ABOVE: Red Root is providing relief supplies to people displaced by the eruption of La Soufrière. (Photo courtesy of Phylicia Alexander/Red Root)
A Caribbean advocacy group has launched a fund to help LGBTQ people who have been impacted by the eruption of a volcano on the island of St. Vincent.
The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality, which is based in St. Lucia, has created a fund to support members of the LGBTQ community and people with HIV/AIDS who have been affected by the eruption of La Soufrière that began on April 9.
The fund hopes to raise $80,000.
“We will provide immediate assistance to LGBTQ+ evacuees affected by the volcanic eruption and already battling with COVID-19 and discrimination in a region where they are criminalized,” said ECADE in a fundraising appeal. “Our relief assistance will include food packages, clean water, hygiene kits, sanitary products, clothing, heavy-duty face masks, relocation and housing support.”
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Chapter of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Partnership (VincyCHAP) and Red Root will manage the distribution of ECADE’s donations supplies on the island.
“Of particular concern is the situation of LGBTQ+ evacuees in a region where they are criminalized,” said ECADE Executive Director Kenita Placide in a press release that announced the fund. “LGBTQ+ evacuees and PLHIV (people living with HIV) may fall though the cracks or feel forced to hide their status, sexuality and/or gender identity to access help or avoid discrimination.”
“We will do everything in our power to provide safe and affirming assistance for LGBTQ+ people and PLHIV in addition to women and children who face their own set of risks in disasters,” added Placide.
Vincentian groups expand outreach
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a country of 32 islands in the Lesser Antilles that are located between St. Lucia, Grenada and Barbados. It is among the handful of nations in the Western Hemisphere in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains criminalized.
The eruption has forced more than 15,000 people to evacuate their homes.
The U.N. on Tuesday noted more than 12,000 Vincentians are currently living in government-run shelters or private homes. The U.N. on the same day also launched a fund that hopes to raise $29.2 million to help St. Vincent and the Grenadines and neighboring countries help those who the volcano has directly impacted.
VincyCHAP Executive Director Sean Frederick on Tuesday spoke with the Washington Blade from the Vincentian capital of Kingstown, which is roughly 20 miles south of the volcano.
He said officials have used water from rivers to clean the ash from the streets in Kingstown. Frederick told the Blade the city is “congested” with people who have come to buy food, go the bank and collect remittances from abroad.
“There has already started to be a shortage of a number of things,” he said.
VincyCHAP and Red Root, which specifically works with children and Vincentians who identify as women, are both working to distribute food to people who have been displaced.
Red Root Executive Director Phylicia Alexander on Monday spoke with the Blade while she was on her way to a supermarket to buy food for some of her clients.
“Right now, I have a long list of persons who are waiting on me to get stuff to eat,” she said.
Alexander told the Blade that ECADE sent some food to Red Root from St. Lucia, but it was gone “in a day.”
“That’s not enough,” she said.
Frederick said VincyCHAP has been able to distribute food baskets and hygiene kits with support from ECADE and a grant the London-based Soho House gave to the organization last year. Frederick told the Blade that VincyCHAP has not been in contact with many of the LGBTQ Vincentians who were living in the area around the volcano, but “we believe they are in shelters and are safe.”
The eruption is expected to continue for weeks, if not months.
“We are facing a serious situation here in St. Vincent,” Frederick told the Blade on Thursday. “Of course we are focusing on our clientele, which is the LGBT community, youth and those other persons who are vulnerable in communities that we serve, but there are extended families and other members of community who we would really, really like to reach out to because of the need.”
Red Root, like VincyCHAP, is also working to assist Vincentians with whom the organization typically does not work. Alexander told the Blade she hopes to raise funds that would allow Red Root to continue to pay the rent on its office — EC$1,740 ($643.84) a month — through the crisis.
“It’s in a safe space,” she said. “We have a counseling room and everything.”
“It’s just to keep the office running and continue the work that we are doing,” added Alexander.
Frederick encouraged Blade readers who may want to support VincyCHAP to make donations to the ECADE fund. Alexander said Red Root is accepting donations through its Paywsif account or through a Paypal page that Alicia Wallace of Equality Bahamas has created.
