New Orleans Speaks: We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting for October 25, 2008

For many months after the levees breached we waited for someone to help us 'recover'. Who was coming: FEMA? The federal government? A university? Developers? We were waiting for experts to arrive with answers. The answers and experts never came because they were already here in the person of every emerging activist, every parent struggling to navigate a shattered school system, every neighbor at a planning charrette, every small business owner who evaluated a volatile economy and chose to rebuild anyway, and every returning New Orleanian. We are the experts that we have been waiting for.

The New Orleans Speaks Symposium will highlight lessons learned by fifteen of these experts - the real deal about urban resilience.

Their lectures will include stories of personal and community recovery, present visions for urban renaissance, and identify targeted resources communities need to bring to bring their visions from concept to completion.

We know we must write a living history of our own. We recognize we must control our own message, herald our own accomplishments, and articulate our own frustrations. Only then can we, as a city, identify what our communities need, and what our learnings can contribute to a broader understanding of how cities can emerge from extraordinary challenges.

Save the date:
Oct 25, 2008 9-4pm
UNO Kirschman Hall
About the Institute:
Since the 2005 levee failures New Orleanians have been challenged to evacuate, resettle, reevaluate and rebuild. New networks have formed and a new generation of private sector, not-for-profit, and community leaders has emerged.

Their stories are compelling: to bring back neighbors, to restore and adapt to the environment, to reimagine urban schools, to rebuild a local tax base, to restore and grow neighborhood economies, to protect historical housing stock, to provide access to adequate health care, to restructure out racist and outdated systems, to encourage neighborhood-friendly development, to nurture precious cultural traditions, and to create a social safety net for those still struggling.

The new New Orleans is a laboratory for innovation. Nowhere else in the country have the very building blocks of urban life been distilled to reveal how they contribute to a living, breathing community. We know we are the canary in the coal mine. Cities around the world increasingly face the challenges we face: climate change, economic recession, immigration, brain drain, aging population, racism, failing infrastructure, and the growing disparity between rich and poor.

The New Orleans Institute is an emerging network focused on:

• Archiving and interpreting knowledge developed by on-the-ground social innovators;
• Providing individuals and organizations with tools and opportunities to network and share; and
• Share widely and creatively the lessons of New Orleanians with other urban communities.

Founding Members:

Beacon of Hope Resource Centers
City-Works
Common Knowledge
The Idea Village
Neighborhoods Partnership Network
NOLA YURP Initiative
The Urban Conservancy

Official Website: http://www.theneworleansinstitute.org/