Red Cross to begin recovery phase of Hurricane Melissa response in January

 

Effective next month, Red Cross Jamaica says it will begin the recovery phase of its response to Hurricane Melissa.

 

Allasandra Chung, President of the Jamaica Red Cross, says the humanitarian organisation will focus on water, sanitation and housing during this phase. 

 

Speaking on the Morning Agenda on Power 106 FM this week, Ms. Chung said the Red Cross will provide roofing materials and cash assistance to 2,000 victims of the Category 5 storm, which made landfall on October 28. 

 

She explained that Red Cross Jamaica has already provided cash support to 140 individuals. 

 

"I don't want to say the amount at this time, but normally with the cash assistance grant, how the Red Cross does it, we will give you some money initially for you to assist with your livelihood and then we give you another sum that you can spend as you wish. For example, with Hurricane Beryl, what we did was we gave these assistance grants to raft captains and what we did was to give them some money to rebuild the rafts, and then they came, we went and did our inspection to ensure that, yes, they had actually built a raft with the funds that we gave them, and then we gave them an additional amount that they could spend as they wish. And I think we will do a similar situation in this," she explained. 

 

The Red Cross says it will also work closely with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) during the recovery phase to help those affected it.

 

The Red Cross continues to provide relief supplies to more than 800 Jamaicans who remain in shelters after losing their homes during Hurricane Melissa. 

 

The organisation says about 400 of those sheltering are in Westmoreland, while 142 are in St. Elizabeth and 125 in Trelawny. 

 

Chung said over 29,000 non-food items have been distributed to affected communities.

 

"We are actually at this point doing some distribution still of food items to persons and we have assisted the shelters by providing some food items as well as non-food items, like mattresses and things like that, clothing and so on. But one of the things I would like to also say at this time that we are working very closely with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, we also work closely with the Ministry of Health and Wellness in terms of those mobile clinics that we have established, and also in terms of that water situation up in Cambridge, we were working with the municipal corporation on that one," she highlighted.

 

In addition, 211,000 litres of potable water have been supplied through the organisation's water filtration system in Cambridge, St. James. 

 

The Red Cross also reports providing medical support to more than 400 patients across 19 sites primarily in Westmoreland.