Third Wave Volunteers bring urgent relief to Jamaica’s hardest-hit communities

Western Bureau:

When Dr Alison Thompson and her team arrived in western Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, what they found stunned even a veteran of more than two decades travelling to disaster zones.

Entire communities were cut off, shops stripped bare, and families were collecting rainwater from zinc roofs.

“We saw towns where no one had arrived yet, no aid, no communication, nothing,” Thompson told The Gleaner on Monday. “People were standing in the road, waving for help. They were desperate for food and clean water.”

The founder of Third Wave Volunteers, Thompson has led emergency missions from Ground Zero in the United States after September 11 to the wars in Ukraine and Syria. She said Jamaica’s western parishes reminded her of other locations in which she had served – the same quiet heartbreak in the eyes of survivors but also the same fierce will to rebuild.

Her organisation deployed within 24 hours of the storm, bringing doctors, solar lights, Starlink satellite systems, and portable water-filtration kits. Working in partnership with Operation Blessing, Caribbean Producers Jamaica (CPJ), Medicorps (Helicopter), Mercy Chefs, and the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), they have been restoring communication, distributing supplies, and delivering thousands of meals daily.

In Bethel Town, Westmoreland, with a population of 20,000, the team found residents queueing for water under a single surviving roof. The local police station, one of the few intact buildings, became a lifeline when Third Wave Volunteers installed a Starlink satellite device there.

“When that signal came on, they clapped,” Thompson recalled. “It was the first time in days they could reach the outside world.”

She described driving through Cornwall Mountain, Belvedere, and Springfield, where roofs had peeled away and trees lay across roads. In some districts, tiny grocery stores had reopened, but shelves were nearly empty.

“You’d see a 10-by-10 shop with two tins left,” she said. “The women kept saying, ‘Water, miss, please, we just need water’. That broke me.”

DONATION OF SOLAR-POWERED LIGHTS

To ease the crisis, the organisation has been distributing solar-powered lights that charge in the sun and glow at night in classrooms and shelters still without electricity.

“Light changes everything,” Thompson said. “People can move safely again; children can read again.”

Partnerships have been vital. Thompson praised CPJ and its co-founder, Tom Tyler, for facilitating container clearances and supplying water tanks in rural districts. “They’ve been outstanding,” she said. “It shows how the private sector can move fast when it matters.”

Thompson has been managing a steady flow of supplies arriving from Miami, Florida. Her team is preparing 40 containers of food, water filters, and medical kits for shipment to Jamaica in collaboration with Operation Blessing, which is already serving 5,000 meals a day and plans to triple that output within a week.

Despite the exhaustion visible on her face, Thompson remains energised by the Jamaican people’s resilience and gratitude.

“We’ll keep linking communities, one by one,” she said. “The destruction is great, but so is the spirit here. People greet us with smiles even when they have nothing left. That’s Jamaica – strength in the middle of loss.”

As the country rebuilds, Third Wave Volunteers plans to stay long after the immediate emergency has passed.

“Recovery isn’t just trucks and supplies,” Thompson said. “It’s standing with people until the light comes back on, literally, and in their hearts.”

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com