Founder and President of Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), Michael Capponi, says the organisation is committed to repair/replace up to 50,000 roofs in south-western Jamaica which was ravaged by Hurricane Melissa on October 28.

Capponi is head of a team that arrived in Jamaica last Thursday and promptly visited the transitional centre in Kingston, providing care packages to the homeless population.

On Saturday, they travelled to hard-hit Black River in St Elizabeth and Whitehouse, Westmoreland, with representatives of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), as well as the  Ministry of Labour and Social Security, to bring relief to residents and assess the dame for themselves.

Capponi addressed a media briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister on Friday where he explained that GEM, a Florida-based charity, is the largest international disaster agency in the world, operating in 74 countries and territories including war-torn Gaza and Ukraine.

“We are very proud to be partnering with ODPEM and the Government of Jamaica. We have a lot of experience in large scale logistics so, in partnership with ODPEM, we’re working together in just amassing as much supplies as humanly possible from the whole world, including most of the United States, especially south Florida, and the second-largest diaspora region, New York City,” said Capponi.

He described the provision of food and emergency supplies to the devastated communities as the first phase of the response.

“The other phase, which is the second most important phase, if not the most important …is rebuilding. So our agency, in partnership with the National Bank of Commerce, with IOM, we had repaired roughly 724 roofs last time around Treasure Beach (after Hurricane Beryl) and around Clarendon.

“This time it’s not 11,000 roofs that are going to be destroyed it might be 50,000 roofs that have been destroyed so we’re just going to have to have the same system scaled up by 10,” Capponi said.

And that’s basically what we’re going to do; we’re here for the long haul,” he added.

-Lynford Simpson