Saving Hope...

In early August of this year the Jericho Project embarked on a mission of heart that we hoped would accomplish among other things - to send much needed food to drought ridden and war torn Somalia; to bring that issue some regional if not international exposure in the hope that other nations would see it fit to send food also; and to give us here at home a chance to make a grand unselfish gesture out of nothing but our own simple humanity. 

We sent out a press release and Cans of Hope was born. The project was named 'Cans of Hope' because if food from a tiny island a million miles away could find its way to the hungry in Somalia then surely peace could break out and the famine could end, and also because we name all our events hope. As has become the custom now our members and supporters got down to the task and we began the work.

Hope is a powerful thing. It makes believers out of doubters and helps others hold on despite adversity. We put out a call to the national community and got offers of help from diverse corners of the country. Valdez & Torry International undertook to create the event's logo at no cost (as usual) and secured an offer from Scrip J to print our banners for free. The Congress of the People allowed us to use their Flagship House as a drop off point and meeting zone and Hi Lo Food Stores offered to let us use their network of stores throughout the island as collection points also. New members signed on including well known activist Nalini Dial, political activist Wendell Eversly and COP D'abadie O'meara member Kerry Ann Sudama. The Islamic Relief Center also volunteered to help and joined us, as did Dirk Gibbs from Tobago as well as many others too numerous to mention.

In no time at all we had food being donated. It wasn't pouring in but it was coming. The State of Emergency's announcement buried our first real press conference and we sort of limped along from that moment on. We looked at different ways to raise the profile of the event to get it top of mind or at least news worthy but there was just too much going on in sweet T&T for a feel good story about the little engine that could. We lost momentum and we lost some volunteers but we still tried to keep it going. Our ideas for a concert and a telethon got good support volunteer wise but again was getting lost in the noise. We were also having great difficulty securing the actual getting of the food to Somalia so a decision was taken to stop everything related to the concert until April next year and to start looking for alternatives to donate the food we were collecting if it really proved impossible to get the donations into Somalia. We decided to stop any further food collections for Somalia and put the word out through all of our groups, networks and pages that any food that was donated now would be used for families and communities in need right here at home. We also agreed to turn over all the food we had at that time to the Islamic Relief Center and Wendell Eversley who wanted to try to get at least one container into the country. As of this writing we or they are no closer to that happening despite offers from the Red Cross to assist. Rumors abound of deteriorations in conditions due to violence and that nothing is being allowed in. We will be guided by the efforts of these few until such time as it could be considered not possible.

As of this writing the decision remains. We have agreed to work with local community groups and projects from Diego Martin, to El Socorro on to Matelot and we plan to continue to collect food for these and other local groups instead. As of now we are still collecting food and clothes from anyone who would like to donate, but ALL of it will be used for locals in need until after Christmas. If by some miracle we also end up getting the food to Somalia then we would have all done a good thing. If it cannot happen then that food is going to be used for local charities also. We intend to keep you informed every step of the way.

Phillip Edward Alexander
Chairman
The Jericho Project