After Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica's Diaspora Keeps Giving

Six weeks after Hurricane Melissa tore across western Jamaica, the island is shifting from emergency relief to the slower, steadier work of recovery, and the Jamaican diaspora is right there in it. The JN Foundation and Lutheran World Relief, through its humanitarian arm CORUS, have handed over three containers of relief supplies and more than US$1 million in material resources to the Jamaica Red Cross, which has now reached over 100,000 people across 205 distributions in Westmoreland, Hanover, St Elizabeth and St James.

The care packages, filled with education supplies, clothing, quilts and baby items, arrived just as the new school year was getting underway. "It really came in handy at the start of the school year," said Horace Glaze, the Red Cross's deputy operations manager. JN Foundation's Omar Wright said the groups chose to "partner with institutions that serve the most vulnerable," pairing mobile medical missions in the worst-hit western parishes with livelihood support for farmers, fisherfolk and small business owners working to get back on their feet.

For so many Jamaican families here in the UK, this kind of moment feels deeply familiar, because when home needs something, the first instinct is always to pack a barrel. Long before any formal aid arrives, it's barrels of clothes, tinned food, toiletries and school supplies making their way from British living rooms to front porches in Westmoreland or St Elizabeth, sent by aunties, cousins and former neighbours who never really left home behind.

If you've got family rebuilding after Melissa, or you simply want to send a bit of home their way, we're here to help it get there safely and on time. Our shipping barrels start from £85, and right now it's buy 3, get 1 empty free, plenty of room for everything from school books to a bit of comfort. Give us a call on 02030867592 or drop us a WhatsApp on +447886065894 and we'll sort you out.