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Unnatural Disaster: Falling Through the Cracks chronicles the struggle of a group of students and their teacher during the year after Hurricane Katrina. Diana Boylston continues to work with the young people of New Orleans as they struggle to find a place for themselves in a society that, even three years later, offers little support. Believing that all these kids deserve a voice, Diana lends her own, putting a face on the hurricane's young victims. This film tries to speak for the many young people who continue to 'fall through the cracks'.
The documentary "Unnatural Disaster"was featured at the 2006 New Orleans Film Festival on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006. We are raising funds to complete the full-length doc and have a non-profit status, so if you or someone you know wants to contribute (in any way) to an individual or the project, please contact Diana Boylston.
Still Diana continues to track and work with displaced people (particularly teens) from New Orleans.Check Diana's Blog Page for regular updates on individuals.
The Spirit of New Orleans performed by Diana Boylston. Listen to Spirit of New Orleans The complete song will soon be available.
After Katrina, my sole intention was to respond to my students' calls from around the country and help them connect. Connect to family members, schools, or any kind of help I could offer.
As an evacuee myself, I volunteered at the Astrodome in Texas, giving out my cell number to any young person who would accept it. My goal became to enroll people. Enroll them in schools, programs, and even enroll good-hearted strangers looking for someone affected by the storm, to help.
After three years, my goal is clear. I'm here to speak for the young people you can't reach, put a face on the hurricane's youngest victims, and help them speak for themselves. One of the best ways I've found to do this is to record their struggles and successes in Unnatural Disaster: Falling Through The Cracks. I didn't intend to shoot a documentary and I didn't intend to follow the kids for three years. But until I can get out their stories, representing thousands of other young people's stories, my mission isn't complete. Please consider becoming a part of this solution.
One of my displaced students needs legal help and believes he's being discriminated against because he's gay. Another can't seem to get her course work credit so she can get her graduation certificate. Another can't read, can't read the GED instructions so he can't pass, therefore he can't get a job in his new hometown. I need help getting this film into the hands of people who can help us.
They are lost.
USA Today said after the Gulf Coast region was flattened, about 372,000 students were displaced to 49 states. Three years later, there are still no firm statistics proving how many teens didn't even enroll in a new school after they evacuated, or if they did, how many of those same teens, dropped out. As a resident of New Orleans and an advocate for children, I can tell you that there's no way to know how many teens who have returned home, but never returned to any school.
No matter what a child's race, creed or color, it's imperative that children have the resources necessary to become adults who can contribute to society at large. America is letting its children and future fall through the cracks. Families disintegrate and children's futures are reduced to hopelessness in the richest nation on earth. Yet just as true is the fact that the human spirit continues to have the capacity to override any societal disaster, natural or otherwise. One person - determined to make a difference in the lives of others - will. One person, reaching outside his/her own pain, can affect and even improve the quality of another's life.
America divides itself into a nation of "the haves" and "the have-nots." This mission is to seek solutions to the kind of catastrophic problems many of us will face at some point. What begins with a focus on problems specific to people of the Gulf Coast, results in showing us that with all our diversity, we are more alike than different when it comes to our universal needs in order to heal and thrive. Articles in Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology "show that the impact of the disaster was felt at societal, community, family and individual levels." A child's mental health as well as his ability to adjust, learn, and prepare to become productive member of society, "is affected by the mental health of adults caring for them." With the passage of time, political inertia, burnout, and corruption, New Orleans may have slipped off the ratings radar. Another goal is to raise this question. "If a disaster can happen to us and no one rescues our children, who will save your child if it happens in your town?"
Everyone deserves to be heard.
If you want to help someone or know a child that needs help, please contact me
Thanks for your interest.
Diana Boylston
Long before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Diana Boylston became an advocate for the group of young people that would turn out to be "Katrina's Children". Before there was a storm called Katrina, these children were involved in another storm brewing in the city of New Orleans and the Inner City School System. Neither Diana's Education degree nor her Master of Fine Arts in Acting degree, could prepare her for teaching in that school system.
Armed with both her professional acting skills and over 12 years of teaching under her belt, she designed and presents a series of experiential communication workshops that develop self-esteem through creative dramatics. She repeatedly found that the students' increased confidence, uncovered during the workshops, continued into their regular class work.
Diana's workshops entitled "Empowerment through the Arts," were created to focus on today's youth in the transitional ages of 11 through 19 years old. Extensive research for her completed manuscript entitled "They're all at risk - How to keep your child from thinking like a loser," confirmed that many of the problems today's young people experience are common to all families, crossing race, financial and gender lines.
The seed for this project was planted many years ago when Diana's troubled 16-year-old sister died. Though just a young person herself, Diana saw signs of her sister's downward spiraling behavior, but had no experience or authority to demand that her sister get help. When she did discuss Donna's behavior with her parents and other adults, they assured her that it was just a "phase". They were wrong.
After the death of her sister, Diana spent several years pursuing a career as a singer, actress and voiceover artist. Although she still performs, whether in film and commercials, or touring theatrical productions, nothing has stopped her from being drawn to helping troubled teens.
After several years in the school system, Diana joined efforts with another teacher, Susan Holman, whose art students had already received recognition from the National Holocaust Museum. By the time the performance art piece was expanded by Diana's play and renamed "Louder than Words," the school's dance and art students had won national awards. The newly completed multi-media children's play on tolerance, toured to Washington D.C. and she co-wrote the play's closing number, "Give Me A Chance" with husband, composer Wesley Clark. A music video was created and featured in a news story on NBC.
The effects of Hurricane Katrina have resulted in the closing of schools in much of Metropolitan New Orleans for at least a year. Schoolteachers from Orleans Parish aren't being paid and have been told to collect unemployment in whatever state they have relocated. Displaced Louisiana students continue to have trouble in adjusting to their new schools and Diana has already been to three states in four weeks, consulting with the students and/or the administrators of their new schools.
In Diana's words, "We haven't even begun to see the results of the trauma our kids have experienced. Since Hurricane Katrina, I have a clear vision of what I'm supposed to do - speak to the children; speak for the children. I have a responsibility to get their stories out there and get their voices heard. This time, I can do something. This became clear to me after evacuating from the storm, sleeping on the side of the road, and staying in Houston until we were allowed to return home. While in Houston, I wrote and posted on the Internet, a brief story: "New Orleans Inner city schoolteacher moans possible loss of students - Putting a face on Hurricane Katrina's youngest victims " (See original story below.)
I received over 100 e-mails in three days and have flown to three states connecting with scattered young people who survived the storm. Much of my book, "They're all at risk - How to keep your child from thinking like a loser," contains conversations with young people as well as curriculums I've designed to help adults cope with - then connect to, our young.
Diana is a storyteller (both before and since Katrina) and these are true situations encountered in her experience as an educator, seminar director, and consultant. They are not theories or paradigms - they're tools she used in actual situations that parents and teachers face each day and that conventional educational approaches prove ineffective. After hundreds of conversations with thousands of students, she finds it's imperative to continue finding ways to reach and motivate young people, and then get their messages out to adults.
Contact Diana Boylston ... Please get in touch with any comments or questions.