Stronger after the storm: Supporting Jamaica’s recovery and resilience

One of the many things that I saw with Hurricane Melissa was just a level of physical devastation. It was, you know, almost apocalyptic. I remember very specifically around 10:58 a. m. was the last message from anyone in the hurricane zone. And he said his roof was lifting and it's very bad. And then silence. and I got myself ready to go down and to find my family. Got there, I met my aunt and she just stood there looking in silence for what felt like 10 minutes. This is your old shop. I eventually, you know, got to see all my family members and several close friends. I was reassured having seen them, they were alive, but also see that they had gone through trauma. The elementary school I went to was almost completely destroyed. The church I used to go to almost completely destroyed. I just saw how much damage had been sustained. And then the people we saw several people along the way to Maggoti who were stopping us asking us for food and water and aid had not yet really arrived to these parts and I just had a sense that you know we were on the cusp of something really catastrophic if we did not get food and water to these people as soon as we could. We chose to work with AFJ because they were well connected to various grassroots organizations, organizations that were involved in various aspects of aid and recovery and rebuild and they had bigger atscale partnerships as well with local contractors uh local NOS's involved in rebuilding. It's not how do we put back what we had before. It's how do we you know rebuild with you know true resilience principles around sustainability, economic growth. We decided together to do interventions that were more holistic. So whether it was around livelihoods, helping farmers with vouchers, repairing roofs for residents that had the most damage and had the most need, repairing schools, health facilities, supporting local institutions, being able to, you know, help in any way and certainly in the way that I could through McKenzie and working with AFJ, I would probably describe as a spiritual experience to be able to combine what I do professionally with helping people I care so much about. And I'm grateful for the opportunity.