IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2008 - 39

Pipelining
Attractive Programs for Women

Dreaming in Color
Communities continue to heal and rebuild
following Hurricane Katrina

The Calm After the Storm
Child victims of Katrina
heal through art and science

Hurricane Katrina hit on 28 August
2005 and killed almost 2,000 people, displacing thousands more. Those who
stayed behind in New Orleans had to
work through the pain of watching their
loved ones die, their homes sink, and
their lives crumble.
To help children work through this
all, in the fall of 2006, Amelie Prescott
proposed an art program to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School for
Science and Technology for all grades,
pre-K through 8th. What formed was the
Mos Chukma Institute, taken from the
Houma phrase meaning "good child." It
was started as way to help in the restoration of the Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly African-American area, in New
Orleans, Louisiana, with special attention to its youth. The program's core
mission is to expose students to different
art forms, help them develop skills in
these forms, and offer them an opportunity to process their recent traumatic
experiences, says Amelie. The students
and their art are at the center of the program. Storytelling, poetry, drawing,
painting, collage, three-dimensional conDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWE.2008.930550

struction, and filmmaking give students
a way to relate their personal stories,
adds Amelie.
Before running the Mos Chukma Institute, Amelie's experience included working in a number of different Indian
reservations as a teacher
and behavioral youth
and family counselor.
She was a behavioral
health youth counselor
for the Sonoma County
Indian health project
where she designed and
implemented community behavioral health
programs for Native
American youth in Sonoma County. She also has
a number of different
certifications in therapy
and trauma intervention.
She earned her bachelor
of fine arts degree from
the Massachusetts of
Art,in Boston and a master's degree in humanistic psychology from
Sonoma State University,
in Rohnert Park, California. Here's some of what
she had to say about her
experience working with
Amelie Prescott adds a little local color to the art prochild victims of Hurri- gram at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School for
cane Katrina.
Science and Technology in New Orleans.

WINTER 2008/2009

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

AMELIE PRESCOTT

Q: Tell us about yourself.
A: My parents were both physicists. My
family is Creole and Native, Seminole and
Pawnee, Houma and Choctaw. Racism in
the South in those times forced my parents to move north to Maryland and finally to Boston. At a young age they
introduced me and my two younger sisters to the systems that make up the natural world and how we are a part of these
systems. We learned to observe and to
make connections. The dinner table was
also a constant instruction manual. My
father was always helping us problemsolve and understand how things work.
Q: How did you first hear about Hurricane Katrina?

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2008