Week Four: Helping Hands

November 8th-November 12th 2010

Unfortunately, the damage from the hurricane has still left the island with a tremendous amount of damage and inconveniences. All the schools were still closed this past week due to the lack of water--teachers/principals were uncertain when that problem would be resolved. Children cannot attend school when there is no water and although the island was working hard to restore it, there was no guarantee when it would be back. Thankfully most of the areas on the island had the water restored by Sunday evening (Nov. 14th), although some areas have not yet been reached.

The Ministry of Education called a meeting with all the principals of the schools on the island to discuss when school would resume. The meeting took place on Friday, so water had not reached all areas yet. They decided that school would have to resume on Monday (Nov. 22nd) regardless because students were missing out on too much. However, a natural disaster is unpredictable and unavoidable so there is only so much someone can do in these circumstances.

I went to the local private hospital to help sort out clothes, shoes, toiletries, food, toys, etc. that were donated for the hurricane victims who lost everything. Myself and the other volunteers were extremely delighted with the wonderful turn out we had. The people of St. Lucia really came together and donated a great deal of supplies for those in need. We separated the items and delivered them to several different areas on the island that were affected. I could not believe some of the damage that still remained in the Southern part upon traveling there! I have been trying to stay active and help out as much as I can with this disaster.

This week Monday (Nov. 15th) I started tutoring many of the grade six students to help them prepare for the CEE and make-up for the lost learning time due to the hurricane. I will post more about this in detail on my next blog entry.