Charity building 10 houses for hurricane victims

As hundreds of Jamaicans remain homeless in Western Jamaica following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, an international non-profit organisation has pledged to build 10 board dwellings for families.

Rob Gaudet, CEO of Ground Force Humanitarian Aid, said this is part of an ongoing effort to provide assistance to those living in the rural areas of St James.

"Currently we are working on another project where we are building board homes as shelters for individuals. We are going to build 10 of them and we have already built a prototype but we will officially begin on January 5 of next year," he said.

"We build the prototype to test and get feedback as we want to build something that is culturally important to the individuals that will live in them and [build] ones that are hurricane resilient. We also want ones that are appealing so persons or organisations overseas can help with the funding as well," Gaudet added.

Gaudet said his team landed in Jamaica on November 1, just three days after the category 5 hurricane struck the island.

"I will tell you that I have seen a lot of devastation and disaster and the damage that they do, but I have never seen anything quite as bad a Melissa. It moves you to see so many buildings just crashed. The homelessness that it left people in was just a real concern and I know it is going to be a very long challenge for Jamaica and it's going to be a very difficult journey to recover," he said.

Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon expressed appreciation to Ground Force for its partnered assistance.

"We keep saying that this hurricane affected so many parishes, and, in eastern St James, they have found a lot of communities that need assistance," Dixon said during a recent visit to Ground Force's food-packing site at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

Gaudet told THE STAR they specifically chose Eastern St James as those residents were off the media's radar.

"Black River was what the press really talked about so what we do is go into places that the press was not talking about to put a spotlight on those communities. We went into places like Adelphi, Dumfries, Canaan and other areas that were getting little or no help," he said.

Gaudet implored others to continue offering assistance while adding that without a strong support network, the ability to recover is severely diminished.

"Just because the media leaves people tend to think that things are getting better but the reality is, it takes years to recover. There is really a dangerous gap between when everybody is there and helping, and then the time it takes for paperwork to come in. It could take a year before the big help shows up because of the paperwork and so on. What we try to do is fill that gap with services and we will be staying as long as funding allows us to," he said.

Ground Force was started in Louisiana by Gaudet after his community was impacted by flooding.

"I realised that persons were using Facebook to ask for help. My background is in technology and I saw how citizens and volunteers were more capable of responding with the use of technology. So we created Ground Force to empower community members to be a helpful force in their area after a natural disaster," he said.