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| The Echo - Citizens still need help in New OrleansCitizens still need help in New Orleans 4/6/06 Months after the disastrous hurricanes Katrina and Rita, much of the gulf coast region still resembles a wasteland. We have all undoubtedly seen images of the devastation in magazines or newspapers or on television: landscapes ravaged, houses flooded and destroyed, people stranded on rooves for days without food, loved ones lost or found dead. However, especially since the media's coverage of the aftermath of the hurricanes has become more scarce as the months have passed, it has become increasingly easier for us not to talk about the hardships that the people of the Gulf Coast have faced and continue to face every day. Over spring break, I had the opportunity to experience firsthand the devastation caused by Katrina and Rita, which one truly must see to believe. The UTC chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, a nationwide college think tank for progressive bi-partisan politics, sent six of its members to volunteer in New Orleans with Project H.O.P.E., a non-profit organization based out of St. Bernard Parish, an area among the worst hit. The organization guts and repairs houses, distributes supplies and does whatever else it can for the residents of the parish the and surrounding community. The citizens who have chosen to stay in St. Bernard Parish, the lower Ninth Ward, and other impacted areas live in unthinkably deplorable circumstances. Families of five or six have been packed into trailers hardly spacious enough for two people; many of the trailers are without electricity and other utilities, basic appliances or even adequate furniture. Some have not even received their promised trailers yet. People have little or no money for food and often have no way of earning an income to provide for themselves, because local businesses and jobs have all but disappeared. Seeing this sentiment and the destruction around me, I could not help but to agree that the politicians and the government on local, state and national levels had partially or completely abandoned the people they claimed to represent and serve. However, the people of New Orleans, as displeased as they were with the government's response, never failed to realize that they would have to work hard to recover a normal standard of living, even if they would have to do so alone. Fervent and unrelenting compassion will be necessary if we are to bring life back to a city dying from neglect. We must not let ourselves become detached from the lives of our fellow human beings. When distance separates us enough to forget, we must allow our common humanity to bring us close enough to remember. We should always be mindful of the suffering of others, in New Orleans or anywhere else in the world, and be diligent toward alleviating that suffering. People affected by such a tragedy can only wait so long to live again. Click here to read the article from the Echo's website.
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