Katrina Relief and Research

To help children displaced and traumatized by Katrina and Rita, CDF-SRO offered referral services for displaced families. CDF-SRO also set up after-school Freedom Schools^® programs in Mississippi, Arkansas and New Orleans, made sure displaced children received toys for Christmas, distributed coats and school uniforms and supplies, and helped to rebuild child care centers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Those programs have since been discontinued, but CDF provided research, such as the report below, "What It Takes to Rebuild a Village After a Disaster." The CDF-Louisiana office in New Orleans opened as a result of Katrina in 2003 and still provides a variety of services for children and families.

What It Takes to Rebuild a Village After a Disaster

Release Date: July 10, 2009
File Size: 1.98 MB
File Format: pdf
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In 2007, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Southern Regional and Louisiana offices of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) organized an effort to address the plight of the still, thousands of displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina. The effort produced The Katrina Citizens Leadership Corps (KCLC), made up of over 250 displaced residents from the Gulf Region. The group sought to highlight and offer strategic solutions to the maze of problems and issues confronting displaced families and children as they try to make their way home. The KCLC released this exhaustive report, What It Takes to Rebuild a Village After a Disaster: Stories from Internally Displaced Children and Families of Hurricane Katrina and Their Lessons for Our Nation on their findings at a press conference in New Orleans on July 10, 2009. The report will also be released in other cities where large populations of displaced New Orleanians and Gulf Coast residents still reside, namely Atlanta, Baton Rouge and Jackson, Mississippi.

Read CDF's previous reports that details the affect hurricane Katrina has had on the children of the Gulf Region, Katrina’s Children: A Call to Conscience and Action and Katrina's Children: Still Waiting.