New Orleans visit 02/22/08

Happy Hearts Fund made this initial visit to New Orleans to meet with NGO’s and community leaders gaining a clearer understanding of the challenges they are faced with as well as ways HHF can support. HHF is committed to helping the children of New Orleans and will soon be announcing it plans here on our website, check back often for our announcements! Please read on for a summary of our trip.

Andrew Wilson Charter School:

General concerns:

The school “reopened” in September 2007. The building dates back to 1837 and is part of the Recovery School District. Extensive renovations have been done in a very short time period, with very successful results.
Today, the school serves as a K-5 (365 children are now present) but wishes to grow to K-8 in a year and possibly to a K-12 in the future. After devastating Katrina, Wilson School became a center for community reunion: the goal in fact isn’t only that of giving education to children but also to involve the community as a whole. In this sense, Wilson school wanted to become a “model” to other schools.
In May 2008 new construction will begin, in a different Katrina-affected area of New Orleans, in order to build a new school (to be finished in August 2009; estimated cost of 20 millions of dollars). The goal is that of transferring students, teachers, and facilities from the actual Andrew Wilson School to the new building. The actual building is considered as an historical site, and it’s not clear if it will be kept or not. Due to the great work which has been done by renovating the actual building and to the fact that the surrounding community already identifies it as a center for reunion, there is a great desire to keep this school opened.

The importance of technology:

The Schools Technology Manager gave us a very clear and positive explanation of how technology is effective within Wilson Charter school and of the importance of continuing (and increasing) its use. The following concepts stand out:
The project has been effective in the way it involved directly the surrounding community, parents, and children all together. The idea allows not only children to use the computers but the community as well (“Library Community Center”). A future idea is to bring computers into the houses of families so that children could work from home and send their homework to their teacher; while also parents could learn how to use technology.
The computers actually present within Wilson Charter School are on loan until July 2008. After this date, the school will need replacements. For the new school to be built, the idea is to have 1 computer on each desk (25 in each class) with access to internet. Through technology, students could learn English language, reading, and math and prepare themselves for the Louisiana State Test. It is also important to have children start using computer form kindergarten (through mainly “visual” exercises). As a matter of fact, if they start when they are very young, it is easier for them to learn how to use technologies.
Computers are also ‘environmentally friendly” as they replace the use of paper. Useful programs like “Benchmarks” (programs like that will be further studies and discussed with Edison) can help teachers understanding how students increase their understanding of technologies and they can immediately correct students’ errors / lack of understand. Through a monitoring system (5 monitors connected to 1 system) teachers can watch all the time what children are doing. More so, the access to internet allows students increasing their research abilities and allows them to better understand aspects of the surrounding world. The use of technology can also be useful to help children with disabilities in the way it stimulates their minds.
Great work has been done so far at Wilson Charter School. The building has been magnificently renovated. The teachers and board members have been putting a lot of efforts into this project. Their personal and professional “mission” stood out many times. The children too were particularly open to us. Great sense of community has stand out. Edison also seemed to be very focused on this project and appears to have the will to proceed developing it (in respect to the future school which will be constructed and opened). There is certainly a need for support when it comes to add computer labs (replace existing ones in August 2008, and add new ones when the new school will open in 2009). Also, new computer programs (like Benchmarks) should be added.

Musicians’ village and Brad Pitt project, Upper 9th Ward and Lower 9th Ward:

The tour of both sites has been insightful. In Musicians’ Village we got a sense of how the neighborhood was right after Katrina and how it is now changing. An extensive tour of the area allowed us to get a sense of the significant need which New Orleans still faces.
Upper 9th Ward: The area west of the Canal has been called the "Upper Ninth Ward." This part of the Ward contains one of the Housing Projects of New Orleans. On January 2006, the governing board for New Orleans public schools approved the sale of eight acres of surplus property in the Upper 9th Ward to the New Orleans Area. Habitat for Humanity is working on the Musicians' Village. The Musicians' Village will include Habitat-constructed homes, with the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music”, as the centerpiece of the area. The Habitat-built homes will provide musicians of modest means the opportunity to buy decent, affordable housing.
Lower 9th Ward: This is the area south and east of the canals. The portion of the Ninth Ward along the river down river from the Industrial Canal stretching to the St. Bernard line is called the "Lower 9th Ward" or "Lower Ninth". It includes the Holy Cross neighborhood and the Jackson Barracks, and was long known for its high portion of working class black home ownership. Not much has been left after Katrina and Brad Pitt commitment will be that of rebuilt affordable housing for the many disadvantaged people who survived and were living there before Katrina.

Afternoon visit to Village de L’Est, Vietnamese community:

Village de l' Est' s rebound constitutes a remarkable story in this misery-stricken city. For better or worse, the hurricane has brought profound political and cultural change to the Vietnamese community living in Village de l’Est.
An estimated 90 percent of the 25,000 Vietnamese-Americans who lived in southeastern Louisiana before Katrina had returned within two years of Katrina, according to community leaders. The Vietnamese community living in Village de L’Est were among the first to start rebuilding their homes and reopening their businesses. The community living in this neighborhood before Katrina didn't wait for the government's help to repair their homes (as a matter of fact this community wasn’t even recorded on a map for the government…). People had to gut their houses and removing the mold themselves. Friends and relatives helped with some of the most grueling labor. The Catholic priests from a nearby church, Mary Queen of Vietnam, pitched in and helped fixing housing.
"Hand in hand, we support each other," they say. Neighbors are still pressuring officials to remove potentially hazardous storm debris from the site, but the government seems not to be very helpful to them. Thanks to the hard work made by all members of the community, many of the plywood boards that covered storm-damaged homes in Village de l'Est are now gone. Streets once littered with storm debris are now clean as in the city center. Many of them lost jobs and had to learn new trades. Ambitious development plans are now developing thanks to the great efforts of these young Vietnamese-American people.
Although progresses have been made, they still lack of affordable insurance while the nearest emergency room is downtown, a dozen miles away. For long time, they waited for the government to assign them the space for a new kindergarten school to be rebuilt. As of that, many Vietnamese families had to send their children to private schools, paying a considerable amount of money. Only short time ago, the government has finally assigned the space in which a new kindergarten will be opened. Within it, the community agrees in the importance of adding computer labs and bringing technologies to the students. This will allow them to better prepare for future careers and will also allow the entire community to grow. Edison Schools is collaborating with Village de l’Est Vietnamese community in order to allow these progresses to be finally reached.

Great sense of community has been found through the Vietnamese-American people we visited. The fact that they’re helping each other even if not part of the same family is impressive and outstanding. There is a great desire to “fighting for their rights”. Their strength is shown in the results they’re achieving. Important things still need to be achieved: the insurance plan, a hospital facility, and the creation of a school are all of primary importance. Edison seems to be cooperative and helpful and it would be great if also HHF could help these people reaching their goals. Their efforts and willingness to fight the injustices of the government should be taken as an example by many.