Neille Ilel, writing in Reason, explains how decentralized, grassroots organizations (religious and non) have far outdone both the State and the Red Cross in helping the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Ivan Illich would be proud of people like this:

Common Ground?s initial incarnation was a medical clinic in an Algiers mosque. Algiers is a decidedly poor and drab cousin to the rest of New Orleans; it?s hard to believe that its sprawl of nondescript homes and apartment buildings is just across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. But unlike the city across the river, Algiers didn?t flood. And within a few days of the storm, several young men on bicycles started knocking on doors in this unremarkable place, asking if people needed medical help. They called themselves street medics.

?A street medic,? explains Iggy River, a Common Ground volunteer, ?is a person with an indeterminate amount of knowledge, usually from mass gatherings or street protests, of acute need first aid??treatment for dehydration, cuts, broken bones. With his dark disheveled hair and giant wooden ear spools, Iggy looked like he would be more at home at a World Trade Organization protest than coordinating supplies in the ruins of a poor black neighborhood. Indeed, it was for such protests that the street medics learned their craft. After Katrina, street medics provided first aid and basic medical services such as blood pressure and diabetes testing.

Posted on 12 December 2006