Katrina Journal: The International Community and New Orleans
The world’s response and tremendous show of empathy to New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster have been nothing short of astounding. International aid and technical expertise have been pouring in ever since the levees broke and Lake Pontchartrain and vast parts of the city became one. German engineers showed up to help with pumping the city dry; French divers came to help clear debris from the river to restart port operations; Dutch engineers are consulting on levees. Tens of millions of dollars of aid flowed in directed through the State Department and its special envoy in the region. While Washington’s response was laggard, the international response was direct and immediate.
The French government and French sponsors have been particularly visible and quick in their aid and recovery efforts. The Cultural Minister appeared early after the storm to promise some 17 million dollars in aid, concentrating particularly on cultural initiatives. The French will send a major art show to help revive New Orleans Museum of Art. A sizable grant is scheduled to help rebuild French language programs in Louisiana schools. The city of Paris has extended invitations to New Orleans area jazz musicians for an extended “artists-in-residence” program. The University of Orleans, a partner university of the University of New Orleans, has invited a dozen UNO students for a free semester in the fall, and 50 more for this spring term. Only abused by most American media for their resistance to the U.S. government’s invasion of Iraq yesterday, the French have amply demonstrated that they are Louisiana’s most reliable friends today. This should not come as surprise, given the deep French historical roots in South Louisiana.
UNO’s long term partnership with Austrian institutions has netted similarly generous aid (Innsbruck and New Orleans are partner cities). When Katrina struck and the city flooded, the University of Innsbruck sprung into action. By mid-September 2005, invitations to a dozen UNO students came from the University of Innsbruck, where UNO has maintained a highly successful and visible summer school for thousands of area students over 30 years, and a smaller “Academic Year Abroad” program for the past ten years. UNO friends at the University of Innsbruck organized a jazz brunch in early October to benefit UNO Katrina victims. Some 50,000 dollars were collected in donations and student stipends to benefit these visiting UNO students. Recently individual checks were handed out to 40 UNO faculty and staff who had lost houses and apartments as a result of the flooding.
In a similiar vein, UNO students have been benefiting from offers of semesters free of charge at the University of Graz in Austria, as well as German universities such as Munich, Marburg, Dortmund and Cottbus. Students thus continue their studies and rebuild their lives one at a time with these generous grants from abroad offering students stability in their learning experience.
Officials from the Austrian “Marshall Plan Anniversary Foundation” in Vienna recently handed over a one million dollar check to the University of New Orleans. The money is dedicated to further international studies at UNO. Yet the Austrian government also wants to make a contribution to the recovery of New Orleans. This major donation will support the UNO Education College’s partnership with New Orleans charter schools such as Ben Franklin High and Capdeau Middle, as well as classical programming in the public radio station WWNO on the UNO campus. In Mozart’s 250th anniversary year of his birthday, the great artist’s soothing music (“Mozart effect”) will surely help in the mental recovery of our city’s traumatized population, a unique way, really, of providing mental comfort to our city’s people.
The Austrian Marshal Plan Anniversary Foundation felt it was proper to respond to New Orleans’ misery with a gesture symbolizing a “Marshall Plan in reverse.” Just like “European Recovery Program” helped rebuild Austria and Western Europe after World War II, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast need international support after the devastating hurricanes of last year.
The Marshall Plan Foundation officials from Vienna added another highly symbolic gift to UNO’s CenterAustria. They handed over the historical relic of a 100-pound original flour sack from Marshall Plan days. The flour had been milled in New Orleans in 1948 and shipped from the port of New Orleans to postwar Austria to feed the starving population. Now it has been returned to the city to demonstrate Austria’s intention to help New Orleansians sustain their own lives after Katrina.