There was an incident involving people who make a living from the Riverton City dump, located off Spanish Town Road in St Andrew, which is worth recalling in the rush to bring relief to communities and individuals ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.

While digging through the rubble, one of them found a flier with a picture showing the conditions suffered by the poorest of the poor, who, like animals, scavenge garbage for useable items and food.

The flier, which graphically portrayed people picking through the rat-infested refuse, was part of a batch that had been printed, and they were being used by a Roman Catholic cleric to raise funds abroad for the upliftment programmes he ran in that same community. He did so with no idea that this material would make its way back to the dump and into the hands of those whose sub-human condition it depicted. Although promoting the plight of the needy was towards a good cause, the manner in which it was done resulted in public outcry among the residents of the community, who felt robbed of their dignity.

That incident highlights the harm that can be done by well-intentioned charitable acts. This is not something that Government and individual donors normally concern themselves with. In our culture the unwritten rule is “beggars don’t get to be choosers”.

In the book titled When Help Hurts – Rethinking Relief Supplies after Disasters (2017), author Simon Levine examines how short-term help can do long-term harm. He makes this telling assertion: “After disasters, well-intentioned donors rush food, water, and materials into affected communities. While essential for survival, these relief supplies can also undermine local markets and slow economic recovery if not coordinated with local systems.” In-kind aid can displace local farmers and vendors, suppress local prices, collapse markets, and breed dependency in once-sustainable communities.

There is no arguing the fact that in the immediate aftermath of the horrendous Category 5 Hurricane Melissa and the human toll it exacted, providing humanitarian aid has to be paramount. It is equally true that to build back stronger and better, asset-based community development (ABCD) must form the medium- to long-term strategy.

In the context of Hurricane Melissa, the foundation principle of ABCD is restoring as quickly as possible the capacity within communities to sustain themselves by people earning a livelihood.

Learning from the 1979 New Market flood

There is an old adage, “History repeats itself”, so too do storms and hurricanes affecting the island. The only question is: Did we learn anything to help us prepare for and recover from the next one?

For those old enough to remember, in 1979 the low-lying town of New Market in St Elizabeth was deluged by torrential rainfall and rising groundwater caused by a tropical depression. What was once a sleepy commercial hub, became a lake.

The response by the Michael Manley Government of the day and continued under Edward Seaga’s Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which defeated the People’s National Party (PNP) in the 1980 polls, provides a number of lessons that could be useful in devising a recovery plan for communities suffering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa.

In the immediate aftermath of the New Market flood, the emphasis was on evacuation and relief. Approximately 15,000 people were housed in shelters where they were provided with the essentials — food, water, personal effects, and medical care. Priority was also placed on repairing infrastructure — roads, bridges, and drains.

The most valuable lesson surrounds the relocation of the town and its most vulnerable residents from the flood-prone sinkhole to higher ground. Located one mile from the old town of New Market, the new town, Lewisville, came complete with housing, a high school, police station, health centre, community centre, library, and a market.

With substantial aid from the Canadian Government of Pierre Trudeau, affected small land holders and business owners were given not just a handout but a hand up in the form of what today would be considered a stimulus package, which included a house and grant funding to move to the new location. As with many large-scale, centrally planned development, there have been downsides to and disappointments with the Lewisville experiment from which lessons can also be learnt.

NCB Financial Group Chairman Michael Lee-Chin has recommended a large-scale development initiative similar to the Marshall Plan, the American Government-funded programme used to rebuild Europe following the devastation caused by World War 2. The lessons learnt from the 1979 New Market flood could be useful in designing a development framework for such a plan.

Henley Morgan

Dr Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based Social Enterprise, Agency for Inner-city Renewal, and author of My Trench Town Journey: Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Development Leaders, Policy Makers, Academics and Practitioners. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hmorgan@cwjamaica.com.