of a region through local partners who know the landscape and its needs and opportunities. The Operation REACH staff had to overcome incredible personal and professional obstacles, including the relocation of their own children, families, offices, and programs; the devastation of their homes and offices; and the loss of some of their programs and funding in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. The success of the GYAC, as well as the mere fact that it was put together in such a short period of time, is due to the commitment of the dedicated local staff and the depth of such local, national, and international partnerships.

NOTES

1. J. Claus and C. Ogden, eds., Service Learning for Youth Empowerment and Social Change (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001).

2. Joy D. Osofsky, Howard J. Osofsky, and William W. Harris, “Katrina's Children: Social Policy Considerations for Children in Disasters,” Social Policy Report 21, no. 1 (2007): 6. The journal is published by the Society for Research in Child Development.