KINGSTON, Jamaica—The Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) is urging all stakeholders involved in the post-Hurricane Melissa rebuilding process to ensure that buildings are redesigned and constructed to guarantee accessibility for all citizens, including persons with disabilities (PWDs).

Executive director Dr Christine Hendricks, emphasises that individuals rebuilding should do so using the universal design principles.

“It is just simply building in a manner so that everybody can utilise [the spaces]… because several buildings would have been downed [during the hurricane’s passage]… no building was spared, as you would imagine. So, this is providing us with an excellent opportunity to utilise the standards provided in the building code,” she told JIS News.

“[Additionally] the JCPD has a checklist that is on our website we launched two years ago to provide to the public the standards which should guide [the] putting up of a ramp so that we don’t build slopes; ensuring that doorways are wide enough, based on the specifications, and that bathroom areas are built to specification,” she added.

Hendricks further notes that sidewalks should be constructed to ensure accessibility, enabling persons with disabilities to move freely and conduct their daily activities.

“If we continue to allow the light poles to be placed in the middle of the sidewalk or to build plant boxes in the middle of the sidewalks, we will continually impede persons from going about their lawful business, and it can be deemed discrimination. Exclusion is discrimination… and if you put up so many barriers, you end up excluding a number of persons,” she stated.

“If they so choose, they can make a complaint to the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities, and the matter can or will be investigated by the JCPD. If it’s not resolved, then it can go to the Disabilities Rights Tribunal. [But ideally] we want to avoid all of that,” the executive director added.

Hendricks says the JCPD has been actively visiting the parishes most affected by Hurricane Melissa to assist persons with disabilities.

Visits have been conducted across Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny, St James, selected areas of St Ann, Manchester and Clarendon.

The executive director notes that, as early as October 31, the JCPD delivered care packages to persons with disabilities in communities across St Elizabeth, including Lititz and Junction.

“They shared with us… we saw the farms that were no longer in existence… we saw how the wind and the rain battered everything. Some persons got flooded out and some lost their roofs.

So, we began the assessments and we have continued the assessments in the different parishes,” Dr Hendricks told JIS News.

“For those who had, maybe, a shop or other small enterprises, they would have lost homes and everything in it, like everybody else. So we are in the process of putting together all the information so that we can provide it to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, for those who need housing, for that fuller assessment to be done and then for them to benefit,” she added.

Hendricks advised that, for those eligible to benefit from the National Housing Trust (NHT), the council is providing guidance as needed.

Individuals may also visit the NHT’s website at www.nht.gov.jm/recover to access application resources and information on disaster‑relief initiatives.

“We also pull together the different disability groups/agencies who would have clients in the western areas as well. Their organisations or their schools would have been severely damaged and their students… their homes that they were from… would have been damaged,” Dr Hendricks says.

These groups include the Jamaica Society for the Blind, Jamaican Association on Intellectual Disabilities, Combined Disabilities Association, Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf, Jamaica Association for the Deaf and Ready to Sign.

“Ready to Sign [is] an interpretation group. They have about 675 deaf people in the different areas that have been affected. So those are the groups we are working with to ensure that we reach our people,” the executive director tells JIS News.

The JCPD is also receiving support from international partners, including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Henricks notes that the JCPD is conducting organisational assessments to determine how best to provide support in guiding entities to access grants for projects through various agencies.

“So far, the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office opened to us the opportunity for a project from Australia where the organisations can benefit by writing a project to get funds of up to US$65,000 to help in their own recovery efforts, or to address some matter that would have arisen out of the hurricane,” she shared.

“We have various diaspora members who have been indicating support, as they are putting together barrels… to send to us. We have had UNICEF who have stepped in and provided $32 million for support to 1,500 children with disabilities… for care packages in the first instance and then a digital voucher in the second instance, so that the caregivers can purchase what it is that the children’s families would need to help them in the whole recovery process,” the executive director adds.

Hendricks further informed that UNESCO has come forward to assist the JCPD in providing persons with disabilities in need with assistive aids.

They are also assisting the council with the technical expertise required to draft a framework for Jamaica’s inclusive disaster risk management and recovery.

Additionally, the JCPD has received support from the Canadian High Commission, Jamaican Cultural Connection, the Poverty Alleviation and Empowerment Foundation, the Digicel Foundation, and Dr Terri-Karelle Johnson.

Meanwhile, the council has verified that there are more than 15,000 persons with disabilities residing in parishes adversely affected by Hurricane Melissa.

“We have not gotten to all of them as yet. But over time, with the assistance of the agencies who are also helping us with the assessments, I’m sure we will get quite a number,” Hendricks said.

“There are hundreds of thousands out there who we are not aware of. So we ask, if persons are going down on their relief efforts and they meet persons with disabilities, let the JCPD know,” she added.

Contact may be made with the JCPD via WhatsApp at 876‑447‑0444 or 876‑299‑7393, or by calling the landline at 876‑968‑8373.

-JIS