Jamaica Mini – Bluefields Rising

The Need

International Medical Relief (IMR) is partnering with Judy Mowatt Outreach Ministries (JMOM), the Sean Paul Foundation, and local agencies and community organizations to support Bluefields Rising: Health & Recovery Fair, taking place August 22–23, 2026 at Belmont Academy in Bluefields, Westmoreland, Jamaica. The fair is expected to serve 1,500 or more residents of a coastal community still recovering from the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Melissa.

Disaster response doesn’t end when the storm passes. In the weeks and months after a hurricane, the most urgent needs often shift from rescue and shelter to a quieter, slower-moving crisis: chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes go unmanaged when clinics are damaged or medication supplies are disrupted; lost identification documents and birth certificates block access to government aid and social services exactly when families need them most; and farmers and fishermen who’ve lost tools, boats, or land struggle to rebuild the livelihoods their households depend on. Left unaddressed, these gaps compound, turning a short-term disaster into long-term hardship for the most vulnerable, including seniors, children, and already underserved families.

That’s the gap Bluefields Rising is designed to close. By bringing health screenings, physician consultations, mental health support, reading glasses, education, and pharmacy services together with identity and government service assistance and economic recovery support, in a single coordinated fair, IMR and its partners are addressing the full scope of post-disaster recovery in one access point, rather than asking residents to navigate disconnected systems on their own. This integrated approach reflects IMR’s broader mission: providing sustainable health care, dental care, and health education in underserved and disaster-affected communities, in partnership with local leaders who understand what their communities need most.

Through this collaboration, IMR aims to help Bluefields Bay not just recover from Hurricane Melissa but build lasting resilience against future shocks.

IMR will be providing community first aid / CPR courses to empower individuals to save lives!

By joining the IMR team, you’ll help provide quality medical and dental care, deliver preventive education, and collaborate directly with communities to improve their long-term health. Clinics serve children, women, families, the elderly, and other underserved populations, and volunteers will play a vital role in empowering families to care for their loved ones.

From treating acute illnesses like dengue, pneumonia, and digestive diseases, to focusing on preventive dental care and essential pre-school physicals, your work will have a direct and lasting impact on the health of this vibrant island community.

Our Work

Bluefields Bay is a fishing community where families depend almost entirely on the day’s catch to get by. Education levels are limited, and even before Hurricane Melissa, many households relied on outreach programs and donated care to cover basic necessities. The storm didn’t create these vulnerabilities; it deepened them: boats, gear, and the income they generate were damaged or destroyed, stripping away the one resource families could count on while every other cost of living went up.

That compounding effect is most visible in health outcomes. Even with some access to community clinics, our teams consistently find lifestyle diseases, hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes going unmanaged, especially among seniors. Most residents earn at or near Jamaica’s minimum wage, so healthcare is rarely a line item families can afford to prioritize, and disaster recovery only tightens that math further. Prescriptions go unfilled or untaken, not from neglect, but because chronic, ongoing treatment competes directly with the cost of rebuilding a home or a boat. The result is a population that treats illness only once it becomes acute, rather than managing it before it escalates, a pattern that turns manageable conditions into emergencies.

Health education is central to how IMR responds. Beyond the medical and dental care provided on-site, our goal is to leave residents with the knowledge to manage their own conditions long after the fair ends, so that recovery doesn’t stall out the moment our teams leave. We’re also bringing partners who can address the recovery needs that fall outside a clinic’s walls: assistance applying for replacement birth certificates and identification, referrals to social service agencies, and blood donation support, services that matter just as much to disaster recovery as direct medical care does.

This mission is built around two United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In line with SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), IMR works shoulder-to-shoulder with JMOM, the Sean Paul Foundation, and local providers, strengthening the community’s own healthcare capacity rather than substituting for it. In line with SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), IMR is responding to Bluefields at the formal invitation of our local partners, operating under their direction and in service of needs they’ve identified, not ones we’ve assumed.

This Mission

On August 22–23, 2026, International Medical Relief (IMR) will partner with Judy Mowatt Outreach Ministries (JMOM), the Sean Paul Foundation, and local agencies and community organizations to deliver Bluefields Rising: Health & Recovery Fair at Belmont Academy in Bluefields, Westmoreland, Jamaica. The two-day fair is projected to reach more than 1,500 residents of a coastal community still working to recover from the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Melissa.

IMR will lead delivery of the Health & Wellbeing pillar of the fair, bringing physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and mental health professionals to provide health screenings and assessments, blood pressure and diabetes screening, vision and hearing checks, medication assistance and pharmacy services, and nutrition and women’s health education, care projected to reach over 1,000 health screenings, 500 medical consultations, and 500 pharmacy services over the two days. This care is delivered alongside, not separate from, the fair’s other two pillars: Access & Identity Services, helping residents secure birth certificates, national identification, and enrollment in PATH and NIS, and Economic Recovery & Sustainability, supporting farmers, and fishermen with tools, training, and resources to rebuild their livelihoods.

By delivering medical and dental care in coordination with JMOM, the Sean Paul Foundation, and the local agencies handling identity services and economic recovery, IMR is ensuring that health care isn’t offered in isolation from the other barriers families face after a disaster. A resident who receives a diabetes screening but can’t access the documentation needed for government assistance, or whose family has no income because a boat or farm tools were destroyed, hasn’t fully recovered. Bluefields Rising is built so that health, identity, and economic recovery support happen together, at one site, over one weekend, reaching an estimated 100 farmers and fishermen and 100 families in total.

This mission reflects IMR’s broader approach to disaster response: arriving at the formal invitation of local partners, working under their direction, and contributing sustainable health care and education in service of needs the community itself has identified.

Lodging/Transportation

The team will stay in safe, clean, comfortable accommodations.

Upon your arrival in Jamaica, all transportation to the clinic will be arranged for you.  Professional drivers, safe vehicles, and security are some of the many reasons to join IMR on a trip. Take in the beautiful Blue Mountain foreground views as you travel through the British-colonial architecture to the clinic, which may take you by the water’s edge for views of the breathtaking reef-lined beaches and rainforest, or right through the cosmopolitan area home to the famous Bob Marley.

Highlights

Those we serve and serve with will define this trip. In Bluefields, you’ll meet parents anxious to keep their children healthy after months of disrupted routines, and seniors hoping simply to be comfortable again after losing access to the medications and care they relied on before Hurricane Melissa. You will see a lot of humans in need, more than a thousand health screenings are projected over the two days alone, and it’s in those individual encounters, not the statistics, where this mission’s impact actually lives.

Extend Your Stay

You’re venturing across the globe. Have you considered extending your stay a few additional days to support this region economically? 

Itinerary at a Glance