Video link connects Tulane to Sri Lanka disaster response

Video link connects Tulane to Sri Lanka disaster response; 'We showed that we listened,' student says

by Joan Treadway
Times Picayune
1/27/2005

With only 60 seconds to talk in a videoconference Wednesday that linked 12 cities around the world to Sri Lankan leaders, Julie Niemczura, a Tulane University student, was concise: She asked the Asian officials about their plans to "expand the institutional capacity to respond to disaster."It was a polite way to question whether, a decade from now, they will be better able to handle a catastrophe than they were a month ago, when an earthquake and tsunami devastated much of coastal Asia.The response -- that some people in Sri Lanka were being relocated to higher areas and that a committee was working on rehabilitating infrastructures -- didn't entirely satisfy her. But Niemczura said later that the ability to directly speak to officials wrestling with the disaster's aftermath was exciting.The telecommunications building on Tulane's Uptown campus was one of the U.S. sites selected for the linkup, which joined people from Chicago's Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Arlington, Oxford University and the World Bank in London, among others. The event was spearheaded by Americans for Informed Democracy, a nonprofit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.About 25 people gathered at the New Orleans site for the two-hour videoconference, which consisted of two television sets that were positioned at the front of the room, with small cameras on top. Through Internet connections, the Tulane crowd was able to see speakers in other parts of the globe, and vice versa.Niemczura, 21, a senior studying political economy and international development, was one of only two local people who were able to pose questions to the Sri Lankans because of time constraints. Dr. Kan Tun, a representative of the World Health Organization in Sri Lanka, fielded her question.Even though she would have liked to hear of more complete plans for recovery, the linkup was important, because the electronic meeting could help change negative perceptions of the United States, Niemczura said."We showed that we listened and we cared," she said.Now that the tsunami disaster has moved from the front pages of newspapers to their inner pages, the event served as a reminder that much recovery work still needs to be done and that ways to help are available, said Stephen Ahron, the local coordinator of the videoconference.Ahron, 21, a junior concentrating on political science and Jewish studies, is also a member of Americans for Informed Democracy, which works to raise global awareness on more than 175 university campuses in the United States.The videoconference, which is meant to be the first in a series of similar events, was student-initiated and student-run, said Cynthia Cherrey, vice president of student affairs at Tulane. Such a caring attitude among young people, she said, "gives us hope as a society."Several Tulane public health professors and students have gone to the disaster area to give medical aid and do community outreach work, and more are expected to go through the university's summer institute for emergency disasters, she said.. . . . . . .Joan Treadway can be reached at jtreadway@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3305.