Community

New Orleans, LA – Community IMPACT Series: Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, Dec. 22, 2009

With so many components of New Orleans public schools in flux these days, a group of students is bringing one more issue to the table: their own voices. These young people are part of the nonprofit group Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, and they're adding the perspectives, concerns and innovative ideas of actual students to the ongoing effort to recast a long-troubled school system. Their message is different, and so are these messengers.

New Orleans, LA – Community IMPACT Series: Lead Lab, Dec. 15, 2009

You can't see lead contamination in urban soils, but its impact on individuals and a community is indelible.

Dr. Howard Mielke is a research professor at the Tulane University and president of the nonprofit Lead Lab. He's been studying the issue for more than 30 years, and his early research on childhood lead poisoning in inner cities helped highlight the need to remove lead from gasoline. Here's Dr. Miekle:

New Orleans, LA – Community IMPACT Series: United Houma Nation Dec. 1, 2009

Dana Solet is a 21-year-old Louisiana State University student, majoring in communications. Her passion, however, is history, particularly the history of her family and the elders of the United Houma Nation, the Indian tribe of which she is part. That's why, as often as she can, she travels from campus life in Baton Rouge back to her hometown, the tiny bayou village of Dulac. She comes back to listen and to learn.

New Orleans, LA – Community IMPACT Series: Youth Empowerment Project Nov. 19, 2009

For many young New Orleanians, growing up means maneuvering an environment of pervasive poverty, violence, illiteracy, drugs and bleak personal economic prospects. These are the kids commonly dubbed "at risk," and often they find very little help or guidance at home.

But the local nonprofit Youth Empowerment Project helps fill that void of support, and demonstrates that risks needn't become devastating realities.

By Ian McNulty

New Orleans, LA – Community IMPACT Series: Sweet Home New Orleans - Nov. 12, 2009

New Orleans already had a taste of what life here would be like without music in our performance halls or ringing through our streets.

Pastor John Raphael Jr. of the New Hope Baptist Church has been preparing his New Year's Eve sermon while holding a vigil at South Claiborne Avenue and Felicity Street. 

Pastor Raphael had thought his three-day fast and anti-violence vigil would be a solitary experience. But his signs calling for and end to the city's killings have drawn supporters to his encampment on the neutral ground. He chose the spot for its memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King.

New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul opened the first of three basketball courts his foundation is refurbishing in the city.

A study of race relations in the New Orleans area has uncovered what sponsors say is the first comprehensive look at how the community sees itself, for better and worse. It is part of a local media cooperative called The One Community Initiative.

The complete report is available online at onecommunityintitiative.org

An organizer of protests in Catholic Churches closed in the Boston Archdiocese will be in New Orleans tomorrow to deliver a message of solidarity with people occupying two churches closed in New Orleans.