I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, and am a Construction Supervisor with Habitat For Humanity. I’ve been with Habitat now for about 16 months (since October 2006) and am trying to do my part to help the city rebuild post-Katrina. My job basically entails teaching the volunteers we get everyday how to do anything from building walls for a house to putting up siding to building stairs. Along with teaching volunteers how to build a house I am responsible for all the administrative tasks that are involved (scheduling sub-contractors, ordering materials, taking care of special guests that come to site…things of that nature).
There are a large number of immigrants here working in the city, helping to rebuild because there are jobs to be had and work to be done. A number of our subcontractors are Spanish speakers so I speak with them quite frequently in Spanish as their English is still developing.
If you are interested in finding out more about what Habitat is doing in New Orleans, you can go to this website: http://www.habitat-nola.org/