Evergreen students to host New Orleans reconstruction symposium

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The academic program ‘Reconstructing New Orleans’ at The Evergreen State College will host an all-day symposium focused on challenges facing New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in light of one of the most severe natural disasters in U.S. history, Hurricane Katrina.

The symposium is from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, May 26 at the college’s Longhouse Education and Cultural Center. It is free and open to the public.

Guest speakers include Malik Rahim, Founder of the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans, Jerome Scott, Executive Director of Project South in Atlanta and host of the June 2007 U.S. Social Forum.

Organizers say the symposium is critical especially in light of the fact that eight months after Katrina half of the city is without basic services such as public schools, public health care, and public housing -- in light of the fact that more than half of the city’s population still remains living around the country, as well as a recently released U.S. Senate report that concluded that the nation is still unprepared for any disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.

For more information, call 867-6408. Campus parking is $1.25.