How to Help The Caribbean After Hurricane Irma



Barbuda

The reports of Hurricane Irma's destruction across the Caribbean region  has left me worried and with my stomach in knots. After watching how Hurricane Harvey pounded Texas, and how Irma continues to menace Florida, it's doubly concerning because the Caribbean doesn't get the visibility or response that the U.S. commands. The islands of the Caribbean are more than just vacation spots, they shelter a people and a culture that I know and love. After hearing from friends and researching reports, it's clear that donations are needed more than anything else to start a rebuilding process that will probably take years. The most extreme devastation happened on Barbuda, the tiny sister island to Antigua whose proud citizens and pink sand stole my heart years ago. The island has been almost completely wiped out, leaving Barbudans homeless and evacuated to Antigua. St. Thomas, Anguilla, St. Martin and parts of Cuba are also challenged with trying to recover from Irma's destruction. 

St. Thomas
The Caribbean needs immediate help to assist her people and start the process of rebuilding. I have compiled a list of reputable organizations that will supply direct aid to the people who need it. In the wake of many relief agencies being accused of fraud, I researched these at Charity Navigator and Charity Watch to measure their effectiveness. 

Here's a list of organizations that accept donations for Hurricane Relief in the Caribbean:

.
Global Giving Hurricane Irma Relief Fund: This org.receives high ratings from Charity Navigator.

Community Foundation of Virgin Islands: A local charity that supplies funds directly to the U.S Virgin Islands.
U.S. Virgin Island Relief Fund: Retired NBA star and St. Croix native Tim Duncan has donated $250,000 to this charity and will match donations to the first million.

Anguilla
Unicef: This org. has very good transparency and honesty rating. It's also one of my personal charities that I support annually. Unicef has a disaster relief fund  that supports children affected by Hurricane Irma.

American University of Antigua Barbuda Relief Fund:  The University of Antigua, on Barbuda's sister island, has created a fund for emergency supplies and long-term support for hurricane survivors.

Caribbean Tourism Organization Hurricane Relief Fund:  This organization represents 27 islands and their tourism sectors. The fund supplies donations directly to the ministry of tourism of affected member islands to help with rebuilding efforts.

Comments

A Cuban In London said…
Thank you for this. Irma left Havana in tatters, sadly.

Greetings from London.
September 17, 2017 at 1:49 AM
Fly Girl said…
Cubano, I know, it's heartbreaking. I had to really dig to find an organization that Americans to donate to. Cuba has been left off so many lists because of the embargo but the island needs our help. Especially since they were the first to respond with medical professionals to other islands.I'm hoping that they will be able to rebuild some of those collapsing Old Havana buildings.
September 17, 2017 at 7:42 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Traveling Through A Liberian Childhood

Image
I like to explore the world with books as much as I like to actually travel. A well-written narrative can transport you to places that you'd never experience with just superficial details like photos and descriptions. I've been interviewing writers about the criteria they use to select books for Summer reading and it made me think about my own general reading criteria. As a journalist, I'm really drawn to biographies, autobiographies and memoirs more than fiction. There's something about using the facts to entice readers into your world that gets me. It's no coincidence that some of my favorite writers--Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zora Neale Hurston, Hemingway, started out as journalists. So when I glimpsed The House at Sugar Beach , at my local bookstore and saw it was a memoir written by a journalist, it was pretty much a done deal that I would buy it. Now it wasn't only that the author Helene Cooper was a journalist, it was that she was a Liberian journalist chro
Read more

Puerto Rico's Taino Culture

Image
The original inhabitants of the Caribbean region of North America were the Arawak, Taino and Carib  native peoples.  The Tainos are a subgroup of the Arawaks and are recognized as the founders of the island of Boriken or Puerto Rico.  These were the people who offered a peaceful welcome to Columbus in 1493.  They didn't know the cruelty and violence that would follow his so-called "discovery" of the land that they had cultivated for centuries. Despite official government pronouncements that the Taino have been killed off by the massacres and slavery that followed in Columbus' wake, they live on.  As demonstrated in the photo above by  members of  the Puerto Rico Folklorico Dance & Culture Cultural Cente r, Taino traditions, food and names remain strong. Throughout Puerto Rico, town names like Mayaquez, Utuado and Caquas echo the Taino language as do the musical instrument maracas and hamaca or hammock. Legends of Taino warriors, like Hatuey, who organized the ba
Read more

Switzerland's Fete Des Vignerons

Image
                                               Once every generation, the centuries-old viticultural festival, Fete des Vignerons, unfolds in Vevey, Switzerland. Watching this spectacle of music, dancing, wine and fanciful costumes, felt like I had been transported to something out of a Dr. Seuss story. With a law that prohibits the fest from taking place more than five times in a century, I felt incredibly lucky to witness this celebration of Swiss wine traditions dating back to the 17th century.  Some of the fetes 5,500 performers in costumes strolled the narrow streets of Vevey after a show that featured fairies, bees, royal courts, playing cards and 17th-century wine growers. The performance was in French but the drama transcended language barriers. It's a difficult experience to describe but if I had to sum it up, I would explain it as the magic of Cirque Du Soleil combined with the pageantry of the Olympics, topped with the history of folk celebrations.  Take a peek at my v
Read more