The Response

This week we’re bringing you a round table discussion in partnership with Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory featuring Lydia Violet Harutoonian from Music As Medicine Project, Don Hall from Transition US, and Ryan Rising from Permaculture Action Network. While the conversation covered a lot of ground, we focussed on some of the core components of thriving resilient communities, the solidarity economy, and several pathways to move through the multiple crises we're facing as a global community.

In this documentary episode of The Response Podcast, we take a deep dive into the work being done by the Chico chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA. Their mutual aid work in response to the coronavirus pandemic is just a microcosm of the whole country, from major cities to rural communities, where DSA and other, similar organizations have been stepping in to fill many of the gaps left by the local, state, and federal response.

We recently hosted a panel discussion after the tv premiere of "The Response" documentary film. Panelists Juan C. Dávila, Christine Nieves, Susan Silber & Tré Vasquez explored a wide range of topics including mutual aid, community resilience, and the impact of colonialism on Puerto Rico’s response to COVID-19. The conversation explores the ongoing impact of disasters on Puerto Ricans and other communities in the U.S., and how people are working together to increase their collective resilience.

Can we navigate a Just Transition through COVID-19 and the climate crisis?  Today, we’ll dig into that question and more with Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan from Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project.  Michelle was a founding co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and recently published an article outlining the 10 reasons why the time for Permanently Organized Communities is now. Learn more about Michelle (and her work) at www.movementgeneration.org

While you may not see it, a large and rapidly growing wave of volunteering, mutual aid, and resource sharing is sweeping the globe. Instead of panicking, many people are defining this moment through their warmth, bravery, diligence, generosity, and creativity.  This is the People’s COVID-19 Response. "The Response: How Puerto Ricans Are Restoring Power to the People" premieres on FSTV April 22nd. Pre-register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/2915864672513/WN_VoDMT5KhQ3i0nhL9MrMMCQ

The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EBPREC), facilitates black, indigenous, people of color, and allied communities to cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties. We spoke with Noni Session, the organization’s executive director, about what they’re doing to achieve systemic solutions to the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis. 

Announcing that our new book, “The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters”, is available now. Visit www.theresponsepodcast.org to get a free eBook! This collection of interviews, case studies, guides, and personal stories is designed to deepen the understanding of community led disaster response and support deeper engagement between neighbors, family, and friends In preparation for a future together.

In this age of climate disruption and record shattering mega-fires, hurricanes, and the many other disasters wrecking havoc around the world, how do you rebuild from scratch?  And perhaps a more relevant question for places like Paradise, California or Onagawa, Japan is: how do you rebuild a town better than it was before? Not just recreating the old systems and structures that weren't working for most people in the first place, but rebuilding with more resilience, equity, and humanity?

This week we’re bringing you an extended interview with author Barbara Brown Wilson, an assistant professor of Urban and Environmental Planning and the Director of Inclusion and Equity in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Her current research projects include understanding how grassroots community networks re-frame public infrastructure in more climate and culturally appropriate ways across the U.S.

The Response revisits a disaster that has its roots in inequality, austerity, and institutional racism. On June 14, 2017, a fire started in a 24-story public housing apartment building in West London called Grenfell Tower. The fire raged all night and reduced the building to a shell. Seventy-two people lost their lives, making the Grenfell Fire the United Kingdom’s deadliest disaster since World War II.

In this extended interview, Series Producer Robert Raymond spoke with Dr. Samantha Montano, an Assistant Professor of Emergency Management & Disaster Science at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Dr. Montano’s research focuses on a wide scope of topics within the field of emergency management, including community organizing, emergent groups (particularly during recovery), preparedness for recovery, and disaster volunteerism.

An in depth interview with Paris’s Chief Resilience Officer, Sebastian Maire, about what that city has been doing to build resilience in the face of the climate crisis. The conversation covers the six main resilience challenges in Paris, their three-tiered approach to meeting those challenges, how they are empowering the residents to directly participate — and in many cases, lead the process, and his views on the inextricable link between climate change and economic inequality.

In the first episode of our second season, The Response travels to Mexico City and puts the focus on the 2017 Puebla Earthquake — a magnitude 7.1 quake that toppled over forty buildings, caused over 350 deaths, and injured thousands. We explore information flows by telling the story of a very unique initiative that arose in the wake of the earthquake, Verificado19S: a spontaneous, grassroots initiative that consisted of a vast network of volunteers who gathered and verified information.

From the ongoing occupation in Gaza to wildfire survivors in Sonoma County, students and teachers in Parkland after the school shooting, military veterans returning home with PTSD, and the systemic marginalization of the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge reservation, Dr. Gordon and his team have seen and supported the many faces of Trauma caused by social, political, and environmental disasters.

Going beyond simply analyzing the dynamics of the 2017 Tubbs Fire and Undocufund, the interview explores the broader issues faced by the undocumented community in California, as well as the importance of organizing and community empowerment when it comes to minimizing the effects of not just environmental disasters—but economic, social, and racial injustices as well.