Share your story for the New Orleans Institute

As a reader of our blog, you have been chosen!
We want to hear your story and also give you the opportunity to present it to a national audience. Read the details below



The New Orleans Institute

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

June 20, 2008

Dear New Orleanian:

You are receiving this letter because you have a story worth sharing.

For many months after the levees breached in 2005, we waited for someone to come and help us "recover." Who was that "someone"? FEMA? The federal government? A university? Developers? We were waiting for experts to arrive with answers.

In time we learned that the experts—and the answers—were already here. In the midst of public failures have been countless successes, brought about by willing, able and imaginative individuals drawn together to resurrect their communities.

You are one of those individuals.

Perhaps you have been working to bring back neighbors, or to establish better governance of the public infrastructure, or to restore the environment, or to create well resourced schools. You may be working to restore and grow neighborhood economies, to create new businesses for the new economy, to protect historical housing stock, to provide a mobile health system, to address racist and outdated systems, to encourage neighborhood-friendly development, to nurture precious cultural traditions, or to create a safety net for neighbors and family still struggling since the storm.

On behalf of The New Orleans Institute, an emerging network of organizations and individuals involved in every aspect of community-based recovery in New Orleans, we invite you to submit a proposal to present in New Orleans on Saturday, August 30, 2008. "New Orleans Speaks: We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For" is a forum to tell your story and that of your constituents to a broad audience including members of the media, elected officials, nonprofit organizations, national and local funders, and others. Presentations will be recorded and webcast to have widespread and lasting impact.

If you are interested in presenting, click here to get the application and submit your proposal electronically by July 3, 2008. If you have any questions please contact nolaspeaksconference@gmail.com or call 866 0985.