The Post-Katrina Context
In August of 2005, soon after Louisiana and Mississippi coasts were hit by Hurricane Katrina, levees surrounding the low-lying coastal city of New Orleans collapsed, flooding and devastating the area. Despite federal recovery funds as well as multiple local, state, and regional plans for rebuilding the city, multiple structural barriers continue to prevent the return of many New Orleanians, as well as the adequate accommodation of newcomers’ needs. Many neighborhoods still lack basic services including hospitals, schools, housing, public transportation, gas, and electricity. The lack of jobs for African-American New Orleanians, as well as the lack of housing for them and for newly arrived immigrant workers is creating a reciprocal process of disenfranchisement, keeping long-time residents from permanently returning to the city while creating a new “under class”.
Displaced New Orleanians and newly arrived immigrants, indeed all of those affected by the complex reality of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, face a set of socio-emotional challenges that involve not only personal recovery, but collective healing and social redress. In the post-Katrina context, this involves addressing the structural racism that so deeply affected African-Americans before, during, and after the crisis. It also means connecting marginalized and dis-empowered communities who share similar struggles, including the historic African-American and the newly arrived and growing Latino communities. As these groups begin to connect with one another, they are together identifying cultural, social, and community-based strengths and strategies to employ in their recovery and healing processes.
The CHRIJ project
The CHRIJ-sponsored project is a Participatory and Action Research PhotoVoice Project in post-Katrina New Orleans. It was designed collaboratively by M. Brinton Lykes, Community-Cultural Psychologist and Associate Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice; Luanne Francis, health educator and program director at Kingsley House; and, Shaula Lovera, health educator and program director at the Hispanic Apostolate of Catholic Charities.
Kingsley House was founded in New Orleans in 1896 and since then it has served families and children in New Orleans, including immigrant families and children. Kingsley House has also been actively involved in the rebuilding and recovery process since Katrina hit the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. Francis runs Kingsley House’s “Health Care for All Program” which for 10 years has been helping children and families in Southeast Louisiana access healthcare and nutritious food, among many other social service programs.
Catholic Charities in New Orleans has also been committed to the mission of “caring for those in need” for over a hundred years. The Latino Health Access Network (LHAN) is the program co-founded and coordinated by Lovera. It is one of 48 programs offered by Catholic Charities to serve New Orleans’ diverse communities. LHAN is specifically committed to improving healthcare access of New Orleans’ Hispanic population. LHAN works closely with medical care providers and other New Orleans-based community organizations, like Kingsley House.
As part of their healthcare programs, both of these organizations have health promoters and advocates working on behalf of their clients to improve their quality of life in New Orleans and access to health resources.
Community Partners
Kingsley House: Health Care for All
Catholic Charities: Latino Health Access Network, Hispanic Apostolate Community Services