Share
Students from Every Child Counts before Hurricane Dorian destroyed the school.

When Dorian – the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas – threatened the little islô€€™nd of Abaco last September, most of its 17,000 inhabitants were evacuated.
It was especially difficult for Abaco resident Lyn Major. She didn’t want to leave behind Every Child Counts (ECC), the school she founded in 1998 for children with disabilities. ECC started with only six students, but has grown to more than a hundred. Lyn and her husband created the sd10ol out of need. Their two adopted sons have severe forms of autism and couldn’t attend regular school. Quickly they realized they were not the only ones. Many parents on the island didn’t have anywhere to send their children. Many kept them in hiding, ashamed of letting them out in public.

Lyn Major, founder and director of Every Child Counts, one of the few schools for children with disabilities in the Bahamas.

Says Lyn: “It took us 20 years to get where we wanted to be. We had managed to change the attitudes of the community. We were well supported and people began looking at persons with disabilities differently: They saw us as equal, valuable members:’

This is why the community they have built through the school is invaluable. It is resilient too. It suffered severe damage from the catastrophic hurricane, but with your ongoing help through Malteser International Americas, ECC will rise again.

It won’t be easy, though. Lyn said that Dorian scattered the community. It’s not just the buildings that need repair. Some of ECC’s teachers evacuated to Nassau – about 60 students are there, too. Others are in the U.S. and on other islands, but it is difficult for the students to adjust to larger schools.

Our long-term rebuilding efforts follow our initial response to Hurricane Dorian. You and other generous supporters enabled us to provide basic provisions, including food, water and hygienic kits. In partnership with the local parishes of Freeport and Marsh Harbor, we helped to support shelters and to import building materials for the rebuilding effort. Now, thanks to you, we are supporting the reconstruction of the ECC school because of its vocation to help the disabled. We’re also supporting the reconstruction of a Catholic school called St. Francis de Sales that was badly damaged by Dorian.

Malteser International staff assessing the damage at ECC.