Last night after dinner, someone yelled for me to bring the camera so that we could document a momentous occasion: the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) had finally come to Mississippi. Unfortunately, the CDBGs came in the form of a T-shirt.

What? Allow me to explain.

It's been roughly a year and a half since Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. Since then, the federal government has allocated $5.4 billion of federal housing aid to Mississippi in the form of a Community Development Block Grant that is specifically designed to help towns and cities rebuild in the aftermath of a disaster such as Katrina.

Local grassroots organization like Turkey Creek Community Initiatives have yet to see a dime of that grant money. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find evidence of the CDBG anywhere in the entire state of Mississippi, except for this lovely gentleman's t-shirt. So, after months of waiting, the closest that Derrick Evans (pictured far right), executive director of TCCI, had come to the CDBG is this tongue and cheek picture.

A very real part of the tragedy that has unfolded in the months since the hurricane is the lack of federal support for the rebuilding effort. The bottom line is, without the vast amounts of money and time graciously extended by willing volunteers and small grass roots groups and nonprofits like TCCI, there would be virtually no rebuilding going on in Mississippi. Thousands of people have poured their heart, soul, and hard-earned money into the Gulf Coast in an effort to make up for the glaring lack of federal support.

At this point in time, we've reached a critical juncture of federal funding for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. After a great subcommittee field hearing chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters on March 2 in North Gulfport, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) were prepared to introduce an amendment to H.R. 1227 (Katrina Housing Recovery Act of 2007) that would have provided state grants to Gulf Coast nonprofit organizations for affordable housing.

Last Thursday, however, Rep. Green withdrew the amendment after learning that the committee’s chairman, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), does not normally support the idea of the federal government directing states on how to spend the CDBG funds.

So the questions is, do we think that the money should be allocated to groups such as TCCI who have proven track records in the rebuilding effort and know the nuances of the community or do we leave in the hands of the ineffective federal government recovery process? I think the choice is clear. And with that, I encourage everyone to contact your representatives to encourage them to support the Cleaver amendment and, if you live in Massachusetts, get on the phone to Barney Frank's office and demand that he allow the amendment to be attached. The fate of entire communities rest on it.

Anna Bartlett, UUSC program assistant, is traveling in Sri Lanka.

Our visit to the UUSC-supported project in Panama was accomplished in the blistering heat of the midday Sri Lankan sun. The visit began with Martha, Nalaka (our guide and translator from Sewalanka), and me meeting with the directors of the newly created Farmers' Company in the town of Panama.

The purpose of this project is to provide livelihood restoration assistance to a group of rice paddy farmers who were overlooked by larger relief agencies that mainly focused on assisting fisherman in restoring their livelihood.

Much of these farmers’ fields were damaged due to the saltwater that came with the tsunami. At this point, the farmers have been able to salvage 50 percent of their paddies, but are stalled in recovering the other half by a damaged irrigation system that they do not have the funds to fix.

Despite this particular roadblock, this project has been a huge success and assists more then 80 farming families in restoring their economic viability.

In addition to recovering their paddies, the farmers, with the help of the Sewalanka field officer, have begun work on constructing a seed paddy processing center. Farmers can come here to collect new seed paddy, rather than reusing last year’s seed which results in an inferior crop.

We were taken on a walking tour of the paddy fields, which are a beautiful emerald green and appear to be thriving under the diligent efforts of the farmers. On the way, we were told how they must always be vigilant against elephants and wild boars that can damage the fields, and the occasional errant alligator that might find its way into the irrigation ditches.

We actually saw an alligator sunning itself on the opposite bank of the stream that runs along the edge of the paddy fields. While a few of the farmers convinced me that it was a good idea to take a picture of it, I was not crazy enough to get so close that you can actually tell that that is an alligator in the picture, rather than a particularly large clump of dark grass.

We left Panama later that afternoon with a clearer picture in our minds of how very small things can have a huge impact on people’s lives. In Panama, having the resources to resume their lives on their own terms has given the community greater confidence in itself. That is clearly evident as we drove through town and saw the new hospital, library, school, and various other private and municipal buildings that are being built or repaired as part of the tsunami restoration process. The process is a slow one, and the people of Panama still have a very long way to go, but there is a sense of purpose in the community that is hard won and well deserved.

Anna Bartlett, UUSC programs assistant, is currently visiting regions in Sri Lanka affected by the December 2004 tsunami.

Why are international NGOs working on disasters not learning from their mistakes? As UUSC responds to several disasters simultaneously, we are increasingly struck by the recurrence of similar problems facing women displaced by disaster. A visit to our partners in Sri Lanka who are working with those displaced by the tsunami makes this glaringly apparent.

Despite numerous testimonies that have detailed very clearly over the years the problem in relief efforts in places such as East Timor, Rwanda, and the Congo, we are seeing many of the same problems in the relief effort happening today in Sri Lanka, particularly those related to violence against women.

Gender violence is a huge issue in the Sri Lanka camps, and is one that UUSC is trying to uncover and work against. Simple things such as the separation of sanitation and bathing facilities by sex are codified in the Sphere Standards and can go a long way toward protecting women from attack and assault. And yet, in many camps, this simple step has not yet been taken almost a year to the day of the tsunami.

In nearly every disaster situation, drug and alcohol abuse skyrockets, and with it comes the ensuing rise in domestic violence and child abuse. We have heard numerous stories from our program partner Sewalanka about the sexual and physical abuse women face, and the overall marginalization of women in the camps.

Fortunately, there are groups who are doing tremendous work against gender violence. We had the privilege of meeting with one such organization, the Affected Women’s Association, located in Akkaraipatu, Batticoloa district. Despite a vast language barrier -- Sinhala, Tamil, and English -- we are able to have a wonderful discussion about the work they are doing to assist tsunami-affected women, while sharing a cup of ginger tea.

AWA provides legal assistance to widows, educates people as gender trainers, and creates livelihood opportunities for women so they are not dependent on male relatives for support. It is groups such as AWA that are paving the way for gender justice in disaster relief.

I came away from the meeting excited and enthusiastic about their work and comforted from the very obvious female energy that pervaded the small office that we were in. These women are dynamic, driven, and outspoken in their belief that we must always be conscious of how gender plays a role in a disaster situation and how we can effectively combat these issues, and I am honored to have met them.

I am baffled as to why it is so difficult for the international community to learn from history, and yet we make the same mistakes over and over again. But the women of AWA have learned from their history and are doing their best to keep it from repeating, despite enormous odds. Unfortunately, I fear that they will have a long wait while the rest of us attempt to catch up.

UUSC Program Assistant Anna Bartlett is currently visiting partner organizations in Sri Lanka with Martha Thompson, program manager for human rights in emergencies and disasters.

In a little more than a week, we will reach the one-year anniversary of the South Asian tsunami. Its impact was so devastating that it killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced even more, ruined lives and livelihoods, destroyed infrastructure and local economies, and caused stress and trauma in nearly everyone it touched.

For the first weeks and months after the tsunami hit, news coverage was extensive, updating us on new casualty numbers and endeavors that were being undertaken to help alleviate the suffering. Since then, coverage of the situation on the ground has dropped off in the wake of other world events such as the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina.

Despite the recent lack of press coverage, the battle for reconstruction continues to be fought. Issues such as the right to return to land and home continue to be a source of conflict and stress so long as constructs continue to be enforced, such as a prescribed buffer zone that prohibits people from rebuilding anywhere between 65 to 200 meters from the coastline. Violence, domestic abuse, and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness continue to be a pervasive element among those still living in camps for the internally displaced. It is a particularly harsh environment for women and children, and with so many people prohibited from returning to their land, many have no option but to stay in the camps, no matter the conditions.

Many of the initial scars that were left when the water receded have been covered up, but many more still remain. The question now becomes can life ever return to the way it was before December 26, 2004, and should it?

We brought the Civil Rights Journey to a close by spending the last few days working with the Georgia Citizen's Coalition on Hunger. The coalition heads up a number of initiatives aimed at reaching out to the predominantly low-income, African American community where it is based. They seek to provide a number of services that the community would not have access to otherwise -- most notably, access to food. Not only does the coalition have a pantry and bread bank for people in the community, but they also have an organic farm from which members of the community get most of their fresh produce. Talk about activism at the grassroots level!

We spent two days working with the coalition on various projects that were identified as important to the mission of the organization. On Thurday, a large group of youth and adults went to various preselected places in the community to register voters. Although the time was cut short by an impending thunderstorm, we were able to register a number of people. It was also a valuable experience in grassroots organizing and taught us what it means to go door-to-door talking to people about a particular issue. It is not an easy task and can at times be very intimidating. But like most things, it gets easier every time you do it.

A second group stayed behind to work in the gardens. Weeds were pulled, kudzu was ripped out, and new seeds were planted after the big harvest of collards. For an organization that is often short staffed and stretched thin, this helped them ensure that their fresh produce stock would be replenished.

The third group worked on the adobe house. Without a doubt, that group got the dirtiest. The house itself is part of a youth empowerment program that is run out of the coalition and is meant to teach youth about the power they have within their own communities to take charge of their own lives. The house, like the gardening and the voter registration, is an ongoing project that many people have worked on.


Overall, our time spent at the coalition, while helpful to the community, also served to put everything we had learned and seen during this week in perspective. Here in 2005, what does the term "civil rights" mean? Unfortunately, it often means access to basic and fundamental rights like food and shelter. It also means being able to wield the power of the vote which to this day is often denied to African Americans. With the Voting Rights Act expiring in the near future, it is even more important that we continue to safeguard those rights that people fought so dearly for 50 years ago. It seems tragic that we are still fighting for the same issues that were being fought for during the era of Martin Luther King, Jr., but if we do not continue to fight, where will we find ourselves in another 50 years?