Climate change-fueled disasters are destructive, scary, and rising around the world.
While the media focuses on the destruction, victims, a few “extraordinary heroes,” and criminality, a vitally important facet of the story goes under-reported.
Disasters bring people together. In many cases, they catalyze a community’s heroic capacity. That can lead to lasting transformative social change.
That’s why we created The Response podcast and documentary series — to explore the remarkable communities that arise in the aftermath of disasters.
Season one featured stories of community-led disaster recovery projects from Hurricane Sandy in NYC, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and the Tubbs Fire in Northern California.
And now, after a productive break, the second season of The Response will debut on August 5th! Like season one, season two will feature three episodes exploring the initial community response and ongoing recovery efforts of three disasters. We’ll look at the Puebla earthquake in Mexico, the Grenfell Tower fire in the UK, and the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan.
We’ll also start posting more bonus content, such as an extended interview with Mara Ventura from UndocuFund and North Bay Jobs With Justice that was recorded during production of season one.
We’ve been working on other ways to bring these stories out into the world, and as a result, we premiered our first documentary film on July 24th in Oakland, CA. The full release will include a toolkit so that anyone can host a local screening (let us know if you’re interested in being a host).
In addition to working on the film, we’ve also begun to re-imagine the podcast for live theater with what we’re calling, “Voices of The Response.” We performed the first live show at the ReVerberation festival, sharing the stories of two undocumented immigrants in the aftermath of the Tubbs Fire.
And finally, we’re currently publishing an editorial series about community resilience and disaster collectivism. New articles are being posted weekly through July and August. We’re looking forward to pulling all the stories together in a book (just like we did for our series on solutions to loneliness) before the end of the year. As part of that process, we’re asking readers like you to share your stories of community-led resilience and disaster recovery efforts once again.
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This article is part of our series on disaster collectivism. Download our free series ebook here.
