ࡱ> :<;5@ bjbj22 ((XX    $ R$~    G G G : G G G g g  `V| .g 0 g 3 g g 4G z = The Initial Workshop Phase I of the project, the Community Building Workshop, was held March 31st April 2nd, at the Catholic Life Center in Baton Rouge, a former monastery. There the participants were allowed to remain overnight as guests for the three-day event. As stated earlier, the workshop involved facilitating a safe environment in which to build bonds of trust, respect and compassion for the expression, recognition and release of sorrow and grief from the horrific occurrences of Hurricane Katrina. Until the time of this project, the general instructions offered to these students had been to simply get over it, and move on. This, of course, would prompt their suffering to eventually erupt into what psychologist , Thomas Moore, refers to as the monstrous forms of grief - depression and rage. As a result, this was one of the most difficult workshops in this providers 17 years of this kind of work. For the first 14 hours of group process, my colleagues and I listened to and observed little more than rageful language and behaviors from the student participants. Their animosity was acted out as a refusal to cooperate with facilitators, follow guidelines to community building, and a constant flow of walking out during sessions. But, when they finally sensed that we were not going to give up on them and that the circle had become safe enough to bring out their stories, they opened virtual flood gates of sorrow. The last session on Saturday night was filled only with tears, and lasted three hours and 45 minutes without a break, ending at near-midnight, and only then because we stopped them in order to get some badly needed sleep before the next days activities. From their stories, we learned that Katrina was a massive extension of a lifetime of crises and trauma accompanied by marginalization and the failures of a corrupt government and school system. Additionally, we had learned that that very system, while offering the gifted students of New Orleans advanced curricula at magnet schools, sends a covert message to the others, that they are not gifted that they have nothing to offer. For this reason, on Sunday morning, Malidoma Som, Ph.D., of the small African country of Burkina Faso, joined the circle with a message from the indigenous world that they had been deceived. He told them of his peoples vision that each of us matters because each person who comes to this life comes with a purpose to fulfill - a unique gift to offer the village which only each of us can give. It is this gift, he told them, that encompasses who we truly are. To complete the third day, the participants split into smaller groups and created skits to perform before the larger group that reflected what they had experienced and learned during the time they had spent together. Four of the five skits were about their gifts. From these skits, Mr. Spencer Howard and Mr. Ron Russell proceeded with Phase II of the project in creating the theatrical drama, Remembering the Gift, performed on May 8th at Louisiana State Universitys Swine Palace Theater. It was a rousing success and there are plans to reproduce the play in video format so that it can be distributed to students throughout the state. What Have We Learned? Hurricane Katrina created a horrifying disaster for New Orleans citizens that will live on for a decade more. Subsequently, the storm brought responders like Save the Children and its compassion for the suffering of Katrinas younger victims. The creators of this project at HCCS appealed to Save the Children because of their understanding that if no outlet were provided for the expression of the grief being carried by these children, that depression, academic failure, and even violence were not far away. But, the stories these young men and women told were for the most part not about their experiences during the hurricane. In fact, only two of them were. One of the students told of loosing the father she loved to the flooding that the Coast Guard had to fish his floating body from the water that drowned her neighborhood. The other told us of being separated from her mother during the storm and waiting three months for word of her (keep in mind that during this time she was among those being told to get over it). Finally one evening, she received a call that bluntly informed her of her mothers death the day before in a hospital somewhere in the north from complications of diabetes. For certain, these were stories of suffering that needed to be recognized and acknowledged in order for healing to occur. But, the remaining stories revealed that evening were of life-long suffering from parental abuse, neglect, drugs, and violence. At one point, the stories came so rapidly from around the circle, that we could not keep up with their sources. Hence, Katrina not only uncovered the poverty of New Orleans, but also the horrible suffering that exists within that poverty - suffering that these children had carried inside of them for far too long. Were it not for the hurricane, and were it not for Save the Childrens response to the hurricane, this suffering, more than likely, would not have been acknowledged, and those wounds would still be open and festering. And, the impending rage would still be looming just around the corner waiting to land some of these children in prison someday. If this project has proven anything, it is that there are thousands more stories of human tragedy among this citys poor that need to be told and attended to before the victims of such poverty can be considered saved. This researcher/provider is profoundly grateful to Save the Children for the privilege of working with this group of intelligent, courageous, and resilient youth. `bln@Eh"5>*\h& h"6] h">* h"EHH*h" h"5\3 4 de=>IJ (#1$7$8$H$gd" (#1$7$8$H$gd" 1$7$8$H$gd"1$7$8$H$`gd"  45 1$7$8$H$gd"&1h:p"/ =!"#$%@`@ "NormalCJ_HaJmH sH tH DA@D Default Paragraph FontRi@R  Table Normal4 l4a (k@(No Listh$@h bREnvelope Address!@ &+D/^@ CJ ^JaJ >%@> bREnvelope Return^J(34de= > I J   4500000000000000000p@0(@0p@0p@0p@0p@0p@0p@0@0p@0p@0@0p0p<\r$T.#$ 4 ur|qww    >>          II   8 *urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsCity=*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags PlaceType=*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags PlaceNameB *urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagscountry-region9*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsplace      `bln  ( 333 Bob RobertsbRb&hi"o>@I I I I P@UnknownGz Times New Roman5Symbol3& z Arial"qhcS )cS )y243H)?o>The Initial Workshop Bob Roberts Bob RobertsOh+'0   < H T`hpxThe Initial Workshop1he  Bob Robertsob ob Normale Bob Roberts1b Microsoft Word 10.0@G@jL@[cS՜.+,0 hp|  .n) A The Initial Workshop Title  !"#$&'()*+,./012347Root Entry Fv|9Data 1TableWordDocument((SummaryInformation(%DocumentSummaryInformation8-CompObjj  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qRoot Entry Fp$f>Data 1TableWordDocument((  !"#$&'()*+,=SummaryInformation(%DocumentSummaryInformation8tCompObjj  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q՜.+,D՜.+,@ hp|  .n) A The Initial Workshop Title4 $,