September 26, 2006 Source: :
http://www.brandonu.ca/news/article.asp?A_ID=1103 BU's Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies Department and Rural Development Institute present Cultural Survival in Disasters symposium BRANDON, MB – On Tuesday, October 17 and Wednesday, October 18, 2006 the Brandon University Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies Department and Rural Development Institute will co-host a campus and community symposium featuring hurricane-affected speakers from Louisiana including two days of class and community presentations and a public lecture. Rosina Philippe, a displaced Native American mother, will speak along with her teen-aged daughter Ani Philippe-Cortez. Advocate and research collaborator Kristina Peterson will also speak, drawing on over 20 years of experience responding to disasters from a faith-based perspective. A presentation by the trio for the public will be held on Wednesday, October 18 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Brodie Science Theatre A (located in the Brodie Science Building on the BU campus). Parking is available on Louise Avenue and 20th Street, and the Brodie Building can be accessed from the south entrance near the intersection of Louise Avenue and 18th Street. There is no admission fee, and all are welcome! Light refreshments will be served. Hurricane Katrina was an enormous human tragedy—still unfolding one year later. It was also a wake-up call about inequality, environmental degradation, and the vulnerability of even the wealthiest nations to "natural" disasters. For Canadians, Katrina affords a window of opportunity for thinking about how social policies today may be instrumental in designing the disasters of our future. Mainstream media focused on African Americans trapped in a flooding city, though a great many other people and places were also hit hard. Central American migrant workers, Vietnamese shrimpers, and Native Americans were often "out of the loop" at the time and remain so one year later. The bayou folk who have lived off the land for generations up and down the Gulf Coast are not recovering rapidly from hurricane Katrina, among them the Atakapa people. Residents for over 200 years, but not a federally recognized tribe, the community was and remains invisible to FEMA and most other relief agencies. Now numbering only in the hundreds, the livelihood and culture of the Atakapa people in the bayous have long been endangered. Hazard mitigation intended to save (other) people has undermined their local economy, and they suffer today in the "post-disaster disaster" of reconstruction. Women most of all are left out of community consultations about long-term recovery conducted by planners, officials and outside experts. For further information, and to arrange interviews, please contact: Elaine Enarson
Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies
Brandon University
Phone: (204) 571-8575
Email: enarsone@brandonu.ca Kelly Stifora
Communications Officer
Brandon University
Phone: (204) 727-9762
Email: communications@brandonu.ca - 30 -
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