Reverend Lavern Sinclair (right) and evangelist Evelyn Mason at the launch of the Land of My Birth Association, at the Portmore Missionary Church last Friday.

THE Land of My Birth Association (LOBA), which is geared at helping to reintegrate deportees into mainstream Jamaican society, was launched in Portmore last Friday.

The launch, staged at the Portmore Missionary Church in Edgewater, was convened by Reverend Garnet Roper who is pastor there. It came in the wake of a series of forums held with deportees, some of whom are struggling to make ends meet as they reacquaint themselves with life on the island, to determine their needs.

A temporary office, located at 12-14 Lockett Avenue in the municipality and the contact number for which is to be made public shortly, has been opened to house the association.
The office is to be manned by evangelist Evelyn Mason, of Corner Stone Ministries, who is to manage the administrative functions. Mason, herself a three-time deportee, is to be joined by a team of counsellors and other workers, as the association moves to provide guidance and motivational talks to deportees.

LOBA is the brainchild of reverends Lavern Sinclair and Georgia Scarlett, who collaborated in the effort, following news of the challenges faced by deportees on the island who have been credited in part for the escalating crime.

"I don't condone their wrong doings, but I don't condemn them. They all need a chance. We need to reach out and minister to them. They need us as Christians to be there for them," Sinclair said, noting her reason for forming the association. "Too much stigma is attached to deportees and they are not all hardened criminals. You would be surprised at the simple felonies that Jamaicans get deported for."
Roper, for his part, agreed.

"All of these persons are stigmatised as criminals. Some of (them) left this island as young as two years old and are deported at age 26. (They) are now faced with the difficulties of having no organised response from the authorities, even to simply introduce them as to how to fit in the society they belong to," he told the audience, which included deportees, at Friday's launch.

LOBA, he noted, was now looking to remedy this inadequacy.

"We are seeking to have a basic survival kit handed out to each deportee upon their arrival here at the airport and to also establish a half-way house here in Jamaica where they can live for a period of time while preparing themselves to go on their own," Roper said.

"We need to put these things in place so as to help take away the stigma and release the emotional fear. I don't see the reason to be afraid of our brothers and sisters because of their past," he added.

Mason, meanwhile, encouraged other deportees to follow in her footsteps.

"I was part of the mess and was deported three times but thank God, I gave God my life and he has turned it around. Today I can tell you honestly that I have achieved much more than I had doing my wrongs, she said.

"Only the person who has been in that situation can identify with these people knowing exactly what they faced so that is why I find it so easy to talk to them and to give them motivational talks," she added.

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