Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Be­fore dawn broke over Span­ish Town on Mon­day, the qui­et hum of en­gines and soft voic­es filled the court­yard of the lo­cal mosque. At 4.30 am, mem­bers of the Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CMTT) set out on their jour­ney across Ja­maica — a mis­sion of mer­cy to bring re­lief to fam­i­lies dev­as­tat­ed by the re­cent hur­ri­cane.

Lead­ing the team was CMTT’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, who de­scribed the day as “heart-wrench­ing but hum­bling.” By 6.15 am, the vol­un­teers were on the road for a three-hour dri­ve in­to the south­ern parish of St Eliz­a­beth, one of the is­land’s hard­est-hit re­gions.

Their first stop was the Newell Mosque, where they dis­trib­uted ham­pers to mem­bers of the lo­cal ja­maah whose homes and liveli­hoods had been de­stroyed by the storm. From there, the team vis­it­ed the Newell Med­ical Clin­ic, where ex­haust­ed staff had been work­ing around the clock since the hur­ri­cane made land­fall. Hand­ing out food ham­pers and bot­tled wa­ter, the vol­un­teers of­fered a small to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the staff’s tire­less ser­vice.

Next, they moved to a near­by emer­gency shel­ter man­aged by Dr Laren Parch­ment, pro­vid­ing com­fort and sup­plies to dis­placed res­i­dents. “Peo­ple were gen­er­al­ly hap­py to re­ceive a ham­per and ex­pressed grat­i­tude,” Mo­hammed said. “But it is very sad to see their homes de­stroyed. Many peo­ple still haven’t re­ceived any­thing.”

The dev­as­ta­tion be­came even more vis­i­ble at Burnt Sa­van­nah. Homes re­duced to rub­ble, be­long­ings scat­tered, and el­der­ly res­i­dents star­ing help­less­ly at what once were their hous­es. “You could see the heart­break in their faces,” Mo­hammed re­count­ed. “Many of them have lost every­thing.”

CMTT’s fifth planned stop had to be ad­just­ed when roads were im­pass­able due to se­vere flood­ing. The team quick­ly arranged for a truck to de­liv­er sup­plies to res­i­dents trapped be­yond the flood­wa­ters.

By late af­ter­noon, the vol­un­teers reached Black Riv­er, com­plet­ing their first ma­jor dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve across St Eliz­a­beth and West­more­land on Ja­maica’s south­west­ern coast. Along the way, roads were lined with fall­en trees, tilt­ed util­i­ty poles, and dam­aged store­fronts. Beach­fronts lay lit­tered with de­bris and shat­tered fish­ing boats.

“The dam­age to prop­er­ty, in­fra­struc­ture, beach fronts and busi­ness­es is un­be­liev­able,” Mo­hammed said, de­scrib­ing the wide­spread dev­as­ta­tion.

CMTT plans to con­tin­ue its re­lief work to­day (Tues­day) in the north­west­ern parish­es of Hanover and St James, where com­mu­ni­ties are still strug­gling to re­cov­er. Mo­hammed not­ed that two oth­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an groups were al­so seen pro­vid­ing aid in St Eliz­a­beth, high­light­ing the is­land’s ur­gent need for as­sis­tance.

For the Trinida­di­an vol­un­teers, the jour­ney is more than a mis­sion — it is an act of sol­i­dar­i­ty and faith.

The Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go is a vol­un­teer-based hu­man­i­tar­i­an or­gan­i­sa­tion known for its re­gion­al out­reach. Over the years, the group has de­liv­ered aid to dis­as­ter-af­fect­ed is­lands in­clud­ing Grena­da, St Vin­cent, and St Lu­cia, while con­tin­u­ing to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty wel­fare pro­grammes at home.