(no subject)
My cousin (well, my mom's cousin) was in last week's Time magazine! His name is Carl Lindahl and he was in the "Innovators" section. If you have a copy, there is a picture of him; he's the one in between the two Katrina survivors. If not,
TALES OF SURVIVAL
After Hurricane Katrina, folklorist Carl Lindahl wondered how he could help survivors from New Orleans. He found his answer while sorting through old clothes at a Houston site for evacuees. As he searched for pants to fit a bone-thin man standing 6-ft. 5, the man told his story: he'd been trapped with a group of elderly without food or water. Every day for four days he swam out a second-story window to a nearby store, dragging supplies back through the polluted waters. Lindahl was transfixed by the man's quiet heroism. And that's when it clicked. He would get survivors to interview other survivors, to keep their experiences alive for future generations.
Lindahl says the idea came from listening to Library of Congress recordings of survivors of the Dust Bowl, Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks. "Really, the best of them were not collected by professionals like myself but by people talking to people who had shared the experience," he says. "Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston" is the first large-scale project in which survivors have taken the lead in documenting their lives before, during and after a major disaster. So far, more than 30 survivors have collected over 250 stories in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and even Garifuna, a Creole language. "My mission is to put the tools in their hands," Lindahl says, "so they can get their stories--on their own terms."
is the story.
TALES OF SURVIVAL
After Hurricane Katrina, folklorist Carl Lindahl wondered how he could help survivors from New Orleans. He found his answer while sorting through old clothes at a Houston site for evacuees. As he searched for pants to fit a bone-thin man standing 6-ft. 5, the man told his story: he'd been trapped with a group of elderly without food or water. Every day for four days he swam out a second-story window to a nearby store, dragging supplies back through the polluted waters. Lindahl was transfixed by the man's quiet heroism. And that's when it clicked. He would get survivors to interview other survivors, to keep their experiences alive for future generations.
Lindahl says the idea came from listening to Library of Congress recordings of survivors of the Dust Bowl, Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks. "Really, the best of them were not collected by professionals like myself but by people talking to people who had shared the experience," he says. "Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston" is the first large-scale project in which survivors have taken the lead in documenting their lives before, during and after a major disaster. So far, more than 30 survivors have collected over 250 stories in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and even Garifuna, a Creole language. "My mission is to put the tools in their hands," Lindahl says, "so they can get their stories--on their own terms."
is the story.