Hurricane season in the Atlantic is June through November. Tick tick tick...
Let me be clear: I would be writing about Puerto Rico in any case. Hurricane season starts in June. That’s less than 3 weeks away. It is an unfortunate fact that DIY disaster response is relevant, because the official response has been insufficient.
Welcome to this edition of These Revolutionary Times. Each Sunday, we typically focus on a small selection of papers, articles, and essays that reflect political change already happening or that we think ought to happen or ought not to happen in 21st Century America. This week will be more focused on current events...
Overview
To fit this into the Sewer Socialism & Rebel Cities picture, recall from Part 1 that sewer socialism refers to local governments and other civic groups doing nuts-and-bolts projects in infrastructure and services. Milwaukee was the example — they decided to tax themselves in order to fix their own infrastructure and services issues. From their experiment came public utilities, public transit systems, etc.
Typically, the projects that fall under the name sewer socialism are ones that formerly were handled piecemeal, by individuals buying service from private companies. Or, sometimes the projects were more commonly handled by a higher level government, e.g. state or federal, but the higher level had abandoned the task, or abandoned the local area.
However, there are limits to what can be done by one region or group by itself. Those limits become blindingly clear in times of disaster. At such times, the sphere of mutual aid must expand outward.
In Part 2 of Sewer Socialism and Rebel Cities, we’ll cover:
- What are the limitations of DIY socialism?
- A brief background on disaster response — types of organizations involved, and how they usually coordinate, with an emphasis on DIY disaster response. This is relevant to understanding what went wrong during hurricane Maria.
- Disaster capitalism — what it is, how it interferes with disaster response, and how it’s happening in Puerto Rico.
- DIY disaster response in Puerto Rico — emphasis is on local groups, and how you can support them.
(Apologies — this is long — there is a lot to cover. If you want to skip ahead, check out the section on disaster capitalism, where you can get good and steamed up, and then tumble into the last section on local DIY disaster response, where the positive, hopeful stuff lives. When you’ve got time, come back and read the first two sections...)
Limitations of DIY socialism
It would be nice if local governments and groups could defy the rest of the universe, but that’s not always possible. Here’s why:
- Lack of resources, e.g. Flint can't afford its own new pipes. In general, approximately zero places can recover from a large-scale disaster on their own, because (duh) the disaster itself wiped out the resources and infrastructure.
- Artificial restrictions imposed by the surrounding government, e.g. laws passed by a state that say municipalities can't build their own broadband network.
- Interference from companies that see the local effort as competition, or want to profit off the need. This is usually what's behind 2) -- companies getting their bought politicians to block local efforts. Disaster capitalism goes here.
But recall from Part 1 that local DIY socialism isn’t an end in itself — it’s not the ideal end goal. If it’s at all possible to cooperate on a larger scale, do it. The benefits of not “going it alone” are exactly the benefits of socialism itself — pooling resources, sharing ideas, doing big stuff, economies of scale, etc. etc. etc.
Plus, if we’re cooperating with and working with others, that lops off areas where we might otherwise be in competition and at risk of conflict. We’re less likely to go to war with country X if, oh, say, we’ve got major joint ventures between our space programs. Just sayin’...
So even while we DIY when we must, we should look for opportunities to work with others. Form alliances with other like-minded municipalities and organizations. We’ll hear more about this in Part 3…
As it happens, disaster response is precisely an area where cooperation and coordination are vital, and are the normal mode of operation. When something goes wrong with that cooperation and coordination, disaster response degrades.
Background on disaster response
It’ll help, to understand what went wrong with the response to hurricane Maria, to know a bit about how response normally works. (Full disclosure: I’m only involved peripherally, as a volunteer. If you’re an emergency response professional, please add corrections in the comments.)
Organizations involved in disaster response
Let’s start by listing the types of organizations involved. If a disaster is of any significant size, there are a huge number of moving parts involved in response.
- Governments at all scales, from entire countries down to cities, may have emergency response agencies. In the United States, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, coordinates response for major disasters, and provides funding for recovery. (Or at least, it used to...) The Department of Defense participates in response — many of the military support services — medical, logistics, communications,… — are directly relevant in response. Counties and larger cities have their own emergency response agencies, and fire departments and 911 play a significant role in local emergencies.
- The United Nations plays a major role in disaster response. The UN’s response is coordinated by UNOCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Depending on the type of disaster, other UN agencies are involved, e.g. UNHCR, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or WHO, the World Health Organization. At need, temporary UN organizations are created to deal with specific crises. For example, during the West Africa ebola epidemic, the UN set up UNMEER, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response. For a bit more detail, see this very good overview of how UNOCHA coordination works.
- There are major non-governmental organizations that we have now come to rely upon, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and their member organizations like the American Red Cross.
- There are many many humanitarian organizations, that range in scope from large international organizations through smaller or more special purpose groups. Just a few examples: Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, World Central Kitchen, the Salvation Army, NetHope… This list could fill a book.
There are private and commercial companies that participate in disaster response as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. Some companies’ normal commercial facilities or services are used in response, e.g. medical, transportation, communication, supplies,... After a disaster, companies may handle repair of their own infrastructure, or are contracted with by response agencies to perform repairs. Among the CSR activities are:
- Commercial satellite imagery providers make real-time imagery of disaster areas available to responders on request of the affected countries or disaster response agencies, under the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.
- Google, Facebook, Twitter and many other tech companies have offices that deal with emergency response, typically providing ICT services. After hurricane Maria, Google set up a “people finder” site, and provided cell access points on balloons.
- During emergencies, social media and cell networks become both a way for people to report situations and needs, and for agencies to deliver information and instructions.
Next come organizations that marshal volunteers to assist in disaster response. These fall under the general name of volunteer and technical communities, or V&TCs.
- All emergency response needs ICT — information and communication technology — and other software and technological support. A number of organizations and open-source projects have sprung up that concentrate on emergency response. Again, just a tiny example: Ushahidi (a.k.a. Crowdmap), Instedd, Sahana (full disclosure: I used to be a volunteer developer on Sahana software)… The label HFOSS — humanitarian free and open source software — is used for this category.
- A large number of humanitarian crowdsourcing organizations have arisen to fill the need for people to perform tasks like mapping, extracting information from social media, collating and organizing data, examining imagery,... These organizations are now sufficiently well established that they are formally called on by national, UN, and NGO disaster agencies to perform these tasks. Most of the organizations are members of the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN). Others are more general citizen science platforms, like TomNod and Zooniverse, that can be used for human information processing tasks, like examining aerial imagery, during disasters.
- Many hands-on tasks do not require professional training, and just plain folks can free up professional responders by taking on such tasks. Community emergency response teams, CERTs, provide training and tools, and are usually under the auspices of local fire departments or emergency response agencies. In addition, it is becoming more clear that in a major disaster, government agencies won’t even be able to contact, let alone bring assistance to, the public. A very new idea is to set up “community emergency hubs”, and train local citizens to act as their own responders until the municipal response can get through.
And we haven’t even touched on the organizations that help with longer-term recovery...
Now, here’s a curious thing. The NGOs started as DIY groups, even the enormous ones like the Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations. So on the one hand, we have government emergency response agencies — inherently socialist — and on the other, we have DIY socialist organizations.
And they all have to work together
Initially, most of the NGOs and volunteer groups saw some need, and just started working on it, in isolation. Over time, these agencies and groups began coordinating their efforts. Umbrella groups like the Digital Humanitarian Network formed. The divisions of labor became more formal. Now, the various groups are expected to be up and running, even the DIY and crowdsourcing groups.
Major disaster response is typically coordinated by the national emergency response agencies in the affected countries and / or UNOCHA teams. These request that other agencies “activate”. The national or UN agencies typically provide the high-level coordination, so the NGOs don’t trip over each other, duplicate work, or omit some areas or tasks. In the US, this coordination is covered by the National Response Framework.
Response agencies from different countries send help to each other. There are cooperative agreements between municipal emergency agencies and fire departments. Treaties and treaty organizations like NATO also cover mutual aid.
At need, the large NGOs like the Red Cross or Oxfam can coordinate their own response. But that’s tricky — there are sovereignty issues involved with coming into some country and telling people what to do.
With that background, let’s get to the point…
What went wrong for Puerto Rico?
Two caveats: First, this is my own observation. Second, this is about the “what”, not the “why”.
The reason I was concentrating on coordination above is that that’s a single point of failure. Once the various organizations have established, functioning procedures for working together, and those procedures involve top-down decision-making and task allocation with the national response agency in charge, if said national agency is out of service, the other agencies literally don’t know what they are supposed to do. Eventually, after they’ve realized that the national agency isn’t doing its job of coordination, they can start to revive older procedures, and set up alternative means of coordinating with other groups. But that will take time.
Groups that expect a request to activate, and expect to receive instructions on what’s needed, will likewise be left wondering what to do. Treaty and charter actions, that require a formal request, such as the Disasters Charter for satellite imagery, may not get done in a timely manner.
And finally, groups that need funding or resources to do their work, that is normally provided by the national agency, may not be able to scrape together funding and resources from other sources quickly.
Under George W. Bush and Michael “heck of a job” Brown, FEMA was crippled. During the Obama administration, under Craig Fugate, FEMA was reconstituted. The Trump administration ripped the head off FEMA, and blocked the actions that should have happened automatically for response to hurricane Maria.
(I should note that FEMA wasn’t entirely inert. I’m a mapper for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, and we got a formal activation and assigned tasks from FEMA, to do mapping from satellite imagery. So did another DHN crowdsourcing group, the StandBy Task Force — I believe they were examining aerial imagery for road conditions. Also, see this very recent news report on preparation for the upcoming hurricane season, including action by FEMA to stage resources on the island: Puerto Rico officials stockpiling radios, water, food as hurricane season nears — thanks to igualdad for this.)
Now, the underlying “why” — why did the Trump administration block or slow-walk or “forget about” authorizing FEMA to respond — has some obvious answers: racism, incompetence, ignorance. But there’s a sneaky, sinister, very dangerous additional “why” lurking behind the curtains, which brings us to…
Disaster Capitalism
While people are attempting to deal with disaster, while they’re in emotional distress, while their resources are stripped away, they are ripe for ripoff. In come the profiteers, the pick-pockets. While people aren’t looking — or can’t look because they have no communications, or are too busy surviving to look — the disaster capitalists snatch up property, privatize government services, get laws changed to benefit themselves. In a particularly vile twist, they may even contract to provide disaster response, and wring money out of the suffering region, while doing as little as they can get away with.
The classic reference on disaster capitalism is Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. If you read this, and hold it up to what’s been happening in Puerto Rico, the danger will be apparent.
But the specifics of what’s happening right now is even more alarming. Klein has done the work of ferreting out the intents and plans of the invading plutocrats, with the collusion of the current administration of Puerto Rico. Please, please read Klein’s report, Puerto Ricans and Ultrarich “Puertopians” Are Locked in a Pitched Struggle Over How to Remake the Island, and watch this, which makes the report more personal:
(Klein’s report was also featured in a recent These Revolutionary Times diary by tote. Thanks to all of tote, igualdad, and PJ the WB Lefty for recommending this.)
Klein contrasts two visions for Puerto Rico. On one side are the interlopers, who want a libertarian “paradise”, in which they want to establish Ayn Randian enclaves, with no responsibility for anyone else. On the other are the people of Puerto Rico, who have been working toward a bright future, with clean energy, agriculture aimed at food self-sufficiency, and above all, decisions made by Puerto Ricans, for Puerto Ricans.
I’m not going to be coy or polite about this: After you read / see this, there should be no question whose side Governor Rosselló’s administration is on. They are actively marketing Puerto Rico to the plutocrat playboys. They are already acting to privatize the energy infrastructure, schools, public services. Earlier this year, Rosselló began the process of privatizing PREPA.
“The Peril of Privatizing Prepa”, Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, Jan 24, 2018 (emphasis added)
Still, regardless of the form privatization takes, the end-result will be the functional end of a public sector that has defined life in Puerto Rico for the majority of the island’s history as a United States territory. Since its creation in 1941, Prepa has been part of the economic bedrock of the island, augmenting its public sector and providing many of the jobs that controlled some of the demographic erosion to the mainland. Even with Prepa’s mounting failures over the years, mass privatization of it and other formerly public-sector arenas on the island will further reduce the input of, and regulation by, Puerto Ricans over Puerto Rican issues, after a few years when the federal government has wielded even more power on the island and attempts by its citizens at exercising sovereignty have largely been brushed aside.
Among the most vehement opponents of privatization is Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, president of the union of Prepa employees (Utier). “PREPA is a public good that belongs to the people and not to the politicians of the day. Energy is a human right and not a commodity,” he said in a press conference in Spanish on Tuesday. While Utier is not currently planning to strike, Figeuroa said the union will engage in an island-wide outreach and activism effort.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz also expressed her opposition to the move, tweeting “the privatization of Prepa puts the economic development of the country in private hands. The authority will serve interests.”
And following the Shock Doctrine to the last iota, they are changing laws to impose austerity. Like the so-called “emergency financial managers” imposed on Michigan cities, Puerto Rico is now being told what to do by an un-elected Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) — they issued their decisions on Apr 18, 2018.
The AP reports on their decisions: Board reveals austerity measures in Puerto Rico fiscal plans. Their austerity measures include items unrelated to reducing government debt, but benefitting business owners at the expense of workers, like getting rid of laws that protect workers from arbitrary firing.
Oh, and they’re mandating specific energy projects that aren’t exactly modern, clean energy, nor what local folks want and are pursuing, like solar and microgrids. Nopes, the FOMB wants to burn stuff… Hmm, did you see any experts in power infrastructure on the board? Me, neither (and yes, I checked all their bios...). So...why are they making engineering decisions, exactly? And without coordinating with the Puerto Rican agencies tasked with making such decisions?
How microgrids and renewable energy can spark an energy rebirth in Puerto Rico, John David Baldwin, Solar United Neighbors, Feb 1, 2018
“The current structures are not working,” said Cathy Kunkel of The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). “There needs to be fundamental reform of PREPA, which has suffered for decades from highly politicized upper management and lack of public accountability.” IEEFA is one organization that has strongly advocated for a structural and organizational reboot for Puerto Rico’s energy system. Kunkel predicts that with the introduction of new technology, including microgrids, more and more energy consumers will take on the role of producers ...
[The Puerto Rico Energy Commission (PREC)] was formed in 2014 in part to deal with the very low level of renewable energy that had thus far been produced in Puerto Rico. …
In November of last year, the commission published a request for comment on best practices in microgrid and distributed generation development. Only two months later, it proposed new rules on establishing microgrids in Puerto Rico. These rules define the kinds of microgrid permissible as “renewable, combined heat and power, or a hybrid of the two. Diesel use is allowed, but limited.” The proposed rules also allow for a broad range of ownership models, including cooperatives, municipalities, nonprofits and others. ...
PREPA is not the only organizational barrier to developing a better electric delivery system for renewables in Puerto Rico. The federal Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) was created in 2016 to manage Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring. It recently put forward for public comment four new proposed energy projects. Kunkel believes these projects – which include a garbage incinerator and new oil/natural gas dual fuel units – are at odds with PREC’s vision for the system’s distributed renewable future. FOMB did not even follow proper procedure in its proposal: the Board should have first sent it to the Commission for review. The purpose of this review would have been to determine whether the FOMB’s proposal is in accord with the commission’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). …
“If [PREC] is allowed to do its job, it will come up with good regulations that could be a model for mainland U.S. states,” Kunkel said. “The economics for microgrids are stronger in Puerto Rico than in most states because retail electric rates are so high, so, in theory, Puerto Rico has the potential to become a leader and innovator in deployment of reliable, decentralized energy technologies.”
Denise Oliver Velez describes push-back from Puerto Ricans: Puerto Ricans call for a National Strike against the 'Junta' Control Board for May Day.
And since this is a socialism-themed diary series, I can’t fail to say: Austerity is only a “solution” if one goes by capitalist assumptions, including that the needs of capitalists “owners” (those who make money via money, rather than via their own work, a.k.a. rentiers) are paramount, and what is due them must be satisfied before any consideration for workers. Also, more practically, austerity simply does not work. It is the opposite of stimulating the economy. And those two factors together are toxic: If the savings from austerity were used for rebuilding and recovery, then recovery might eventually happen. But if the savings go to debt service, and the austerity forces people to cede their property to the already-rich “owners” for a pittance, then the situation will likely deteriorate into a downward spiral, at the end of which lies complete control by the “owners”.
But austerity isn’t the only option…
There Is an Alternative to Brutal Austerity in Puerto Rico: Bernie Sanders has proposed a Marshall Plan for the islands, instead of an inhumane and antidemocratic oversight board, Josh Marshall, The Nation, May 1, 2018
...
The current crisis in Puerto Rico is a predictable extension of what Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has for a number of years decried as “a colonial-type relationship” between the federal government and the people of the Caribbean archipelago.
Sanders has traveled to Puerto Rico, as a senator and a presidential contender, to decry the efforts of “vulture capitalists” and their congressional stooges to impose austerity on the island, arguing that: “In the midst of this massive human crisis, it is morally unacceptable that billionaire hedge-fund managers have been calling for even more austerity in Puerto Rico. Austerity will not solve this crisis.”
Unlike Ryan and the Speaker’s austerity board, Sanders has a smart, fiscally responsible, and forward-looking plan to stabilize Puerto Rico’s economy and to give the people who lives on the islands the resources and the opportunities they need to chart their own destiny.
Last fall, the senator proposed a legislative program to rebuild Puerto Rico—and the Virgin Islands, another US territory devastated by hurricanes in 2017. Sanders announced what has been referred to as “a Marshall Plan for Puerto Rico” by declaring that: “It is unconscionable that in the wealthiest nation in the world we have allowed our fellow citizens to suffer for so long. The full resources of the United States must be brought to bear on this crisis, for as long as is necessary. But we cannot simply rebuild Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands the way they were. We must go forward to create a strong, sustainable economy and energy system in both territories and address inequities in federal law that have allowed the territories to fall behind in almost every measurable social and economic criteria.”
A final tine in the disaster capitalism pitchfork is: There has been a mass exodus from Puerto Rico to the mainland. We’ve been saying — great! more voters for our side! get those folks registered stat! But wait...when they leave, they leave behind vacant property, whether it’s property they own, or whether their move empties out rental properties. And any new voter on the mainland is one fewer voter in Puerto Rico. Again, there’s a dark and sinister side to this. It seems that the Rosselló administration has been pushing people to leave, and empty out those properties… Again, from Naomi Klein’s report (emphasis added):
As a breed, the Puertopians, in their flip-flops and surfer shorts, are a sort of slacker cousin to the Seasteaders, a movement of wealthy libertarians who have been plotting for years to escape the government’s grip by starting their own city-states on artificial islands. Anybody who doesn’t like being taxed or regulated will simply be able to, as the Seasteading manifesto states, “vote with your boat.”
For those harboring these Randian secessionist fantasies, Puerto Rico is a much lighter lift. When it comes to taxing and regulating the wealthy, its current government has surrendered with unmatched enthusiasm. And there’s no need to go to the trouble of building your own islands on elaborate floating platforms — as one Puerto Crypto session put it, Puerto Rico is poised to be transformed into a “crypto-island.”
Sure, unlike the empty city-states Seasteaders fantasize about, real-world Puerto Rico is densely habited with living, breathing Puerto Ricans. But FEMA and the governor’s office have been doing their best to take care of that too. Though there has been no reliable effort to track migration flows since Hurricane Maria, some 200,000 people have reportedly left the island, many of them with federal help.
This exodus was first presented as a temporary emergency measure, but it has since become apparent that the depopulation is intended to be permanent. The Puerto Rican governor’s office predicts that over the next five years, the island’s population will experience a “cumulative decline” of nearly 20 percent.
And here, Giovanni Roberto, of the Centro para el Desarrollo Político, Educativo y Cultural (CDPEC), in an interview with Democracy Now!, shows one way the depopulation trick is worked (emphasis added):
Yeah. We have to remember that Puerto Rico has been in a recession, a crisis, since 2006. So, these austerity measures have been being implemented in Puerto Rico for the last 10 years to 12. In the last five years, more than 500 schools have been shut down. This year, they’re trying to shut down 283 schools. They’re saying that it’s because there is a depopulation of the island, but if you shut down most of the schools, mainly elementary schools, you’re pushing people out of Puerto Rico. So that’s the main reason. You know, people are being pushed out of Puerto Rico because of the austerity measures. And they have already cut the pensions of teachers and other workers, public workers, in Puerto Rico. So they’re pushing people to poverty.
In a curious inversion, there are some large companies and even rich folks who appear to agree with the Puerto Rican desire for self-sufficiency and self-determination — for instance, Tesla and the German solar company Sonnen, which have been installing solar panels and batteries for local microgrids. Yes, be wary, but so far, they’ve been doing the right thing. Early on, Tesla donated a hospital’s power installation. Companies like this are now selling equipment, but it’s locals who will own the resulting microgrids and other installations.
And at last, we’ve got the context for the part we’ve been waiting for…
DIY disaster response in Puerto Rico
This will cover as many groups as I’ve found by the time I need to poke the “publish” button. (Thanks to Denise for several of them!) If you know of others, please post about them in the comments. Because disaster response and recovery in Puerto Rico is closely tied to warding off the plutocratic takeover, many organizations also have a resistance aspect.
(A little technical note, if you’re searching for current and local information re. Puerto Rico: Instead of doing a generic search on google.com, switch to their Puerto Rico service, www.google.com.pr, and write the search query in Spanish. That way, you won’t just get material that has managed to catch the attention of mainland media. You can also switch the user interface to Spanish if you want — there will be a link for that below the search box. If you’re not sure how to express the search terms in Spanish, try using Google Translate, and likewise for translating the sites you find — it does a respectable job, going by my rather rusty four years of Spanish in jr high and high school.)
Before diving into the list, I must mention one other avenue for helping — direct 1-1 connections. Do you know someone in PR? or know someone who knows someone? Ask what organizations they recommend. Or ask about local needs. We’ve seen that in action right here, with newpioneer’s diaries about Don Feliberto, and the resulting assistance from DKos members. Here is the most recent: Puerto Rico - Hope and Happiness One Heart at a Time.
And now, the list… These are articles and videos that feature local groups. The names and links to groups, with snippets about their work, are shown above the articles — some are repeated if they cover multiple groups.
Proyecto Enlace
www.martinpena.org
www.facebook.com/...
In Puerto Rico, Community Groups Transform Into Relief Brigades
Times are dark in Puerto Rico, but on a recent weekday morning, the light for Osorio came in the form of a tarp that could give her a few months of protection from the elements before she gets money from the government (she hopes to get money, anyway) to build a more permanent roof. …
The tarp came to her through Proyecto Enlace Del Caño Martin Peña. It's an alliance of community groups comprising the eight neighborhoods along the channel. The group focuses on environmental restoration, anti-gentrification and poverty reduction. But these days they're patrolling the streets and helping wherever they're needed. …
Proyecto also wants to prevent the duplication of efforts — something WBUR witnessed while driving through the neighborhood. An official from New York City was out in the streets trying to assess the needs of the community, and a Proyecto worker later told us another team had been through to do the same work.
PECES
www.pecesinc.org
In Puerto Rico, Community Groups Transform Into Relief Brigades
Under a large awning on the property of a nonprofit in Punta Santiago, several dozen volunteers hold hands to form a prayer circle before heading into the town. Mariny Vazquez Maldonado of the medical group HIMA San Pablo says there was news of hunger in Punta Santiago.
"You see the pettiness of politicians and you see services not arriving," she said, fighting back tears. "I'm worried that while [various relief efforts] are out here tripping over one other, people are dying of starvation. One person here lost his legs, because he was cut by a metal sheet and help didn't arrive in time.
"The problem is not the hurricane, it’s that help did not arrive in time."
That lack of coordination is a problem facing the groups trying to carry out relief work. Whether it's because of poor planning by central authorities, the obliteration of telecommunication infrastructure at a time when it's most needed, or a bogged down response by government entities, community groups in Puerto Rico are turning to each other.
In Punta Santiago, these health care workers are taking cues from PECES, which has been in the town since 1985 and serves all of Southeastern Puerto Rico. Everybody in Punta Santiago knows of PECES, which operates a school and employs about 100 people. The group has also suspended its normal work to focus on the recovery.
Taller Salud
www.tallersalud.com
www.facebook.com/…
In Puerto Rico, Community Groups Transform Into Relief Brigades
To the east of San Juan is the municipality of Loiza, where a women's empowerment group called Taller Salud is doing disaster relief. The headquarters has become a makeshift warehouse, stocked with essentials from food and hygienic products to over-the-counter medicines.
A few miles away, inside a community center in the town of Piñones, there's an oasis from the wreckage. Taller Salud is running a free kitchen three days a week. They've also brought in a team to offer acupuncture and massage therapy. People enter the room with so much stress you can almost smell it — and they exit with an air of tranquility.
UPROSE
www.uprose.org
Our Power Campaign
www.ourpowercampaign.org
Resisting Disaster Capitalists and Building Solidarity in Puerto Rico
Grassroots International has been a member of the Climate Justice Alliance for years. After last year’s devastating hurricane, we joined the leadership of the Our Power campaign for Puerto Rico. Together with the CJA, Grassroots International is supporting Puerto Ricans’ demands for a just recovery, an end to the colonial-era Jones Act, and a cancellation of Puerto Rico’s debt. ...
“The communities on the ground are working on systemic alternatives,” Jovanna said. “They were the first responders and are the ones organizing for a just recovery and long-term rebuilding led by Puerto Ricans, led by the people in the communities. They want to decide their future.”
ConPRmetidos
www.conprmetidos.org
www.facebook.com/...
Meet The Millennials Re-Building Puerto Rico After Hurricane María
“Puerto Ricans were leaving the island, mostly to the United States but also all around the world, and we saw it as an opportunity the island hadn’t accessed yet. We wanted to find a way to connect them to the local economy, and to use their contacts and their knowledge to help Puerto Rico progress.”
Since then, they have become widely known as the organization that connects those in the island with Puerto Ricans in the diaspora. Through their network, they have been able to help companies on the island to grow and export their products and services overseas. They have also worked to recruit talent from abroad to bring back to the island. “Part of the issue with the exodus is that companies have faced challenges in finding talent, so the team at ConPRmetidos has been working on bringing back some of those that have left.”
Organización Pro Ambiente Sustentable
www.opaspuertorico.net
www.facebook.com/…
Connect Relief
www.connectrelief.com
www.facebook.com/...
Enlace Latino de Acción Climática
elpuente.us/...
www.facebook.com/...
Puerto Rico's Environmental Catastrophe, Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, Oct 18, 2017
But some citizens are attempting to combat pollution even as they work to stave off the worst after the storm. In the flickering downtown lights of San Juan, the prominent Puerto Rican journalist Jay Fonseca regularly holds meetings of concerned citizens who are attempting to offer services that FEMA and the local government have been unable to provide, but in a sustainable manner. I attended one such meeting last Wednesday. “We just said ‘Fuck it, we’ll do it,’” Fonseca told me afterwards. “We don’t want politics involved, and we aren’t asking for their permission.”
To provide those services, Fonseca’s ad hoc group is utilizing a new online disaster response and triage app, Connect Relief, in order to gauge the needs of desperate people across the island and find sustainable ways to meet them. Right now, reusable water filters are the most pressing concern, but the group has pursued a number of initiatives—from setting up solar-powered microgrids to using unused shipping containers to create “islands of sustainability” in relief camps. One member of the group, Maria Elena García of the Organización Pro Ambiente Sustentable (OPAS), says that she plans to study the U.S. Virgin Islands’s effort to create a chop-and-compost program for organic storm debris instead of burning it as a template for Puerto Rico’s trash problems. …
Necessity prevails, and those places that do have access to solar power have been pillars of the recovery. They offer glimpses of what life on Puerto Rico might look like in a more sustainable future. At the northern tip of the island, in Old San Juan, Eddie Ramirez’s Casa Sol bed and breakfast has become the de facto hub of the surrounding neighborhood, since (as the name implies) the business is completely powered by solar panels and a solar battery. ...
David Ortiz, the executive director of the Enlace Latino de Acción Climática, says that climate change has already been wreaking havoc on the island, and that it now creates a positive feedback loop with related environmental terrors. “We didn’t need a hurricane to say climate change exists, because we’ve been seeing it already,” Ortiz notes. “I think people are learning that they need to better prepare themselves. Folks aren’t understanding that climate change is real. But they are now.”
El Llamado (The Call)
(I’m missing information for El Llamado — if you have links, post them.)
Centros de Apoyo Mutuo, CAM (Centers of Mutual Support)
www.facebook.com/…
Puerto Rico Mutual Aid Centers in Action.. Centros de Apoyo Mutuo
(There are many CAMs — may have to search for “Centro de Apoyo Mutuo” along with a location.)
Se Acabaron Las Promesas, SALP (Promises Are Over)
www.facebook.com/...
ccrjustice.org/...
Olla Común (Common Pot)
www.facebook.com/...
A People's Recovery: Radical Organizing in Post-Maria Puerto Rico, Juan Carlos Dávila, The Indypendent, Oct 24, 2017
After Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, most telecommunications services collapsed, particularly cell phones and internet providers. People struggled for days to contact their loved ones, and although there have been some improvements, making a call, sending a text message, and connecting to the Internet is still a challenge in most areas.
Only certain analog and satellite telephones managed to survive the category-four hurricane, and the landline of Cucina 135, a community center located next to San Juan's financial center, was one of them.
"Having a phone line was an invaluable resource," said Luis Cedeño, spokesperson for El Llamado, an organization focused on providing support and unifying social movements in Puerto Rico. El Llamado (The Call) is supported by the Center for Popular Democracy and is led by a group of organizers from different sectors, including artists, communicators, social workers and student leaders.
The second day after the hurricane, El Llamado began calling Puerto Ricans in the diaspora from the landline of Cucina 135 to organize relief efforts independent of government agencies or big NGOs like the Red Cross. ...
Responding to ... official neglect, El Llamado is currently supporting more than 20 grassroots initiatives that range from debris cleaning brigades to agricultural projects to communal kitchens, including one in Utuado that identifies as a Center of Mutual Support (CAM in Spanish).
The CAMs fight hunger while striving to raise the political consciousness of participants. ...
Before Hurricane Maria, most activism in Puerto Rico was centered around the issue of the $74 billion debt and opposition to the 2016 Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). The latter established a seven-member unelected oversight board that controls Puerto Rico's finances. However, activists opposing the payment of the debt and PROMESA were focusing on hunger and poverty prior to Hurricane Maria. The catastrophe accelerated efforts already underway as the economic crisis and precarious position for the masses of Puerto Ricans is worsening even more.
After a community breakfast in Río Piedras, I sat down with Marisel Robles, a spokesperson from the group Promises Are Over (SALP in Spanish). SALP has been organizing against PROMESA since President Barack Obama signed it into law. Presently, Robles is one of the coordinators of the Olla Común (Common Pot), another CAM initiative. As some volunteers cleaned the support center, and others began preparing the meal for the next day, Robles stated, "Hunger was already being discussed, and the level of poverty was being discussed. But after the hurricane hit us so hard, the veil of everything was lifted." The Common Pot in Río Piedras has around 30 volunteers that coordinate the distribution of 150 breakfast meals per day from Monday through Saturday.
Centro para el Desarrollo Político, Educativo y Cultural, CDPEC
www.cdpecpr.org
www.facebook.com/...
Comedores Sociales
www.facebook.com/…
[I’m not managing to embed Facebook videos… Go to the Comedores Sociales Facebook page, and look for the pinned post.]
Puerto Rico Needs Help: Unelected Fiscal Board Pushes Austerity as Island Continues Slow Recovery (Democracy Now! interview with Giovanni Roberto, a founder of CDPEC)
Fundraising campaign for CDPEC and Comedores Sociales
[Notice the connection to Centros de Apoyo Mutuo, though they have the name as Ayuda rather than Apoyo...ayuda was my first guess as well...]
depuebloapueblo.com/…
De Pueblo a Pueblo identified another major grassroots organization doing excellent work and yet in great need: the student-led community kitchens of the Comedores Sociales of the Centro para el Desarrollo Político, Educativo y Cultural (CDPEC). One of the community kitchens serves the Universidad de Puerto Rico-Río Piedras’ needy students, where they can eat in exchange of a monetary contribution, voluntary help or food donation. The CDPEC also opened a Centro de Ayuda Mutua (CAM), a community center that feeds needy people and provide health programing in the town of Caguas. They also have their own vegetable garden that provides some of the food of the CAM, a library and a physical space to provide education to the community.
Off Grid Relief
www.facebook.com/…
www.gofundme.com/…
Providing Electricity to Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria - Off Grid Relief
Action Items
- Support DIY disaster response in Puerto Rico! Go through the organizations above, and pick one out to support! Or, more than one!
- Volunteer for DIY disaster response! Have a look at the links to volunteer / crowdsourcing disaster response groups up in the section on disaster response organizations. Do any leap out as something you might want to work on? If you want something that requires no training, and can be done from the comfort of your own computer, have a look at Zooniverse and TomNod. (They typically don’t have disaster-related work unless there’s an actual disaster in progress...) The Digital Humanitarian Network links to member organizations are hiding on this page. They’ve mixed in companies that do CSR response with volunteer organizations, so you’ll have to pick through the long list.
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