Counselors Without Borders with Community Leaders at Barrio Bucarabones.
Whenever the winds blow over the island, some Puerto Ricans immediately start to worry. The scars of the devastating category-5 Hurricane Maria that hit the island last September are still fresh in the minds of many people. Maria is the most logistically challenging disaster in U.S. history. The hurricane left at least 65 people dead, 80% of the power grid destroyed and more than 150,000 people reportedly left Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland.
Six months after this natural disaster, ten percent of the population still don’t have electricity and water service has not been restored in hard-to-access areas. A Counselors Without Borders (CWB) team visited Puerto Rico from March 16th to 23th. The team included Dr. Fred Bemak, founder and director of CWB and professor and Director of the Diversity Research and Action Consortium at George Mason University; Lewis Forrest, MEd Counseling and Development ’05, Associate Dean for University Life at George Mason University; Ricardo Sanchez, a doctoral student in Counseling and Development at George Mason University; Jean Agosto, a master’s student in Counseling and Development at George Mason University; and Dr. Rita Chi-Ying Chung, a professor at George Mason University. Joining the team was Dr. Edil Torres-Rivera from South University and Dr. Ivelisse Torres Fernandez from New Mexico State University.
One site where the CWB team provided intensive counseling was in the Barrio Bucarabones in the municipality of Maricao in Western Puerto Rico where there had been minimal services or support. Although this community regained electricity early in March and water service has not yet been restored. In this community, the CWB team worked with community leaders Iris Rodriguez, Yolanda Rosado at the Iglesia Refugio Eterno, a Pentecostal community that provided key support to people of Bucarabones during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, particularly with the distribution of donated food, clothing, and emergency supplies.
Counseling Without Borders group work at Barrio Bucarabones
The people at Bucarabones have faced significant difficulties. Most people have lost their homes, many have been temporarily displaced to other areas to live with other relatives or rented spaces in poorly constructed homes. Others have left Puerto Rico for the mainland hoping to earn enough money to rebuild their homes and support their families. Stories of family separation, isolation, and fear were also met with stories of community support, astounding resilience, and hope to find normality in their lives again.
The CWB team worked with communities and families in a multicultural, culturally sensitive manner by offering counseling and stress support rather than “mental health” support. A key to the success of Counselor Without Borders culturally responsive approach is its focus on helping survivors regain their inner strengths connected to their families, their communities, and their natural environment, with no other agenda than to assist in their transition to their “new normal” lives using their already-strong family and community support systems.
Counselors Without Borders at Centro Para Puerto Rico
Not everyone in the community had the emotional strength or the time available to participate in the community support sessions due to work schedules or lack of transportation. Aware of these shortcomings, the CWB team did outreach making home visits to those hard-to-reach survivors in the communities. Home and community visits were done only upon requests and invitations from family and community members.
Additionally, the CWB team met with first responders, psychologists, counseling and psychology students, social workers, providers of assistance to small business at San Juan’s Centro Para Puerto Rico, and community leaders. The session offered a safe space for participants to share, reflect, and process their experiences in providing support, care, and counseling in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The reflections and counseling group focused on processing the “first-responders fatigue” and personal struggles that they were having in the aftermath of the hurricane. At this session, strategies on how to prepare emotionally for the upcoming hurricane season later this year were also discussed.
Our work with the communities and families in Puerto Rico and with professionals at Centro Para Puerto Rico created safe spaces to process those difficult and painful hard-to-talk about emotions, helped regain the strength to continue their work and lives, and discussed strategies for self-care to continue being the pillar of support to those in need who are still going through very difficult circumstances whether financially or emotionally in Puerto Rico.
By Ricardo O. Sánchez