As blogged here before, tech journalist Joel Johnson and hacker/photog/blogger Jacob Appelbaum are traveling through areas impacted by Katrina to document and assist with communications reconnect efforts. Tonight, Joel and Jake are in the greater New Orleans area, visiting community organizer Malik Rahim.
Image: Mr. Rahim is assembling and distributing these personal supply kits for survivors in need in his neighborhood. Shot by Jacob. Here's Joel working on his laptop outside Mr. Rahim's house.
Jacob blogs:
Joel and I are now in Algiers. This is the west bank of New Orleans, the 15th ward in Orleans Parish. We're staying at 331 Atlantic Avenue. Here's a sat photo of the area.
Wondering where we're staying? Remember the story recently on BoingBoing about Malik in Algiers? We're here to help him restore his community. We've got tech gear to outfit the community run clinic. This is the face of community change, this is Malik Rahim. We've got some donated terminals from AMD and we're looking for monitors. I think we need ten of them. If you're in NOLA and you've got monitors please feel free to send them our way.
Looking for a wifi hotspot in New Orleans? Malik has one now. Infact we brought it with us and we're online. Thanks to Joel's EVDO pcmcia card, we're about to deploy a mobile computer lab of sorts.
We've got cell phone service but it's quite difficult for you to call us. We get busy signals 50% of the time calling out. We've heard it's about a 90% failure rate calling inside.
What's the plan? The plan is to help the people who've been without aid, without help and without hope. Malik and the group around the house packed up bags to help people stay clean. He showed me the one of the single person aid packs he put together and told me about the family sized ones they're putting together tomorrow.
It's time to sit down to dinner now, I'll write more when I get a free moment.
Link, and here are more photos shot by Jacob of the trip in to New Orleans this evening.
Image: An instructive sign in the neighborhood (shot by Jacob).
Joel Johnson blogs:
Jake and I drove into Algiers today at the request of 'Malik,' a Muslim Rastafarian activist who is currently helping the area to coordinate rebuilding and medical efforts. They've set up a medical center and community center, but haven't had the ability to get online and register with FEMA, so that's step one.
It's sort of weird, because these guys don't have power, but plenty of natural gas and water. We walked up, turned on my laptop with EVDO, and instantly brought a neighborhood online. Sort of ridiculous, but needed.
Reports vary between 50 to 3,000 people in the Algiers area. The grid is already up near Malik's house, and we expect it to come online here before Monday. If we can get these guys a permanent internet uplink here and the medical center, the next step will be to teach someone how to use the AMD machines to get online and register so they can help other people.
Algiers is ready to be repopulated, it would appear. The mandatory evacuation doesn't apply here, the streets are peaceful (but empty), and there are plenty of military around. Malik says that Algiers will be the staging point for the rebuilding of the rest of the city. If we can help get some internet infrastructure in place, hopefully we'll be of help.
We're going to go out and visit the medical center tomorrow. I think we've got the equipment, minus some monitors, to make this happen. I think we might actually have something good to do here finally. But for now Malik and his wife have put out a great big spread of rice and beans and chicken and I'm absolutely starving, so I'm going to stop being rude and have a bite to eat.
Link.
Previously:
Katrina account of Malik Rahim: "This is criminal…. genocide."
