“I wrote my first song in Bequia,” wrote M.I.A. on twitter, and “these places have been my island away from my island for the past 20 years. The devastation is unbearable.”

Global Emergency Relief, Recovery & Reconstruction has received a generous donation from M.I.A.’s OHMNI Foundation& St. Vincent based Carib-Beans Superfoods Coffee House to support GER3’s recovery efforts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in response to the eruption of the La Soufrière volcano.

Having just completed Phase I: Ash Cleaning, Phase II: Homes Repairs is about to begin in Sandy Bay. Its main focus will be rehabilitating homes owned by vulnerable community members, but it will also include capacity building events such as a workshop on upcycling organic compost for farmers, a training on hurricane resistant construction techniques, and a cash-for-work program for practicing construction work.

The community needs much more than what we can currently support. We are actively looking for donations to scale up the homes repair program, to replicate the upcycling compost workshop for farmers and to ensure that the hurricane resistant structures training can reach as many members of the community as possible. We are also looking to upgrade the existing latrines to toilets and we are looking for funding to be able to build the needed septic tanks.

M.I.A. is a British-born, Sri Lankan rapper, singer, record producer and activist who wrote her first song on Bequia, the largest of the St. Vincent Grenadine islands. She launched an online fund-raising campaign to aid volcano-ravaged St. Vincent and the Grenadines. All of M.I.A.’s fundraising is going directly to the recovery effort.

CARIBBEANS: During the April 9th volcanic eruption, Carib-Beans Superfoods coffee house quickly sprung into action using the space as a base for packing supplies to shelters island-wide. The coffee house also raised funds to assist with daily shopping for the shelters. With the work done by JD and Eniye, Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. and her team reached out to them to work together in affecting more positive change during the very difficult time.