2011 Awards - Catalyzing Community Action in the Gulf
The Gulf Coast community has been devastated by disasters, first by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005 and then by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010. These events exposed the inability of government to adequately prepare and protect its people and handle large-scale disasters. In the case of Deepwater Horizon, the oil spill also revealed a corporate disregard of safety and environmental practices and prioritization of profits over people and communities. Over 185 million gallons of oil from BP’s well flowed into the Gulf over 86 days, destroying marine life, poisoning the coastline, and greatly impacting the livelihoods and health of people in the community. Numerous reports have documented the failings of the government and BP and its contractors in preventing and responding to the spill, and there exists a great need for transparency and accountability to enable the community to seek justice and continue in recovery efforts.
Though the well was capped in July 2010, the ecological, economic, and psychological trauma of the spill remains in a community that is still trying to understand what happened and what to do about it. As more tragic stories of people and families struggling with the loss of livelihood, dislocation, stress, and grief surface, so do the stories of people compelled to bring the community, call for collective action, and demand the facts and resources to begin moving the community towards healing. They are tireless in their efforts to ensure that the human faces of the disaster are not forgotten, and they rebel against the notion that the well-being of the people and their futures must be at the mercy of corporate and government negligence.
Eligibility
The 2011 JBL Awards will honor grassroots advocates who are working to catalyze community action in the Gulf. Eligible nominees are activists who are working at a local level and collaborating with others to:
Bring the community together in the spirit of understanding and supporting each other so that the stories and issues facilitate recovery and action;
Continue to hold all responsible parties accountable for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the devastating after-effects; and
Pursue full and truthful information from the corporations and government with the goal of ensuring that disasters of this kind and scale are properly addressed and prevented.
Nominees will have organized and mobilized Gulf communities affected by the oil spill, bridging the personal and the political in the current context of the disaster. They will have fought for greater visibility of the collective trauma of the people in the Gulf and demonstrated foresight for immediate and comprehensive action to enable the community to cope with the long-term impacts of the spill. Nominees will have advocated for transparency and regulatory changes at the national level, while also acknowledging and addressing the community’s economic dependence on the affected industries
Nomination Procedure & Deadline
Please submit nomination forms via email to: jblawards@tides.org.
NOMINATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY Thursday, December 1st, 2011 at 5pm PST. Nominations sent after the due date/time will not be considered. Self-nominations are not accepted.
