Former police chief details volunteer time in Jamaica

In early October, former Winnipeg police chief Devon Clunis was back in his native Jamaica, volunteering with a humanitarian organization to support three schools.

But only weeks after he left, Hurricane Melissa tore through the island, battering the hard-hit western region where he had been working and damaging the very schools he’d just helped.

Now, Clunis — who was in Mexico on business this past week — is waiting for the right time to return.

“We don’t quite have the full scope, but we are in regular contact with the people in those specific areas,” Clunis, who served as police chief from 2012 to his retirement in 2016, told the Free Press on Saturday. “Some are just getting back to school now in some locations. I just saw that some schools are going to have tent schools now, because some of the schools were significantly damaged.”

Clunis, whose family lives in Harmony Vale on Jamaica’s relatively unscathed northeastern coast, said it’s important for outsiders to stay away for now to give cleanup crews, support workers and local builders the space to do their jobs safely and efficiently.

“We don’t need people flooding the island,” he said. “So let’s work with the people that are there and support them until we can get back on the ground in Jamaica. We don’t want to put more stress. I know that many hotels were out of commission for a period of time. Some of the hotels are housing staff and families.”

Clunis travelled to Jamaica with Great Shape! Inc., a humanitarian organization founded in 1988 that provides dental and eye care, literacy programs and computer training for children.

About 80 volunteers took part in the two-week trip, including several from Winnipeg. Together, they helped set up 200 computers donated to the schools and worked closely with students on literacy and learning. Clunis brought copies of his 2017 children’s book, Little Boy From Jamaica: A Canadian History Story, which he co-wrote with his wife, Pearlene.

“Many of the students there have just the basic literacy, understanding the alphabet, and you could see a huge transformation in those two weeks in some of those kids where they could understand words, the ability to read,” Clunis said. “Education unlocks the potential, the future for any child.”

He said many Jamaican children face steep challenges compared with students in Canada. The learning infrastructure is limited — some classes are held in open-air schools where temperatures regularly hover above 30 C, while others are crowded with too many students and too few resources.

“It’s not the easiest learning environment,” he said. “It’s a totally different socio-economic culture that really impacts the learning abilities, especially if a student is already struggling to start.”

Meanwhile, Clunis continues to do a lot of police consulting work across North America, including his main focus at the moment: unity.

He feels its absence on both sides of the border, saying that while division is more overt in the United States, there’s a quieter, more subtle lack of togetherness in Canada.

“We’re diverse, we want to be equitable, but are we a unified country?” Clunis said. “Everything we’re doing right now I don’t feel that we’re unified. So that’ a big push for me. At the end of the day, we’re one people.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca