Common Ground Collective:Updates from the Gulf Coast Basin

Common Ground Collective formed in the wake of the Katrina disaster. From five people to now over 300 people on the ground in five parishes, the work has grown immensely with much support of many,many commited people from the Bay Area

The project is moving from short term relief to long term building/rebuilding of infrastructure from the long history of disasters in the region of abandonment and neglect.

With large teams of volunteers Common Ground Collective is able to do work on a large scale that historically would have been impossible in traditionally maginalized and underserved communites.

The work is centered in the neighborhood Algiers on the westbank, a largely poor, working class and predominantly afikan-american area, in the Houma area with First Nations people, in the Vietnamese fishing villages, back water bayous and the inner-city 6th,7th and 9th wards which were some of the most affect by the flooding.

The work has only been achievable through support of civil society and communites from around the world who have wanted to help in rebuilding these communites with the lead of those affected.

The ideas of mutual aid and 'solidarity not charity' reverberate in all the work on the ground
in New Orleans.

Updates on the work that Common Ground Collective has been building from the Algiers , La. can be on the site: http://www.commongroundrelief.org

There is an audio broadcast that gives the brief history of the Common Ground Collective, the context of the work and the visions of where the project is going.
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/2005/10/malik_rahim_and_scott_crow_spe.html

From the Gulf Coast Basin....