View Event Live Here on June 14: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/06-14-2022/film-premiere-and-webinar-in-times-of-crisis-stories-from-the-gulf-of-mexico

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Gulf Education and Engagement (of the Gulf Research Program) and Board on Higher Education and Workforce (of the Policy and Global Affairs division) invite you to the In Times of Crisis: Stories from the Gulf of Mexico Webinar and Film Premiere. This event will feature three short videos demonstrating how colleges and universities are working with communities in the Gulf of Mexico region to prepare for and recover from various crises: hurricanes, oil spills, sea-level rise, pandemics, and more.

BACKGROUND

The Gulf of Mexico is a region that has faced numerous crises in the last fifteen years. Acute disasters – such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, and COVID-19 plus a record-breaking five-hurricane season in 2020 – as well as longer-term and compounding disasters – the climate crisis and rising sea levels, the opioid epidemic, increasing health disparities, and more – pose grave threats to the region. The need to connect campus-based experts with local community knowledge, assets, and needs is urgent in order to help communities prepare for and to recover from these crises. The In Times of Crisis project explores and brings attention to these campus-community partnerships through short films that offer insights into the lived experiences of campus professionals as they engage with local communities “in times of crisis.”

From a number of proposals submitted by Gulf region campus-based experts, three were chosen and funded by the Board on Gulf Education and Engagement, of the National Academies Gulf Research Program, to produce short films about their experiences working with a community facing one or more crisis. Each film describes the challenges the community faced, the approaches and challenges to engagement with their community, and how this work is helping the community prepare for or recover from these disasters.

The lessons learned from this project – both the films themselves and the process of filmmaking – can help institutions of higher education, non-profits, and the entire Gulf Research Program division consider work in partnership with Gulf region communities to: (1) advance scientific understanding; (2) build partnerships and engage networks; and (3) bridge knowledge to action.

THE FILMS

Isle of Memories: Stories of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw

The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe from Isle de Jean Charles (Louisiana) has been identified by the New York Times as the first “climate refugees” in the Lower 48 states. This film will explore the deeply rooted traditions and lifestyle of the Tribe and the many crises they face, while showcasing the reciprocal value of their academic relationship with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Heather Stone, Assistant Professor of Education at ULL, has worked with the Tribe to create a virtual reality repository of their history of ancestry, place, land loss, and more as a resource for education and future generations. Through these first-hand accounts, other communities will be able to learn from those who have experienced the loss of their ancestral land and the ways of life that have been vanishing.

After Michael: Memory and Reinvention in Port St Joe

Port St. Joe sits in the middle of the “Forgotten Coast” along the Florida Panhandle twelve miles east of Mexico Beach, the epicenter of Hurricane Michael’s destruction in October of 2018. Shockwaves and destruction from the storm bled into Port St. Joe, taking roofs, homes, and livelihoods with it. After the initial shock of the destruction, a narrative of togetherness emerged in Port St. Joe. However, just below the surface, the painful legacies of segregation, industrial decline, and environmental degradation remain. This film follows the lives of three city residents each working to improve Port St. Joe while also dealing with foundational issues, such as an affordable housing shortage and threats to environmental quality in St. Joseph’s Bay. Along the way, Jeffrey Carney (University of Florida) and the Florida Resilient Cities program (FRC) is working with the community to identify actionable steps forward.

Resilience in the Bayou

This film tells the story of how the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities (CRGC) and the University of South Alabama are supporting local communities in understanding, withstanding, and overcoming the multiple stressors brought on by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. This film traces the remarkable journey of Kim Tran, a local Vietnamese resident in the small, rural fishing village of Bayou La Batre, AL, as she overcomes personal obstacles being a single mom of five children, to complete the community health worker training organized and taught by Janel Lowman, community outreach specialist with the University of South Alabama. The close relationship between Tran and Lowman overcomes language and cultural barriers and allows for meaningful support to be provided for low income, immigrant families, whose lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

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