One year after Beryl: Stories of recovery, resilience, and rebuilding lives

"After the hurricane, when I saw the island, it was like a strange place to me. It looked strange because everything had just disappeared." - Jady Forde, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

When Hurricane Beryl tore through the Caribbean in July 2024, it left behind a trail of destruction that changed lives overnight. Homes were flattened, roads washed away, and communities disconnected from the rest of the world. But perhaps even more devastating than the physical destruction was the emotional weight that settled in its wake especially for families who lost not only their shelter but their sense of safety.

For Jady Forde, a mother in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the hurricane turned her familiar neighbourhood into something unrecognizable. “It looked like a strange place,” she recalls. Yet amid the destruction, there was a spark of hope: a food kit from the World Food Programme (WFP). Inside were basic items macaroni, canned fish, rice. Enough to cook her family’s first meal since the storm.

“The kitchen had flooded, and our feet were sore and wrinkled from standing in the water,” she said, describing how she waded through to prepare dinner. “But we were happy. We were eating together again.”
Within days of the storm, WFP had mobilized 5,000 food kits for the hardest-hit families, with support from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and in partnership with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and national authorities. Temporary storage units were set up on Union Island, Saint Vincent, and Carriacou, Grenada to safely store and distribute food and other relief items. These mobile logistics hubs provided a lifeline during the most critical moments.

But recovery was never just about supplies, it was also about healing.
In Carriacou, Grenada, the trauma ran deep, particularly for women and girls. The Ministry of Carriacou & Petite Martinique Affairs, with support from UN Women through the Global Affairs Canada-funded Build Back Equal Project, launched the Safe Space Initiative to respond to the emotional aftermath. Designed for women and girls between the ages of 7 and 17, and 18 and older, the programme offered something invaluable: a safe place to talk, to cry, to create, and to begin to heal.

“We needed a space for our girls and women to process what they were going through” explained Nadina Williams, Programme Manager at the Ministry. “By providing a supportive and secure environment, we aimed to empower them to help them feel seen again.”

Over three months, the Safe Space Initiative hosted support circles, trauma recovery workshops, and information sessions on sexual and reproductive health, housing services, and Gender-based Violence (GBV) support. These sessions did not just meet immediate needs; they opened doors to longer-term empowerment.

The experience also underscored a critical lesson: response efforts must include systems that protect women and girls, even during the chaos of a disaster. That’s why, with support from UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund, Grenada has since accelerated the development of a shock-responsive GBV referral pathway. The goal is clear: no woman or girl should be left without protection or support when the next tropical storm or hurricane comes. UN Women through the BBE Project also supported Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to establish its first national inter-agency GBV task force to drive coordination of essential service providers and key stakeholders.

A year later, the debris has mostly cleared, but the journey to recovery continues. Across Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and other affected islands, families like Jady’s are slowly rebuilding their lives brick by brick, meal by meal and, conversation by conversation.

Their stories are reminders that in every hurricane or extreme weather event to hit the Caribbean, there are quiet acts of resilience. That behind every food kit, every support circle, every logistics hub, are people: mothers, daughters, neighbours finding strength in the middle of heavy loss.

As we hit one year post Beryl and the 2025 hurricane season begins, the region stands better prepared, but the real preparedness lies in the spirit of our people.

Throughout the response, the UN Resident Coordinator served as the lead representative of the United Nations, advocating for international support, mobilizing emergency funding, and ensuring that recovery efforts remained people-centred and inclusive. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs role in supporting humanitarian coordination and preparedness in the Caribbean in collaboration with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency has been critical linking regional and international systems to meet local needs, particularly in multi-island context like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada.

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This story was first published by UN Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.