Cleaning and rebuilding New Orleans physical infrastructure is just part of the recovery effort. Equally huge is the challenge of re-uniting and re-integrating the communities whose neighborhoods were demolished by Katrina.
A team that includes the minister of a 9th Ward church that was destroyed has asked me how social network analyis and other technologies might help them reach out to their far-flung former congregation. Here is the plan we sketched out to help them begin to reconnect with each other. We would:
- Convene and support a team of local high-schoolers to lead this project
- Consolidate in one list the names and contact information of the 50 or so people already re-connected to the church, as well as a working list of the estimated 100-200 missing.
- Prepare a phone script that the church youth can use to collectively call congregants with known phone numbers, get their updated coordinates, and learn about any other connections congregants may have renewed with each other.
Is anyone else out there doing something similar? I think this is a great service my network-savvy readers can provide to meet a huge need. I would love to hear from anyone with ideas for improving this game plan to help the people of New Orleans reconnect with each other.
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