presents

Freestyle Love Supreme:

Purpose Party for New Orleans

VideoVoices Project




Freestyle Love Supreme and COMIX are throwing a Purpose Party to raise funds for the New Orleans VideoVoices Project! Join Tony Award-winners Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bill Sherman plus Chris Jackson, Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan, Utkarsh Amudkar, Wade Allain-Marcus and Anthony Veneziale along with special guests for an evening of amazing hip-hop comedy for a great cause. Directed by Thomas Kail.

We will be having some awesome silent auction items up for bid (ITH Tickets and more!) and it’s going to be an excellent show.

The New Orleans VideoVoices Project works to build a groundswell of voices for change using community media, inspiring hard hit communities to tell their stories.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8th
@ COMIX COMEDY CLUB
355 West 14th Street
7 pm and 9:30 pm

Tickets: $50 Advance / $60 (day of)
Students: $20 Advance / $25 (day of)


www.comixny.com

The New Orleans VideoVoices Project is a  REACH NOLA, VideoVoice Collective and community partnership.

For more information please visit:
www.video-voice.org or www.reachnola.org

-Freestyle Love Supreme

http://www.reverbnation.com/fls
Click here to put our songs on your Facebook profile.

Join us for a presentation on participatory video and human rights in New Orleans at the 2008 Human Rights Center Conference!

Conference, November 6, 2008, 10AM to 5PM
Alumni House, UC Berkeley

Health, Human Rights and Vulnerable Communities - 10:00 AM to 12 Noon (Toll Room)

Faculty Discussant: Cheri Pies, School of Public Health

• Caricia Catalani, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Participatory Video in New Orleans, USA

Abstract
Billions of people worldwide have gained access to the Internet, digital recording devices, and other new media tools.  More and more, these new media tools are used as innovative solutions to enduring human rights struggles, however often without critical understanding of their potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  To begin to understand these aspects of new media more thoroughly, this evaluation of the New Orleans Videovoice Project describes the processes and outcomes associated with a particular participatory video methodology: videovoice.

Like its predecessor photovoice, videovoice involves partnering with communities to research health and human rights situations by putting digital cameras in the hands of everyday people.  The New Orleans Videovoice Project took place in Central City, an underserved nieghborhood that was hit hard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Those who have returned from displacement have faced a difficult recovery period involving loss of family and friends, loss of housing and possessions, closures of primary sources of health care, marginalization by government and its recovery programs, and the ongoing stress of piecing one’s life and the community back together.

The New Orleans Videovoice Project arose out of a need to organize around human rights and health concerns at this critical time.  By building a partnership of diverse community members from the Central City neighborhood, public health researchers, filmmakers, and human rights advocates, the project has produced several participatory documentary videos.  The videos describe the neighborhood’s historical and current struggle for human rights, and their own solutions for a better future.  Beyond videos, this highly participatory project has resulted in other critical outcomes, such as increased capacity to produce media, understanding of community strengths and concerns, individual empowerment, and engagement in community action.

• Krista Kshatriya, School of Law, Berkeley, World Health Organization/Southeast Asia Regional Office, India
• Miranda Ritterman, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Christian Children’s Fund, Angola
• Nobuko Mizoguchi, Demography, Berkeley, Global Health Access Project, Thai-Burma border

Lunch Break - 12 noon to 1:30 PM

_

In true New Orleans style, we started with an incredible food, mostly provided by our friends at J’Anitas BBQ.  I am a big fan of the movie, of course, but this pulled pork, brisket, and bourbon bbq sauce was nearly the best thing about the evening!

After the screening, we held an awards ceremony for the filmmakers.  Eleven participants were awarded certificates of recognition for achievement in community documentary filmmaking and their own digital video cameras.

Both evenings culminated in a fiery discussion about how we can move forward on the issues that neighbors care about, including housing, schools, and economic empowerment.

It was an incredible weekend!  We look forward to sharing the film with all of you through online viewing, DVDs, and screenings in more locations during the next months.

• Friday, August 22, 7:pm at Ashe Cultural Center, New Orleans
• Saturday, August 23, 5:pm (previously scheduled 3:pm screening has been changed) at Zeitgeist Multimedia Arts Center, New Orleans

Executive Producer Matt Wisdom and Digital Filmmaker Tim Ryan hope to help convey that vision in a new short Internet documentary about recent successes within New Orleans public charter schools. In addition to an insiders look into what makes public Charter schools successful, the short film addresses the impact current public school reform will have on the future of New Orleans.

Jeremiah was the first one to christen the suite as he went through some footage for his theme of economic development. Lee also found a disc with many historic pictures from the neighborhood and here are some of them below:

Handelman’s Building before renovations in the 1970s’.

Felicity Street @ Dryades Street at the turn of the century - before paved roads.

A Fish Monger and wife running a store on Dryades Street (date unknown).

The Famous Handelman’s Building on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (once called Dryades Street) It is now home to the LANO (Lousianna Non-Profit Organization building).

Trash piles from the destroyed housing projects on Freret Street.

The now defunct Charity Hospital - which is a shell of a building right in downtown New Orleans.

A trumpet player that was sitting in front of a church on Simon Bolivar Blvd. one afternoon, just getting his chops back. He has since called me and told me that he has gotten a band together — hopefully we can get them to do some music for the film.

It is now time for the editing / mentoring process as the participants have broken the project into three main themes: Housing Development, Educational Development, and Economic Development. I have digitized all of the footage I have in hand and have logs for most the tapes as well. There are about 50 different tapes that have been shot and some really exciting stuff to put together. We are supposed to be moving the editing equipment into the Zeitgeist Building on Oretha Castle Haley (OCH) and we’ll see if that happens tomorrow - just waiting to hear back from the owner of the building Lee Stafford, who is part of the business bureau of OCH.

OCH, once called Dryades Street, was the center of black-owned businesses for many years.

This is a picture from 1946 looking down Dryades Street when there was a streetcar that ran along it and thriving businesses that lined it. The group has decided to take an historical look at the neighborhood to get an idea of where it’s been to know where they want it to go.

Map of Central City, New Orleans

Tons of community-based participatory research (CBPR) authors and practitioners raise the issue of defining community in CBPR. Several authors in Minkler’s edited book Community-Based Participatory Research for Health speak to the centrality of recognizing and defining community (2003). In Lawrence Green and colleagues’ “Guidelines for Participatory Research in Health Promotion”, they argue that the first question that must be asked of CBPR practitioners is: “Is the community of interest clearly described or defined?” Israel and colleagues write that the first key principle of CBPR is “CBPR recognizes community as a unit of identity”. So, what is community in the New Orleans VideoVoice project? Sometimes I know and sometimes I don’t.

As we walk through the process of recruitment for our project, I realize just how complex the idea of community really is. For example, when we began, it seemed as if this was a pretty cut and dry case of neighborhood = community. In fact, one of the rare pleasures of doing CBPR work in New Orleans, as far as I’ve experienced it, is that many people really do identify strongly with the neighborhoods where they live. Many have lived in the same home, some for several generations. People seem to know the people who live around them, to go to church with them, to have attended high school with them, and many even attend regular neighborhood committee meetings. Well, that was, until Katrina. So, it’s complicated.

When we began recruitment, we decided that “community” meant people who live and work in Central City. We have a map of the general boundaries, so we were looking for folks inside of these boundaries. As we made contact with more and more people, we began to realize that there are many people who have significant relationships with the Central City community but do not actually live or work there right now. Here are several examples of how the definition of community is simple on paper, but challenging in action.

After the city was evacuated and after enormous stretches of housing, particularly low-income housing, were destroyed, many of the neighborhood’s residents were forced to scatter across the Gulf States and even across the United States. Trusted institutions, community centers, and places of communion like parks and streets have been ruined and abandoned. So, our definition is time sensitive because so many were forced to leave and are still unable to come back. Do we include people who were a part of the neighborhood before? If so, how do we find these folks?

At Larry’s Church, Israelite Baptist Church, there are a lot of people in the congregation that have been long-time members of the community, but neither live nor work here. Some have ancient connections to the neighborhood. This is where they’ve been going to church since they were kids. This is where many generations of their family grew up, but they do not actually live or work in the neighborhood now and have not for a while. So, what do you do?

There is a high school just beyond the border of Central City. A small group, including a teacher and a few students that are 18 years plus, would like to join our effort. Seems to make sense, but it is outside the boarders and high schools tend to be discrete communities. But, so far, it has been hard for us to recruit young people, given our age requirements, and introducing this diversity to our group could be a significant addition. Maybe this is an opportunity to link these high school students to the community and although they may or may not have a significant relationship with Central City now, they probably will by the end of the project.

To Larry, the answer seemed obvious: he just knows. He has a sense for identifying people with a significant relationship to the neighborhood. It reminds me of the concept Malcolm Gladwell brings up in Blink. Sometimes our instincts are made up of an infinitely complex set of knowledge, much of it unconscious, which tells us in an instant what we are dealing with. This sense is so refined that we don’t even need to consciously or verbally delibaerate about it, we just know. Larry just knows because he has spent most of his life working and residing and organizing in the neighborhood. He knows nearly automatically, what it looks and seems and sounds like when someone has a significant relationship with the community. But, for me, an outside researcher, I can’t tell where this new boundary lies. Does it include the high school students or not? Does it include the guy that cooks at a bordering restaurant that seemed really interested in participating? It would be hard for me to explain this recruitment choice to academic colleagues, particularly when so much of this decision is based on the judgment of people who just know.

So, what does the literature tell us that might be helpful? Isreal and colleagues write that “Community is characterized by a sense of identification and emotional connection to other members, common symbol systems, shared values and norms, mutual (although not necessarily equal) influence, common interests, and commitment to meeting shared needs” (Isreal et al, In: Minkler Ed, 2003, pp 55). To me, a key aspect of this very very inclusive definition of community is the term “emotional connection”. I agree. But, how do we determine if this emotional connection exists? Is the Larry Campbell test ok? Or, is there some way that a person with less intimate understanding of the community can also make this determination? My gut tells me that there isn’t. That as I work and live and play more in Central City, maybe I too can develop a little bit of Larry-sense. Until then, I will have to rely on our community partners to know.

Above left is the middle section of our concept model (the string represents the order in which to achieve these goals) and on the right are our community partners (Lily, Larry, Shawn, and Brittnay).

Above left you can see more of the space at the Ashe Cultural Center in which we held the training and will hold the participant training on March 15 - 16th. On the right is a Theme Chart that Caricia compiled out of word groupings that the trainers put together (these came out of five adjectives that everyone wrote down to describe New Orleans).

We handed out pre and post evaluation sheets to everyone and we had great feedback about how to make the next round of trainings more accessible and hopefully even more successful. The trainers/community partners are all highly motived, highly sensitive and with them we will be leading the participant training for the filmmakers of NOLA VVC. Here is a flyer for the upcoming training:

We’ve learned a lot about the community and how to better target potential participants. Even the flyer above was put together in a participatory manner by everyone at the training. We hope that as this process continues that everyone involved feels a sense of ownership — I for one can’t wait to start looking through the footage I shot while I was down there.

The picture on the left is the parking lot mural at the Ashe Cultural Center and on the right is Caricia on Camp Street (just south of Central City).

Orthea Castle Haley Road runs through the heart of Central City and it’s where many of the outreach centers are located. To the right is a lot on the south side of Central City.

We are staying just south of Central City in the Garden District on historic Magazine Street at the gracious McKendrick-Breaux House. Brett, owner with his partner Rachel, is giving us a volunteer discount as we are a 501(c)3.

It’s been really helpful for us to be close to Central City and get our feet on the ground. New Orleans is still a flyer and hand-shake town (as Jerald White from the Ashe Cultural Center put it) and so getting the word out means walking from building to building and talking face to face. There is still a lot of reticence about using the internet by most people who live in New Orleans and that’s going to take some adjusting on our part.

Some of our community partners invited us to sit in on a meeting in the Lower Ninth Ward’s Holy Cross neighborhood. The meeting was organized by the ________ Church’s Charles Allen and our partner Dr. Ben Springgate gave a short presentation on Healthy Living. I’ll post some footage of that in a later blog. It was really exciting to be there for what is most definitely the most engaged community meeting I’ve ever been to. Various committee chairs gave reports on subjects ranging from the Corps of Engineers progress to energy efficient light bulbs.

Caricia and I are very much looking forward to our training that will take place this weekend at the Ashe Cultural Center.