Social Impact with Emma » United Kingdom : A Jamaica Gleaner Blog

But…Can It Be Business as Usual?

April 27th, 2019

Perhaps it’s just me, but the year 2019 seems to have been one of considerable upset for the world. A second, extremely fierce cyclone has arrived in Mozambique (the first one killed over 900 people, although it hardly received mainstream media coverage). On the beautiful island of Sri Lanka, which I visited in late 2017 and […]

Her Majesty Still Has the Final Say, and the Man From Hanover is Not Happy

December 1st, 2018

I have always felt that there was much more to the small parish of Hanover than meets the eye. I went along to the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) recently for an event named Salute to the Parish of Hanover, and I discovered that I was right. We in the audience (I wish the beautiful IOJ Lecture Hall […]

The Country As A Child

September 4th, 2017

This morning, I read a powerful quote on Facebook, from Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945): Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our […]

Since Everyone is Talking About Crime…

June 18th, 2017

It seems everyone and his grandmother is talking about crime, these days. Everyone, from the loquacious cab driver, to the politician putting his foot in his mouth, to the all-knowing esteemed columnist has something to say. They talk about the causes of our high crime rate: Bad parenting – absent fathers, struggling mothers Slavery – […]

There Are Many Ways to Be an Activist

February 11th, 2017

Activism (and advocacy, its first cousin) is like a tree with several large branches. Like our guango tree. Each branch grows in a different direction, but each branch is strong. Or, to use another nature metaphor, it is like a plant bearing many seeds. Like our moringa tree. The seed pods fall, and break. Sometimes […]

Brexit Bytes

June 27th, 2016

This morning I was a guest on Television Jamaica’s Smile Jamaica with Dr. Jermaine McCalpin of the University of the West Indies. We attempted to make some sense out of the conundrum that is “Brexit” – last week’s referendum on whether to leave the European Union – despite the early hour. I fell back on one […]