Press Releases

As 500,000 people are displaced from their homes due to wildfires that rage through southern California, Common Ground Collective is sending a delegation of volunteers to assist with local relief efforts. Common Ground is a community-initiated volunteer organization that offers assistance, mutual aid and support to the New Orleans area. This delegation consists of eight people, including Malik Rahim, a co-founder of Common Ground Collective.

The Common Ground Collective was established in the first week after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. It was the first organization to open up a medical clinic in Algiers, and provide immediate assistance (food, water, supplies) to the thousands of low-income residents unable to evacuate.

Volunteers from Common Ground Relief joined tens of thousands of protesters in Jena, Louisiana to stand in solidarity with the families who have suffered a great injustice. Camping out in the backyard of one of the families the night before, volunteers marched from the starting point nearly three miles to the LaSalle parish courthouse, then back again to the park for a benefit concert. Working as a "relief" organization in New Orleans, it may not seem immediately apparent why Common Ground has been involved with the Jena 6 since mid July, long before it became an case of national significance. As the saying goes, "a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere." As Common Ground Relief works with the people of New Orleans to rebuild a just and sustainable city, we believe that the institutions and mindsets of racism that made the storm so catastrophic for poor, black people here, are the same structures at work in Jena: a criminal justice system that is disproportionately punitive to black men.