It is with great pleasure that I formally announce the participation of Bart Everson, Karen Gadbois, Dr. Eban Walters and Sarah Elise Lewis in the Rising Tide 2 Conference panel called Making Civic Sexy … because they do make it so! The panel’s moderator is none other than your favorite loud Indian girl (hint: she is the authoress of this blog).
The focus of the panel is on how any inhabitant of an area, especially one such as post-Katrina/Flood New Orleans, can become a Citizen with enough love, perseverance, legwork and access to the right information, and the influence of online (social network) research and dialogue on such an endeavour. Again, the emphasis is on the effort of the average citizen — with his or her share of day job, family, personal responsibilities and other community obligations — who also takes on a larger civic responsibility. To that end, the panel presents a spectrum of people and their work — Squandered Heritage and Karen who are “established,” Bart who has been a community activist for a long while, Sarah Elise who works with community networks but whose current social project is still relatively new (to the audience, at least) and Eban, who is the local emerging “focal point” in the Mental Health area.
Each panelist will spend 5-10 minutes presenting their work, and request volunteers/interested parties to step forward, if necessary. The remaining time will be devoted to all four talking with us about how to get the layperson to participate like they do, what are good motivators and the next steps for New Orleans civic activism.
What each participant will talk about:
1) Karen Gadbois – her work with the protection and selective/proper demolition of (historic) properties as described quite thoroughly (and pictorially) at Squandered Heritage
2) Sarah Elise Lewis – Common Knowledge – citizen navigation of City Hall and government, permits, getting citizens into the system, social networks
3) Eban Walters – Mental Health In New Orleans – Eban will talk about the status of mental health in New Orleans, and working towards a blog or database dedicated to the status of mental health facilities and needs of the people here in NOLA. The object after that would be to put together a mental health wiki or blog resource for people seeking and interested in this type of care, with people “recruited” from the audience helping Eban, or Eban helping them maintain the online resource.
4) Bart Everson – the quintessential volunteer will speak on work with Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, the Urban Conservancy, Friends of Lafitte Corridor, Think New Orleans, the Green Party of Louisiana and Silence Is Violence.
By showcasing these people and their work, it is my hope to honor them, support and hearten our existing community activists, moralize and instigate new ones and continue to push the civic work of New Orleans onwards and upwards. There are miles to go before we sleep, but we can do it one measured baby step at a time.
