Case lives in the town of Houma, in the parish now thought to be hardest hit by Hurricane Gustav. She works there, too, as director of the Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC), an Oxfam partner. She usually sits out the storms that blow through her town, but this time she evacuated, and now she sounds worried.
"We're trying to get information from the ground, but it's coming in very slowly. We're hearing about a lot of wind damage. When Rita made landfall it was 180 miles away; this made landfall in Houma, so we got the full brunt."
She describes the vulnerability of the bayou communities. "Picture fingers going out into the Gulf. There are no barrier islands to block the storm surge. We know there's water in there. How high, we don't know."
But worry hasn't interrupted her planning. She's thinking about everything from how to help people get access to their FEMA benefits to how to get tarps onto damaged roofs as quickly—and safely—as possible. ("If I put volunteers out and put them on a roof, I want someone there who knows what they're doing.")
TRAC will carry out its own disaster response program, but Peg Case always seems to be thinking about the big picture, so she and her group have taken a leading role in coordinating the 30-40 local aid organizations in the area. At times of disaster, TRAC helps them stay abreast of each other's plans and whereabouts.
"Coordination is important because no one can do it alone," she says. "And it's very economical, because it means we're not stumbling on each other."
She keeps her eye on the future, as well, trying to work out long-term solutions to the problems of living in vulnerable coastal areas. It was in 2005 that TRAC, Oxfam America, and students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to collaborate on an idea for a house built on pilings that could withstand hurricane-force wind, rains, and battering—and that bayou dwellers would find appealing and livable. Three of the so-called "lift houses" have since been built, and in the aftermath of the hurricane, she can't wait to visit one.
"I am dying to see how it weathered the storm," she says. "I'm sure it did fine," she adds. "And if it did do fine, it means let's look at building communities this way." It's not just disaster readiness that she has in mind. Case sees durable houses like these as a means of preserving a culture that makes it living off the land.
But for now, the problem in front of her is getting home to Houma and figuring out what's going on.
"We're about to see what's missing, what the weaknesses are, how we can build on that, and how we can function as a unified body. It's reassuring that we're partners in this together."
]]>"Several governments championed steps to tackle the crucial issues sitting on the G8 agenda, but in the end this summit did not deliver the breakthroughs that are so urgently needed. The consensus reached was shallow at best, especially on climate," said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.
Oxfam is now calling for leadership at key UN meetings on poverty in September and on climate in December.
]]>The Oxfam Action Corps is a group of dedicated volunteers in over a dozen US cities who campaign with Oxfam to fight poverty. Each city has two trained volunteer co-leaders who welcome and orient other volunteers throughout the year.
"We do everything, from visiting legislators to gathering signatures at concerts," she says. "I love the breadth of the activities involved, and the opportunities to learn through each of them."
Born in Vietnam and raised in Canada, Nguyen was drawn to Oxfam's international focus and commitment to fighting poverty worldwide. She says she feels a personal connection with Oxfam's climate change campaign, in part because of her Vietnamese heritage.
"I saw a story on the Vietnam news station about the town of Hue, where my mom visited last year," she says. "People there used to experience flooding at the same time every year, and it had become a normal way of life. They developed a strategy for dealing with floods—they would go to live on boats for a few weeks during the worst of the rainy season. After the storms cleared, they would return to their homes and repair the damage."
But climate change has broken down these traditions. In recent years, the floods now come to Hue as often as four times a year; and when they do come, they are more severe. The cycle of people's lives has changed because they have less time to recover.
"The watermarks on the walls of people's houses showed how dramatically the flooding increased. Once the watermarks were only waist high, but now they reach to shoulder or even eye level," says Nguyen.
"To me, this is the bottom line of our climate change campaign: trying to show the human face, and tell the stories of people dealing with changes in their environment. It's up to us to get those stories heard."
]]>So, when it comes to educating the public about how worsening storms, rising sea levels, droughts, and disease hurt poor people, the organizers spend months just laying the foundations, and building understanding among the general public.
This was the goal for Oxfam America's Walk for Climate Justice, a weekend of attention-grabbing events around the country this April. Oxfam field organizers and volunteers organized the walks in 11 cities from Los Angeles to Miami; Lawrence, Kansas to Burlington, Vermont.
Jim French, Oxfam's field organizer in the Midwest, said that amidst a sea of other organizations, Oxfam's efforts got a lot of attention. "There were approximately 30 different NGOs present at the Denver Green Apple event," he said. "Oxfam was both very visible and very well attended."
Holding buckets and walking in a procession, the organizers and volunteers used the walk to symbolize the increasingly long distances poor people must travel to collect water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. At the end of the procession, the volunteers stacked the buckets in pyramids and read stories about how climate change affects people in developing countries like Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Malawi.
They collected about 3,700 petition signatures from onlookers, each asking the US presidential candidates to set aside funding to help poor and vulnerable communities adapt to the realities of a changing climate. These signatures will be submitted to the presidential candidates later this election season along with thousands of other signatures collected by members of the Climate Equity Campaign, a coalition which includes Oxfam America, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid, Climate Action Network, and Oil Change International.
For Oxfam's second group of trained volunteers, known collectively as the Oxfam Action Corps, the event was a good, early foray into on-the-ground organizing. Twenty Oxfam Action Corps volunteers organized around the Farm Bill last year. And the new class of 26 began by visiting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill and then organizing Walks for Climate Justice around the country in April.
Christina Bronsing, an Oxfam Action Corps volunteer from Chicago, organized two walks. She gathered 15 volunteers at a Green Apple Festival in April. And later that month, she led 50 high school students through a procession along Michigan Avenue, one of Chicago's busiest streets.
Bronsing said the walks, like just being a part of the Oxfam Action Corps itself, gave her an opportunity to speak out about climate change and its disproportionate effects on poor people.
"It's something I really care about, so this gives me such a practical way to put it into action," she said.
Dan Coe, an Oxfam supporter and astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, learned about the Walk for Climate Justice through an email from Oxfam. He was intrigued by Oxfam's take on the issue, so he decided to get involved.
"I think global poverty is about the most important issue there is," Coe said. "The fact that Oxfam is coming at it from the climate change angle is interesting. Let's help poor people: It doesn't matter if it's climate change that's behind it."
]]>In April 2008, 26 new and returning Oxfam Action Corps members traveled to Washington, DC for leadership training—followed by a day of in-person meetings with members of US Congress.
As the minutes ticked down toward departure, the volunteers were nervous, though they tried not to show it.
Today, they looked the part of Washington, DC lobbyists—conservative business suits, folders full of handout materials. But they weren't here to push for special interests. Instead, they would meet with members of Congress to ask for legislation addressing the effects of climate change on the world's poorest people.
Although passionate about their message, most of the volunteers had little experience with these face-to-face meetings. Their leadership training with Oxfam had helped them prepare, but now it was time to put that knowledge into practice.
As planned, the group split up into regional teams to focus on their local legislators. Duyen Nguyen, a Los Angeles-based volunteer, shared a cab with three West Coast teammates. On the way, she recalled the bureaucratic, complex process of setting up the legislative visits. Would today's meetings follow the same pattern?
Adam Olson, a returning Oxfam Action Corps member from Minnesota, felt more prepared than most, since he meets regularly with legislators in his day job as a public library advocate. But today was different, more personal—like many others, he had taken time off from work to attend the training. Today, he was here not as a paid advocate, but as a constituent.
Moments before their first meeting, Nguyen's team gathered around a table in the House cafeteria for a quick last-minute role play.
Then, in what seemed the blink of an eye, they were walking in to their representative's office, shaking hands, and sitting down at the table. A staff member looked at them expectantly, waiting to hear what they had to say.
Olson's team was surrounded by crowds. Everywhere they went—waiting rooms, security lines—hundreds of other activists waited, demanding action on everything from veterans' programs to national parks. Seeing so many other groups, each with their own cause, he wondered if their voices would really be heard.
For the third time that day, Nguyen told a Congressional staffer about how climate change-related flooding affects people in Hue, Vietnam—people that she identifies with because of her Vietnamese heritage. She shared the story as a way to connect with legislative staff, and the plan worked: people opened up, and conversations flowed more easily.
Nguyen's team found that most legislators supported climate change adaptation funds for poor communities, at least in concept?though they acknowledged that the political reality involved stiff competition with other funding priorities. One staffer advised the team on how to approach their legislator's district office, while another gave them an insider update on House climate change legislation.
A senior staff member greeted Olson and his team—and she turned out to be informed and passionate on the subject of climate change and poor communities. "We're behind you all the way, but it's a hard battle," she said. "Change can't come from the top down. We need groups like you to ensure that adaptation funding becomes a part of climate legislation."
Olson was reassured by her words. Even if much work and many voices were needed to get results, he thought, their message was being heard.
The borrowed meeting room was hot and cramped, but it didn't matter. The volunteers sat on windowsills and leaned against walls, eager to share their stories.
As they spoke, it was clear they had succeeded both in spreading Oxfam's message about climate change and poverty, and in building their own skills and confidence as activists.
"I felt like I was delivering a message about climate change for people who couldn't do so themselves," Nguyen said. "It was worth it just to sit down and talk to the people who can actually change the situation."
With a flurry of farewell hugs and handshakes, the volunteers headed to their airport and their various destinations—though their work was far from over. In the year ahead, they were tasked with leading a grassroots movement in their home cities in support of Oxfam's climate change campaign.
Brian Rawson, senior organizer at Oxfam, accompanied the Oxfam Action Corps members throughout their training. "We really came together as fellow activists," he said. "Once they return home, each of these 26 leaders will show dozens more people how to hold similar meetings with their legislators" district offices. So, today is only the beginning."
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