"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." - Dorothea Lange

Saturday, December 30, 2006

if I had a (sledge)hammer

I’ve got my sleeping bag, work boots and work gloves packed, and I’m ready to go.

Tomorrow I leave for New Orleans to meet up with a group from Nechama (Hebrew for “comfort”) the Jewish community's disaster response organization. Based in Minneapolis, since 1993 they have deployed hundreds of volunteers to help communities clean up after floods, tornados, and other natural disasters. Their mission is based on the Jewish value of “Tikkun Olam” - repairing the world through acts of goodness. We (folks from all across the US) will be staying in a converted warehouse in Slidell, Louisiana and taken into New Orleans by van early each morning to gut houses.

The work that is left to do in New Orleans is immense. If it were not for volunteers lending a helping hand, the recovery effort there would be in even worse shape than it already is. Although Nechama is a Jewish-based volunteer organization, it offers help to all people regardless of religious affiliation or class. They generally serve the most vulnerable during natural disaster events: the elderly, the poor, single parents, and people with disabilities or other health problems. All of these groups usually find it difficult to cope both physically and mentally with beginning to clean up from natural disasters. Nechama offers its services free of charge and does not solicit donations from persons helped. Nechama works closely with organizations such as the Federal Management Relief Agency (FEMA), the American Red Cross, and the Salvation Army

Just as I am a firm believer in making pictures in my own backyard (that is, not relying on the exotic-ness of a photograph taken in a far away land to make it successful) I believe in helping others in my own backyard (that is, not relying on the exotic-ness of a place or its people to make the effort seem somehow more important).

More to come… from GloriainNewOrleans.

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