CWS Helping Young People Recover From Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Hieu Bui and Hai Hoang work on school project as part of the Boat People SOS program in New Orleans.
Photo: Judi Bottoni

August 2006

Among the recovery efforts made possible by Church World Service are programs and projects with and for young hurricane survivors.

The CWS School Resources Program is making a world of difference in the lives of thousands of young people who survived the ravages of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina by re-equipping their schools. The Youth at Risk Program is providing support for programs with young survivors—helping them to heal from the trauma and equipping them with knowledge and skills for the future.

Schools and youth-focused programs can provide young people with a degree of security and stability in the midst of continuing uncertainty. Most of the youth involved continue to live in FEMA trailors or other temporary housing.

Here are a few recent stories, quotes, and photos that reflect the value of this focused support to benefit young hurricane survivors:

School Resources Programs

Church World Service is helping schools in Louisiana and Mississippi that desperately needed recovery assistance. A total of $599,095 has been distributed to 13 Gulf Coast schools--six in Louisiana and seven in Mississippi. Support has provided new computer technology labs and equipment, as well as books, library equipment, and other supplies.

Photo: Annie Griffiths Belt for CWS

Through children’s eyes…

“Do you know what it’s like to think you’re going to die? It’s one scary feeling,” says Alden St. Mary (left), an 11-year-old survivor of Hurricane Katrina, along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“The storm sounded like ‘Boojhhh! Boojhhh!'” Alden's brother Carter (right) says, a worried expression on his seven-year-old face. His parents had taken the two boys to the school in Bay St. Louis where they taught, as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Mississippi coast.

But the “water got higher and higher,” Alden picks up the story. “Waves were crashing against the building, and then the bottom floor collapsed. We finally got out of there, but it was so weird after the storm. One day we had everything we needed, and the next day it was gone--everything. ”

Church World Service knows what it’s like for kids like Alden and Carter, who are frightened and have lost everything, and it’s helping bring some normalcy back into their lives. CWS has awarded grants to 13 hurricane-damaged schools, to help them with repairs and replenishing books, computers, and other equipment lost in the storm. And, many kids along the Gulf Coast have gotten their own CWS School Kits. More than just the pencils, pads, and crayons they contain, the kits let the children know that people care, and that life will get back to normal again.

New computers at Resurrection Middle/High School

Students at Resurrection Middle/High School in Pascagoula, Mississippi

Eight grade students in a Computer Discovery class at Resurrection Middle/High School in Pascagoula, Mississippi, are glad to have computer access again. The school lost its equipment to Hurricane Katrina damage. The school has a newly-equipped computer lab thanks to a Church World Service school resources grant.
Photo: Resurrection Middle/High School

Math teachers Cathy Wells and Barbara Strickler

Math teachers Cathy Wells (seated) and Barbara Strickler of Resurrection Middle/High in School Pascagoula, Mississippi, are thankful to have computers at the school again. Equipment was ruined by Hurricane Katrina.
Photo: Resurrection Middle/High School

“We worked to try to get one area of the school with working technology, and that was the computer lab… Church World Service’s money helped to do that project as well as to get some resources so teachers could teach.”
Ms. Darnell Cuevas, Principal
Resurrection Middle/High School
(recipient of a School Resources grant)
Pascagoula, Mississippi

“If we didn’t have computers I probably wouldn’t be able to graduate, honestly, because I have to take a computer applications course this year to graduate.”
Christina Thompson, a senior at Resurrection
Middle/High School, Pascagoula, Mississippi

“I think that this camp was such a good idea for children after disasters… In a way it’s been therapeutic for me, as well.”
McKenna, a junior in high school
Volunteer Junior Counselor
Camp Noah (recipient of Youth at Risk grant)
Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Youth at Risk Programs

Grants awarded to ten Gulf Coast organizations working with Youth at Risk are making possible vital programming with young people who are survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and/or Rita. Here are glimpses of several such programs.

Boat People SOS

Photos are of a class in New Orleans in August 2006.

Andrew Bui and mentor Truong Pham work on a project.
Photo: Judi Bottoni

Students and mentor work on projects.
Photo: Judi Bottoni

Mentors with Boat People SOS New Orleans’ new Youth Empowerment Program, working with Vietnamese students who, already facing challenges in school or in their communities, were dealt a double blow by the trauma of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year.
Photo: Judi Bottoni

Asian Youth Empowerment Project, New Orleans

Boat People SOS, a national organization helping vulnerable Vietnamese and Southeast Asian refugees throughout the U.S., has begun its new Asian Youth Empowerment Project in New Orleans.

The program is assisting young people who experience multiple risk factors leading to school dropout, gang involvement, and drug abuse--conditions often compounded by their parents’ inability to speak English and thus be able to better interact with their children’s schools. Katrina’s traumas have only made the challenges greater.

The program focuses on mentoring, health education, and empowering youth to take on leadership roles. As mentors work with students in the program, they focus on homework and learning activities to enable the young people to pass their Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) exams--statewide tests that students in fourth, ninth, and eleventh grades must pass in order to be promoted to the next grade. The Youth Empowerment Project will also build in other dynamics in working with these challenged teens.

One student, Donna Tran, after her first three meetings, says, “It’s a fun experience. I’m learning, but it’s a fun time. They push me, but they’re not as strict as teachers at school. They take their time with me.” Donna says everything she and her family and friends have had to deal with following Katrina just made things more difficult.

She says she’s had difficulties in math and science, but thanks to the Boat People SOS program, “it’s getting easier.” Asked what she wants to do after high school, she says, undaunted, “I want to go to medical school to be a pharmacist.”

Special Olympics Louisiana

Youth participants in the Special Olympics in New Orleans, enjoying a game of basketball—and the recreation and stability the this program provides as they and their families recover from the trauma of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Photo: Special Olympics Louisiana

Support for Special Olympics Louisiana not only allows participants to gain confidence and recreation via sports and competitions, but also helps them to get free medical, dental, and vision screenings--a particular help as they and their families recover from the trauma of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Photo: Special Olympics Louisiana

The intellectually impaired young people who participate in the Special Olympics have lifelong challenges even in ordinary times. For Louisiana’s 12,000 Special Olympics athletes, Katrina was devastating; 7,000 were displaced and haven’t returned to the region.

Today, with a grant through Church World Service, Special Olympics of Louisiana has re-launched its work in assisting area athletes to participate in the normal run of Special Olympics competitions.

“We always knew if a hurricane hit, we’d be impacted with lack of fundraising,” says Pat Carpenter, Director of Special Olympics of Louisiana. “But we never knew to what extent we’d be affected, not only through the fundraising avenues, but how we were directly affected emotionally.”

“We couldn’t conduct our fundraisers following Katrina and had very few competitions,” Carpenter said. “But at those competitions they did hold regionally, people did show up to attend and to volunteer. “We asked, ‘why did you come? You’ve all lost your homes and jobs.’ They told us, ‘Because we do this every year,’ and the Olympics events helped get their minds off their troubles.”

Carpenter says there are Special Olympics athletes they still haven’t contacted, “and who haven’t touched base with our people. Their parents have relocated and some are waiting to find out what the city’s going to do, whether they can rebuild, or if there’ll be jobs for them.”

She says this kind of trauma and their disconnection from the Special Olympics community that they have come to know has profound impact on the young athletes.

When the parents of one athlete, Thomas, went back for the first time to see what was salvageable from their flooded home, they asked their son what he wanted most for them to bring back. The mother says, “He told me, ‘My Special Olympics medals.’ Nothing else mattered to him.”

Carpenter says those who remained in the region are ecstatic to be able to be in training and play in games again.

The Youth at Risk grants also help continue another vital service for Louisiana’s special athletes: All athletes are required to have medical exams, which are provided free through Special Olympics. The health screenings provide medical benefits many of the athletes might not receive otherwise, and frequently result in getting free glasses and free dental care for the athletes. Carpenter says, “ At one point, we had taken 100 athletes for medical screenings, and 75 came back with new or replacement pairs of glasses. It was shocking to me that there were that many of our people who needed glasses or replacements.”

Special Olympics: For nurturance, self-esteem, and better health--continuing on despite traumas, thanks in part to supporters of CWS.

Joint Camp Noah-Turning Point-STAR training

During a weeklong retreat, team leaders gained skills in self-awareness, active listening, and mindful communication as part of a training program for young at-risk Katrina survivors selected to assist in “Camp Noahs,” working with other youth who have experienced trauma from natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Photo: Camp Noah

Participants “cross the bridge” as part of a simulation game during a weeklong retreat for Camp Noah team leaders. The young people are gainging skills in self-awareness, active listening, and mindful communication as part of a training program for young at-risk Katrina survivors selected to assist in working with other youth who have experienced trauma from natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Photo: Camp Noah

Turning Point Partners

Turning Point Partners of New Orleans, granted $94,854, ordinarily works with youth at risk who are already caught up in the juvenile justice system and works with their families, drawing on the inherent strengths of both the individuals and their communities, to build “systemic change.” The focus is on training professionals to work with young people utilizing “mindful non-violent communication” and restorative justice processes. Katrina added another layer of trauma to be addressed.

A Youth at Risk grant has helped Turning Point Partners build its Youth Empowerment Project, a group that works with young people being released from juvenile facilities. Turning Point Director Lou Furman reports that the program works with the youths, with school classes held in the evening, “and to help them build resiliency and stay out of the juvenile system.”

Furman says he’s working with teachers, equipping them with skills in non-violent ways of communicating with the teens, “so that ultimately ‘classroom management’ will no longer be an issue in New Orleans. For me, a lot of discipline problems come out of not hearing another person’s needs.”

Turning Point Partners also recently co-led a joint weeklong retreat with Camp Noah and the new Youth STAR program ( Strategies in Trauma Awareness and Resilience) of Eastern Mennonite University. The retreat was held to help youth at-risk teen volunteers who participated in this summer’s Camp Noahs in the Katrina-devastated region, to facilitate those young people in processing their own traumas from the disaster. Given that Church World Service is a co-sponsor of EMU’s international STAR program, and that Camp Noah is also a Youth at Risk grant recipient, Turning Point Partners’ Furman says the retreat was a “triple win for Church World Service.”

From that youth retreat, one mother told Turning Point Partners, “I think my son really needed this. My hat goes off to you and the staff that made this possible for our children.”

Camp Noah

“It’s been a lot of fun for the kids and the counselors… I think it’s really great for the kids just to have like time to have fun and to get away from everything. And it’s a good way of expressing their feelings about what’s going on and about how they feel about Katrina.”
Mattie, 12 years old, a seventh grader
Volunteer Junior Counselor
Camp Noah, Ocean Springs, Mississippi

“With the kids we make a hurricane preparedness box with bandages and coloring books. It gives them a sense of security… In the next hurricane, this box is here for me. I love being around the kids and hearing their stories. And then I tell them my story… And I really do feel like I’ve become like more of a leader…”
Katharine, a junior in high school
Volunteer Junior Counselor
Camp Noah, Ocean Springs, Mississippi

“A lot of kids have lost loved ones, pets, you know, and it hits them very hard. And what we try to do is…let them talk it out. Let them know that by talking it out…they can go on with their lives…. They know now that God is with them, even through the flood.”
Mr. Richard Bain, Counselor
Camp Noah, Ocean Springs, Mississippi

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