Help Wellbeing of Puerto Rico's Earthquake Victims

On January 7, 2020, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake shaked the island of Puerto Rico. The southern part of the island was severely affected, hundreds of families lost their homes and thousands were sleeping in the outdoor, afraid of another movement.  Strong aftershocks occur every day.  Many people lost their jobs, kids could not return to school, families were living under tents, sleeping in their cars.  Even though our organization is located at the northern part of the island, we wanted to make a difference in the lives of those suffering.  We were seeing that their emotional state was weak, and anxiety was escalating. For five weeks during January and February Casa sin Fronteras traveled to several towns in the south like Yauco, San Germán, and Lajas to bring our psychology, counseling and Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) services. 

We visited these makeshift community shelters where several families gathered in the open air, afraid that their homes will succumb over them during another quake at night.  Because of the improvised nature of the shelters, they were not receiving any government help. Our team worked with families, had DMT sessions with children, talked to adults, listened to their fears, taught them stress and anxiety coping strategies.  For example, during a DMT session, a couple of girls ages 5 and 6 started singing the song “Let it go” to the top of their lungs and then told the story of what happened when the big earthquake striked.  The girl had to shake her mom to move because she was paralyzed by shock.  The therapist taught them strategies for fear management during a disaster and guided them to plan for future events.  At another shelter three families were living together for several weeks and when one of them decided to move to the US, some of the teenagers were angry and others were sad.  The therapist worked with the families so they could express their emotions and improve their relationships. These are examples of the situations our team experienced during the visits to the South.

Meanwhile, in the North part of the island our Counselor met with groups of teenagers, and parents to talk about managing fear, about what to do during earthquakes and how to keep yourself together during the event to be able to cope and help others.  The DMT Therapist worked with the children of those parents, talking about emotions and giving them strategies to manage anxiety and free time while out of school.  Also, the Counselor and Psychologist were working with people individually at the office.  Our regular services were not interrupted, throughout all this time. 

During our last visit to the south, the families from the shelters we visited were either going back to their homes, relocating with family members, or moving out of Puerto Rico.  The shelter areas were going to be abandoned. For this reason, we decided to end up our visits to the South.  We are grateful for the opportunity to get to know these families, to serve them, and make a difference in their lives.  Casa sin Fronteras continues to work for the welfare of communities through our programs and resources.