Post-Dorian partnership to rejuvenate communities in Grand Bahama

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

FREEPORT, Grand Bahama | In response to the most damaging storm in the modern history of the Bahamas, a regional office of Caritas International has made a two-year commitment to promote housing refurbishment and mental wellness here. 

Last year’s Category 5 Hurricane Dorian — which first made landfall Sept. 1, 2019 and stalled over the region for several days — resulted in more than 70 deaths, severe structural damage here and on Abaco Island, and the displacement of thousands of residents across the northern Bahamas. 

Although Catholic Relief Services is not technically incorporated in the Bahamas, they have set up a first-ever, temporary presence under the auspices of Caritas Antilles and in cooperation with the Nassau Archdiocese. Office space has been set up at the Nassau archdiocesan chancery along with field offices in Grand Bahama, where they have so far focused their efforts. 

“The community in Grand Bahama has really come together in the rebuilding efforts and some of the local contractors have been engaged to do the work,” said Nassau Archbishop Patrick Pinder. He led a delegation of senior staff from the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities on a post-hurricane tour of key locations Feb. 19-21.

Hurricane Dorian displaced an estimated 70,000 people throughout the Bahamas, causing severe damage or total destruction to more than 13,000 homes, or some 45% of all homes on the Abacos and Grand Bahama. 

The Caritas efforts embellish a wider hurricane recovery project that the Archdiocese of Nassau has been engaged in with its parishes, schools and communities, and with material and financial assistance from around the world — including some $700,000 collected in South Florida parishes last year. 

When the Caritas staff first arrived after the hurricane, it was difficult getting into Abaco. They had to first go to Grand Bahama but were told they would be stuck there and have no accommodations in Abaco, according to the archbishop. 

So they used the time to understand the situation and determined to focus their efforts on shelter remediation, assisting people in drying out their homes with demucking and demolding. “Later on they focused on setting up what they call a resilience center,” Archbishop Pinder said. 

“One of the unique features of this particular hurricane, in my experience, is it was the first time you had mass evacuations out of the area and it brought the economy to a halt, and now it is just beginning to pick back up again,” he said. “In instances where you have mold, they address that first and dry the place.”

In the Hudson Estates and Freeport Ridge Estates neighborhoods of Freeport, Archbishop Pinder and the Miami delegation toured the still-developing field office for the Caritas specialists, whose work here is being funded through private donations and funds from national collections in U.S. parishes last year. 

 

75 HOMES REPAIRED

So far, the Caritas team has overseen the clean-up, minor repair and refurbishment of some 75 homes, according to Sean O’Neill, head of office for Caritas in Grand Bahama along with Kesheia Morris, a projects officer for the minor repairs program. 

O’Neill noted that the Bahamas project has been funded for two years and will include two community engagement offices, two social workers and a program manager at its resiliency center. The center will offer group therapy sessions including substance abuse sessions and individual counseling. 

“A resilience center is a community center that is modeling after a few that have been done in other contexts after a trauma — there was one done in Colorado after the (2012) Aurora movie theater shooting — and it does activities on a number of levels of the mental health-psychosocial support pyramid,” O’Neill said. “At the base level it is a matter of doing community events just to bring people back into a space to start reconnecting with each other.”

Recently, the project sponsored a movie night for adults in Grand Bahama and separate group activities for children. The Caritas team is planning more community engagement and off-site events for Grand Bahama communities that might have difficulty traveling to the resiliency center. 

“For example, we are talking to the community of High Rock out east with some events we want to do with them. They are all scattered now so they have really responded well to the idea of having a space to come together to talk about what happened,” he said. 

He added that while making housing repairs, “we have case workers engaging with families.” Those case workers check in with the social workers when they come across more serious issues. A referral mechanism will direct more serious clients for help at Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport. 

 

SCATTERED COMMUNITY

Residents in the hard-hit eastern end of Grand Bahama were overwhelmed by Hurricane Dorian, O’Neill said. “We heard a deep sense of a need to rebuild community because people were scattered after the storm.” 

He added that their work has been welcomed by other organizations and Grand Bahamas Health Services as well.

In addition, Caritas plans to start exploring mental health and counseling projects in Abaco, which bore the brunt of Hurricane Dorian’s strongest winds and storm surge. 

Eulie Bastian Elliott, director of the Office of Family Life and newly appointed Hurricane Dorian relief and response specialist for the Archdiocese of Nassau, said the workload for the archdiocesan staff in the Bahamas has doubled since Dorian. 

It has resulted in the development of a revised and more complete hurricane response plan for the future so that every parish, school and church staff person knows exactly what to do before, during and after a storm. 

“There has been so much work to do since September and the rest is history because we had to get on the ground right away,” said Elliott, who retired after 37 years working for the Bahamas government before coming to work for the Church in the Bahamas. 

“Grand Bahama is in cleanup mode, and we are grateful for the response we got from other countries and thanks to that we were able to bounce back,” she said. 

“We just hope and pray we don’t get hit again this next hurricane season, and I must give Archbishop Pinder credit and kudos for taking on this mammoth effort to bring hope, help and relief to our people again,” Elliott told the Florida Catholic. “As a shepherd that is what he is called to do and a lot of people are looking to him for leadership. He has spent long hours doing just that.”

Caritas in Bahamas completes 75 home repairs 

MIAMI | Thanks to material and financial assistance from around the world — including some $700,000 collected in South Florida parishes last year — Caritas Antilles is aiding a wider hurricane recovery project in The Bahamas, adding to the work being done by the Archdiocese of Nassau, its parishes, schools and communities.

Caritas reports it has:

• Completed minor home repairs in 75 houses.
• Broken ground and begun foundations, in partnership with Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, for two affordable core homes in East Grand Bahama. Through discussions with community leaders, two sites/households have been selected for construction.
• Begun rolling out a media campaign to raise awareness about mental health issues in the community, in partnership with International Medical Corps and the Grand Bahama Health Services.
• Opening a Resilience Center that will offer community wellness and recreation activities, targeted group therapy sessions, and one-on-one counseling for residents of Grand Bahama, in response to the trauma incurred from the storm.
• Continuing to host community events to support social and emotional well-being, as outreach activities of the forthcoming Resilience Center.
• Actively advocating, in meetings with the Disaster Recovery Authority, that a government housing repairs assistance program that was launched Feb. 10 take into consideration how to assist the most vulnerable households.

RELATED STORIES

• At Dorian's ground zero a struggle to recover six months later.
• Catholic Charities CEO: Building materials a priority for Bahamas.
• To donate to the Hurricane Dorian relief fund, go to www.ccadm.org.