Rose Murray (left) is happy about her new roof. - Contributed

Several male and female community volunteers came out recently to learn the craft of roofing as part of the two-day Sustainable Roofing project run by the Women's Resource and Out-reach Centre (WROC), in Botany Bay, St. Thomas.

Some 35 residents came out on the first day to learn the theory of preparing roofing that would withstand hurricane-force wind.

On the second day of the training project, volunteers climbed the ladder to the one-room house of 32-year-old Rose Murray, an unemployed mother of five children, to completely replace the roof which had been left in a porous condition by Hurricane Dean. It was a learning experience for most of them.

Happy atmosphere

The atmosphere was happy, but happiest of all was Ms. Murray, who saw the new roof as a Christmas present.

"I glad for it and I say thank you to everybody," she said, "Two hurricanes came and lift off the roof. We put it on back, but it lift off again."

The workshop, coordinated by WROC Livelihoods Officer, Nkrumah Green, was the first in a series funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to provide nine communities in St. Thomas with best practices training in roofing.

Solutions

According to Mr. Green, "What we are doing is sustainable. At the end of the day; these activities will help members of the community to do this themselves. We are not just putting a band aid on the problem. We are actually solving it in such a way that they will always be able to provide this solution for themselves."

Many residents in these areas, he said, would be learning roofing skills which they could use to fix their own roofs and those of neighbours, providing future employment as well.

Stephen Hodges, consultant engineer for the WROC/UNDP project, who was also in attendance, said the knowledge about construction of this kind of roofing was something that householders and carpenters alike needed to know.

According to Mr. Hodges, carpenters, as a rule, proceed by the 'look- and-learn' method. He said not enough of them realised the measures that needed to be taken if zinc sheets are to be torn from the rafters of the home with every hurricane-force wind.