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Podcast

Web Editor
The BVI Beacon

A first in the Virgin Islands, I produced a podcast from concept to conception. I pitched the idea, scouted the equipment needed, preplanned and scriped the episodes using Trello, recorded and edited audio with Audacity, and published each episode on Facebook, YouTube and Apple podcasts.

Listen here: Poetry Week, Black History Month, Ukraine War

Timelines

Web Editor
The BVI Beacon

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the entire world changed.

Fear, dread, and panic set in as governments and people scrambled to protect themselves while trying to understand how this new disease worked. As a front line worker reporting from the British Virgin Islands, I donned myself with homemade masks and full protective gear each time I went out to gather news and information. Like other reporters around the world, I was often the first to inform people and served as part of a government-adjacent committee of media partners that informed the public quickly and accurately during the emergency state.

Throughout the pandemic, isolation and disillusionment seeped in. The Virgin Islands took strict border measures and stayed relatively safe, but I wanted to show the public exactly what that looked like. For this reason, I created two timelines based off my own reported research and information gathering to demonstrate the succession of events both locally and globally.

My intention in creating these graphics was to reassure the people of the Virgin Islands that even through this intense period of isolation, that they weren’t alone. And though the measures taken to keep everyone safe were strict, that the government had their citizens’ and residents’ wellbeing in mind. I hoped to foster a better sense of trust and safety within the community while helping people visualize the pandemic (and their own place in it) in a personal way.

LDF Calls for the Full Implementation of President Biden’s Voting Access Executive Order Ahead of the 30th Anniversary of the National Voter Registration Act

Contributing Editor
NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund

This Saturday, May 20, 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)’s enactment. The NVRA aims to increase voting access by stipulating specific requirements for state governments to expand voter registration, a fundamental aspect of ensuring full political participation. Along with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the NVRA has been an instrumental tool in enhancing access to voter registration for Black and Brown voters, who disproportionately face barriers when registering to vote.

The NVRA allows voters to more easily access voter registration, including while seeking services at government facilities such as driver’s license offices, public assistance agencies, and state offices serving people with disabilities — many of whom are voters of color. In 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order to further expand access to voting in alignment with the NVRA, acknowledging the significant obstacles to voting still faced by voters of color and calling on government agencies to better support voter registration access for the people they serve.

Two years after the Executive Order was signed, many federal agencies have been slow to respond. In March 2023, LDF joined a coalition of 53 voting and civil rights organizations to publish a report assessing how federal agencies have responded to the order. The report estimates that robust implementation of the President’s directive to increase voting access across ten federal agencies could result in 3.5 million additional voter registrations per year.

(Read more here)

Prison farm rebuilding from Irma

Web Editor
The BVI Beacon

It was a slow day in Balsam Ghut after a morning rain — perfect nourishment for the farm located just outside the barbed wire fence surrounding Her Majesty’s Prison.

“The big problem out here is the drought,” said officer Michael Patterson, who oversees the farm. “We are approaching the dry season.”

Precautions have been taken: Drums of water scattered throughout the farm supply fresh water to the plants and livestock. Mr. Patterson said that the prison recently was able to harvest 200 pounds of bok choy, 130 pounds of tomatoes, 300 pounds of chives, and 70 pounds of peanuts.

Growing in little brown mounds toward the back of the farm, only a fraction of the peanuts planted have sprouted. The same rings true for many of the other plants growing there.

Onions just began sprouting and were re-planted soon after; herbs like thyme, parsley and cilantro are in their initial stages of growth; and many parts of the farm still need to be weeded and cleared out.

When the farm is further expanded as planned, the prison’s leaders hope the harvest will be enough to supply the facility’s kitchen with produce, and, eventually, meat.

“One of the new superintendent’s priorities is to restore and revitalise the farm,” acting Deputy Superintendent Mario Christopher said of Superintendent Verne Garde. “The farm is one of the main subsidies of the prison.”

(Read more here)

Covid-19, Meet Hurricane Season

Contributor
Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network

Ask anyone in the British Virgin Islands what happened on September 6, 2017 and you will hear detailed accounts about how they survived Hurricane Irma, the Category Five hurricane that killed four people, injured 126 and flattened large swaths of the 60-island archipelago.

“All we saw was white,” recalled Christine Ferreira, a native Trinidadian who has lived in the territory for over 20 years. “The roof was blown out, and when we left the room we were sheltered in during the eye of the storm, we were blinded by the light.”

Islanders here call their experiences “survivor stories.” 

Their resilience was on full display as they battled the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think after Irma, we all felt like if we can get through that, we can get through anything,” said Christi Maddox, owner of Villas Virgin Gorda, a vacation rental agency on the island of Virgin Gorda. “Once we saw that the season was going to be over for tourists, we had to help our staff. A lot of them went through Irma and they know what it’s like to be out of work for a while.”

Some 30,000 people live on BVI’s four main islands. The islands recorded only eight confirmed cases of coronavirus and one death.  Strict control of the border has helped keep the confirmed case number low, but sent the economy into a tailspin as tourism came to an abrupt halt.

Now British Virgin Islanders are trying to plan for two deadly scenarios: how to keep fighting the COVID-19 pandemic if or when hurricanes strikes.

(Read more here)