Angostura hands over first home under Hurricane Melissa recovery programme

An­gos­tu­ra has hand­ed over the first of four homes be­ing built un­der its Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa re­cov­ery pro­gramme in Ja­maica, mark­ing a mile­stone in its long-term ef­fort to help fam­i­lies dis­placed by the 2025 storm.

The first com­plet­ed house was pre­sent­ed on Mon­day to the Simp­son-Whyte fam­i­ly in Seaford Town, West­more­land. Their home was de­stroyed when Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa struck Ja­maica in Oc­to­ber 2025, forc­ing them to live in tem­po­rary shel­ter while await­ing as­sis­tance to re­build.

The hous­ing ini­tia­tive is be­ing de­liv­ered in part­ner­ship with the Se­prod Foun­da­tion and sup­ports fam­i­lies in Seaford Town, West­more­land, and Craw­ford, St Eliz­a­beth.

"This first home rep­re­sents ex­act­ly what this part­ner­ship was cre­at­ed to achieve. Re­cov­ery goes be­yond re­plac­ing what was lost. It is about restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty, dig­ni­ty and hope to fam­i­lies as they re­build their lives," said Se­prod Foun­da­tion Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Lisa D'Oyen.

She said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was proud to part­ner with An­gos­tu­ra to pro­vide mean­ing­ful sup­port to com­mu­ni­ties still feel­ing the ef­fects of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

An­gos­tu­ra chair­man Gary Hunt said long-term com­mit­ment and strong part­ner­ships were es­sen­tial to re­build­ing com­mu­ni­ties af­ter dis­as­ters.

"The road to re­cov­ery fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa re­quires sus­tained com­mit­ment, mean­ing­ful part­ner­ships and a fo­cus on long-term out­comes. Sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties in times of need is cen­tral to An­gos­tu­ra's val­ues," Hunt said.

One of the houses constructed in Jamaica by Angostura, in collaboration with the Seprod Foundation, for displaced families following Hurricane Melissa. [Image courtesy Angostura Limited]

ANGOSTURA LIMITED

He added that the com­pa­ny was in­vest­ing not on­ly in homes but al­so in the well­be­ing and fu­ture of fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by the hur­ri­cane.

An­gos­tu­ra chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ian Forbes said the project re­flect­ed the im­por­tance of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

"See­ing this fam­i­ly move from tem­po­rary shel­ter in­to a safe home is a pow­er­ful re­minder of the dif­fer­ence col­lec­tive ac­tion can make in peo­ple's lives. The true mea­sure of re­cov­ery is fam­i­lies re­turn­ing to safe, se­cure homes," Forbes said.

The Simp­son-Whyte fam­i­ly ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the as­sis­tance, say­ing the new home marked a fresh start af­ter months of un­cer­tain­ty.

The hous­ing project forms part of a wider Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa re­cov­ery pro­gramme led by An­gos­tu­ra and the Se­prod Foun­da­tion.

In ad­di­tion to con­struct­ing four homes, the ini­tia­tive has pro­vid­ed build­ing ma­te­ri­als to 12 shop­keep­ers and bar own­ers to help them re­pair and re­open their busi­ness­es, while an­i­mal wel­fare sup­port con­tin­ues through a part­ner­ship with the Ja­maica So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals (JSP­CA).