PROBLEM STATEMENT
On September 20, 2017, the island of Puerto Rico experienced the worst hurricane it had felt in over 100 years. Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, leaving the entire island without power. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States and Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. There are 3.3 million people living on the island, although this number is declining as Puerto Ricans are leaving the island for the U.S. mainland (Index Mundi, 2018). After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans were isolated on the island with no access to clean drinking water, basic sustenance, electricity or roofs over their heads (Meyer, 2017). The recovery effort in the months following Hurricane Maria was a slow process, federal relief was “slow to non-existent” and much of the recovery was the result of grassroots organizations (Schachet, 2017). Many Puerto Rican people feel abandoned by the Puerto Rican and the United States governments, claiming these institutions are failing to help Puerto Rican citizens successfully and efficiently recover.
STAKEHOLDERS
The current situation in Puerto Rico is a large-scale issue with easily identifiable stakeholders. Puerto Ricans living on the island are the people most directly affected by Hurricane Maria and the inefficient federal relief efforts that have followed. The Puerto Rican government is the public face of territory and it reflects poorly on the whole institution when they are unable to help their own people recover from total devastation. The United States government is another stakeholder that has a responsibility to provide Puerto Rico with disaster aid through FEMA, but the U.S. government has suffered serious criticisms for their lack of assistance to United States citizens.
Puerto Ricans have taken it upon themselves to address the lack of federal assistance by creating community grassroots organizations. Large groups of Puerto Ricans are coming together all across the island to rebuild their communities, this is an incredible form of thick participation. Notable forms of thin participation are hashtag campaigns like “PR Se Levanta” meaning “Puerto Rico Rises” and donations to organizations that are helping with relief efforts. The thick community participation is obviously much more impactful than the thin participation because people are physically coming together to affect change rather than saying they support the cause from behind a screen.
PARTICIPATION GOAL
While the problem in Puerto Rico is large scale, my participation plan is a smaller scale community response that can be replicated in communities all across the island. My participation plan focuses on a particular grassroots organization in Puerto Rico, ViequesLove. This group was started after the hurricane by eleven residents of Vieques with the objective to provide a wide range of support and resources to the residents of the community (Megas, 2018). My goal is take the framework from this successful grassroots group and replicate it throughout various communities in Puerto Rico. The most efficient manner to achieve this and ensure success is to build upon already existing community relief groups. If there is not a previously established local recovery effort, it is crucial to identify a visible leader in the community- political, religious, in education, etc.- to spread support and gain allies.
SCENARIOS/OBJECTIVES
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to gather input, feedback, and preferences from community members. Local residents are the ones who know what the community needs most, explaining why grassroots efforts have been so successful in Puerto Rico. It is also crucial to support volunteerism and problem solving, as grassroots efforts are entirely dependent on the participation of local people. Lastly, it is vital to generate new ideas about how to best affect change in Puerto Rico and ensure that the island’s recovery is future oriented.
TACTICS
In order to support volunteerism and problem solving, I would suggest using online networks to connect others. At this point in time, most Puerto Ricans have access to their computers and phones. Websites like Facebook and apps like WhatsApp are very common in the Puerto Rican community. Capitalizing on the social networks that exist both online and in-person increases the scope of grassroots relief efforts. This tactic is also useful for encouraging problem solving from people who may be affected by the hurricane but cannot join the organization. Online social networks also have the potential to engage individuals off the island who might have valuable ideas or suggestions that could further improve relief efforts. The best way to gather input, feedback and preferences and generate new ideas would be to implement public deliberation. This is a thick form of participation, but one of the most effective. It is crucial to get the community members engaged with each other and with organization leaders. Through public deliberation everyone gets a chance to have their voice heard. When everyone’s opinion is welcomed and valued equally, there is a greater chance for success.
RECRUITMENT
For the grassroots framework to be successful, it is essential to identify community leaders who are willing to spearhead the efforts. This recruitment of leadership can be as simple as reaching out to local public servants to enlisting the help of pre-existing successful grassroots organizations. The most effective method to cultivate public deliberation is to host an event at a community space, like a school or a church, where everyone feels welcome. It is essential to recruit both community members and community leaders. Using online and in-person social networks will a key form of recruitment. Word of mouth, or text, is one of the most effective ways to invite neighbors to a community forum. To get people to actually show up to the community conversation, we would need to provide some sort of incentive such as free food, cases of water, emergency relief supplies, etc.
It would also be valuable to invite members of local city council to this community forum. Although Puerto Ricans feel their government is failing them at this moment, their involvement could be a show of good faith and prove that the government has the people’s best interests in mind. It would also be beneficial to invite some of the founding members of ViequesLove to provide some insight on how to create a successful grassroots organization. Participants will be recruited through a variety of approaches, some as simple as calling their offices or sending an email whereas other recruitment forms will be more individualized, such as going around the community with flyers and personally inviting people.
INTERACTION
Using the online social networks, participants will interact with each other virtually. They can post positive results online, showing the impact of the organization on the community. Participants can invite other neighbors or family member or join or donate to the cause, resulting in more volunteers and increased funding. Participants will be able to interact with decision-makers through organization accounts, where they can message organization leaders. Through a simple tweet, they could let the organization know of any areas or people that are in need of hurricane relief assistance. The decision-makers would be a group of community leaders, not a single person, in order to ensure transparency.
In regard to the public deliberation tactic, participants will be able to interact with each other in small groups as well as a single large group. Breaking up into small groups provides the opportunity for community members to brainstorm ideas and discuss on a smaller scale. After various small group meetings occur, every small group will reconvene into a single space and share the main takeaways and proposals from their roundtable talks. Decision-makers will be very accessible to the participants as they will be engaged in both the small and large group discussions. Although there might be a group of leaders who make the ultimate decision, the input of community members is valued equally to the input of the decision-makers.
PREPARATION
Typically, it is crucial for participants to be prepared for public deliberation. However, the majority of the participants in this situation have first-hand experience because they have lived through the hurricane and its aftermath. This lived experienced is crucial because the participants know exactly what the community is in need of. Nevertheless, it might still be helpful for participants to be provided with the statistics of government relief efforts in their community in order to have a broader understanding of the situation. Obviously, participants will need to be informed of the time, date, and place of the deliberation, who is leading it, and who all is invited.
Participants using the online social networks tactic to increase volunteerism and generate new ideas will need to have basic information about the organization. This information includes the who, what, where and how, describing the participants and leaders, their goals and purposes, the community the group is serving and how they plan to make a positive impact. By sharing this information online, there is a higher likelihood of recruiting new volunteers and creating a space where people can share how they think the organization can reach its goals.
IMPACT
Decision-makers will use the results from the public deliberation and online social networks to inform the goals and strategies of a locally founded grassroots organization which successfully addresses the needs of the local community. Participation is essential at every single stage of this plan. Without participants the organization will not have the support or manpower to foster change and distribute aid within the community. Although the decision-makers are key players, the participants who engaged in these public participation tactics early on are part of the founding group and they hold a fundamental role in creating the organization.
In order to rebuild local Puerto Rican communities, participation cannot stop. It can continue to be as simple as reaching out over online social network, but the most effective forms of participation will always be thick, requiring generous time and effort to be donated and above all, a passion for the effort. If participation remains high, there is a strong probability that these types of grassroots organizations will catch the attention of media outlets and government leaders, who have the potential to enact widespread policy decisions. The goal of the grassroots relief efforts would not be to push for policy change, but rather affect change locally. Regardless, policy intervention could create change on a level where local organizations are not the sole source of support for these damaged Puerto Rican communities.
FEASIBILITY
This public participation plan is moderately feasible, the framework is in place, however there are a variety of factors that could derail the entire proposal. The plan is more politically feasible than it is financially feasible. I would claim that this plan is extremely politically feasible because the Puerto Rican people feel neglected by their government. They are not receiving the federal disaster relief aid that is necessary for them to rebuild their homes and their lives. For this reason, the Puerto Rican people are more likely to turn to their local community for assistance. At this point in time, neighbors have proven more helpful than the government, ultimately there is more trust amongst neighbors than elected officials. A grassroots organization is locally based and entirely dependent on the force of the community, this type of organization represents people helping themselves and not waiting for government intervention that may never come.
However, financial support is a crucial tenet of success and this is an area where this plan falters. Money is needed for tools, food, emergency supplies, marketing, manpower and electricity, the expenses seem endless. A basic way to garner financial support could include using online donation sites, like Go Fund Me. The organization could also capitalize on its local roots and appeal to local businesses, asking them to sponsor the organization or donate supplies. A more complicated, but possible, way to support financial feasibility is by applying to become a FEMA certified organization. By getting this certification, the organization would be given federal money for relief efforts, although this may conflict with the goals and values of the group. There are a number of possibilities available to support financial feasibility, but they are not concrete deals and there is always the risk that financial stability may not transpire, putting the entire organization at risk.
EVALUATION
Success will be evaluated on a community by community basis. There are some communities in Puerto Rico that were completely destroyed after Hurricane Maria and it will take years to completely reestablish them. Other communities, that were not hit by the eye of the storm, were left relatively untouched and have already recovered. Time is not the sole factor of success in this situation. In the case of ViequesLove, this grassroots organization actually rebuilt the community of Vieques, leaving it in a better state than it was before the hurricane. This is the ultimate goal of establishing local grassroots organizations, to rebuild the community in a way that is better than before.
It is difficult to have a fixed measure of success, such as a scale or ratings. However, I would argue that the most efficient way to measure success in this type of situation is qualitatively, by simply asking community members. The number of roofs repaired or how many emergency supplies the organization delivered are not the markers of success, but rather the impact that they had on the community is the most powerful. Community members know their home best and as long as they see positive transformation, then the organization is effectively achieving its goal and is considered successful.
References
Jervis, Rick. “6 Months after Hurricane Maria, Life in Puerto Rico Is Better - but Will Never Be Normal Again.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 5 Mar. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/05/6-months-after-hurricane-maria-life-puerto-rico-better-but-far-normal/380127002/.
Megas, Natalia. “Bringing Relief to a Puerto Rican Island with Love - The Lily.” The Lily , The Washington Post, 25 Jan. 2018, www.thelily.com/bringing-relief-to-a-puerto-rican-island-with-love/.
Meyer, Robinson. “What's Happening With the Relief Effort in Puerto Rico?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/what-happened-in-puerto-rico-a-timeline-of-hurricane-maria/541956/.
Mock, Brentin. “Puerto Rico Needs a 'Just' Transition and Recovery.” CityLab, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 13 Oct. 2017, www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/rebuilding-puerto-rico-from-the-grassroots-up/542601/.
Palmer, Jane. “Puerto Rico's Culture of Community Helped It Survive the Health Effects of Hurricane Maria.” Scroll.in, Scroll, 25 Mar. 2018, scroll.in/pulse/873123/puerto-ricos-culture-of-community-helped-it-survive-the-health-effects-of-hurricane-maria.
“Puerto Rico Demographics Profile 2018.” Index Mundi, CIA World Factbook, 20 Jan. 2018, www.indexmundi.com/puerto_rico/demographics_profile.html.
Schachet, Carol. “Puerto Rico Still in Crisis, Human Rights Violation.” Grassroots Online , Grassroots International, 31 Oct. 2017, grassrootsonline.org/blog/puerto-rico-still-in-crisis-human-rights-violation/.
Sutter, John. “Puerto Ricans Are Still Dying in Maria's Wake.” CNN, Cable News Network, 16 Mar. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/03/15/politics/puerto-rico-six-month-deaths-sutter-invs/index.html.
Yeampierre, Elizabeth, and Naomi Klein. “Imagine a Puerto Rico Recovery Designed by Puerto Ricans.” The Intercept, 20 Oct. 2017, theintercept.com/2017/10/20/puerto-rico-hurricane-debt-relief/.