标签： Jamaica

Four decades after a life-changing first trip to Jamaica as a 15-year-old teen, Ann Marie Keene has turned her decades-long love for the island, its people, and its iconic reggae and dancehall culture into a grassroots movement that blends artist development and community uplift. Rooted in a lifelong upbringing steeped in music and service, Keene left her longtime home in Minnesota, United States, to permanently resettle in the tight-knit Sherlock neighborhood of Kingston 20’s Duhaney Park, where she has quickly become a beloved fixture for local residents and emerging creators alike.

Keene’s connection to music was forged long before she made Jamaica her home. Growing up, the sounds of soulful, purpose-driven music filled her household; her mother was a working musician, with an extended family of traveling performers who counted legends like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Harry Belafonte, and Tina Turner among their favorite acts. “My love for reggae and dancehall comes from deep roots through my family and life experiences. Music was always in my blood. I grew up listening to music with soul and a message,” Keene shared in an interview with Jamaica Observer Online on Friday.

Service was also woven into her life from early childhood. By age nine, Keene was already working alongside her family in prison ministry, where the group did not only minister to incarcerated people but also extended support to their families, providing critical resources including housing, educational access, and emotional care. That early exposure to working alongside marginalized communities shaped her lifelong approach to giving back.

It was during a difficult personal period at age 15 that Keene first stepped onto Jamaican soil, and she felt an immediate spiritual connection to the island that never faded. Four decades later, that pull became too strong to ignore, and she packed up her life in Minnesota to put down permanent roots in Sherlock. It did not take long for her to fall for the community, and she immediately jumped into supporting local residents, with a special focus on the neighborhood’s emerging musical talent.

To formalize her work with artists, Keene launched Castle of the Valley Productions, an independent music label that prioritizes relationship-building and community impact over quick commercial gains. Currently, the label works with a roster of Sherlock-based acts including TuffHeart, Krvcial Ggod, Leanny Frass, Tenbrainz, and Thugras, among others. Unlike traditional labels that focus on building a large roster of talent for profit, Castle of the Valley centers on long-term, authentic connection and ethical opportunity creation.

Keene shared that the label was inspired by a personal turning point: her nephew Beckham Hardina’s life-threatening battle with illness, which taught her just how fragile and precious life is, and how families need far more than medical care to heal. “Families need space to breathe, to heal, and to feel loved without judgment. We’re building that through safe places, music, play, food, and water, lots of fresh water. Everyone has a seat at my table. We uplift the needy,” she explained.

After connecting with local recording artist TuffHeart, Keene made the decision to commit fully to advancing his career and the careers of other emerging local acts that aligned with her mission. “I left my home in Minnesota and came to Jamaica with boots on the ground for the music and for the mission with TuffHeart. What started as a moment turned into a movement,” she said.

When asked what draws her to the artists she supports, Keene explained that talent is only a secondary consideration. What matters most to her is that the artists are already invested in lifting their own community. “It wasn’t just about the music. The talent is there of course, but what really stands out is how they show up for the people and the community – humans-to-humans. These artistes engage with their communities, the children, the elders, they are present, they give back, and they carry a certain spirit. That matters to me,” she said. “At Castle of the Valley, we’re building more than music. We’re building character, responsibility, and connection. So, I look for artistes who don’t just want to be heard, but who understand the impact they have and use it to uplift others.”

Currently, the label is working on its upcoming collaborative project, the Castle of the Valley Nyabinghi Riddim titled 8 Ball, which features eight local artists and maintains an open platform for additional creators to join and grow alongside the movement. Keene even wrote one of the riddims for the project herself, emphasizing that the work is deeply personal and rooted in genuine passion. “For me, reggae and dancehall is more than sound; it’s people, it’s pain, it’s faith it’s joy,” she added.

Beyond her work with musicians, Keene is a constant, visible presence in the Sherlock community, building trust through consistent, hands-on philanthropy. “Sherlock is close to my heart. It’s about showing up and building real connections. We spend time with the kids and the elders, making sure people feel seen, supported and loved,” she shared. Every week, the community hosts popular events that bring neighbors together: weekly Wednesday movie nights in the community yard for local children, complete with a free meal prepared by the community chef, and “Sherlock Saturdays” that feature open live music performances for all residents.

Reflecting on her work, Keene noted that her current community service in Sherlock grows directly out of the service work she began as a child in prison ministry, where she learned the power of consistent, loving presence. “In Sherlock it’s about showing up consistently. The impact is real: the kids have a safe place, the community comes together, and people feel seen and valued,” she said.

On a devastating Friday night in Spanish Town, St Catherine, Jamaica, an out-of-control residential fire has shattered a local family, leaving one teenager dead and her older brother fighting for his life with severe burns – while their grieving mother issues an urgent public appeal for life-saving support. Suzette Campbell, a resident of 12 St John’s Garden and the mother of both victims, opened up about the harrowing moments that unfolded as she returned to her neighborhood that evening.

It was around 5:00 pm when Campbell first spotted thick black smoke billowing through the area. “I saw a lot of smoke and I thought, ‘Where is that smoke coming from?’ People told me it was from the house next door, so I knew I had to go check what was happening,” Campbell recalled. “By the time I got there, I watched my son run straight out through the flames.”

In the chaos that followed, Campbell learned the awful truth: her 14-year-old daughter Gabriella Wright had been trapped inside the burning structure, and could not escape. The young girl died in the fire, which destroyed every single possession the family owned. “Everything burned down, nothing was left, and my daughter was burned too,” Campbell said, her grief palpable.

Gabriella’s 25-year-old brother, Courtney Dailey, who managed to flee the blaze wearing only his underwear, suffered full-thickness burns across large portions of his body. He was rushed to a local hospital immediately after the fire, but remains in critical condition. Campbell says local medical facilities do not have the specialized equipment and resources required to treat Dailey’s life-threatening injuries, leaving the family with no other option than to seek care outside of Jamaica. “He has no chance here, the hospital can’t help him. The hospital can’t help my son at all,” she explained, making a direct public appeal for intervention from Jamaica’s Prime Minister to help secure urgent overseas treatment.

This is not the first tragedy Campbell has had to endure: family reports confirm she lost another son to a shooting roughly two to three years ago, adding another layer of pain to the latest devastating loss.

A family member who arrived at the scene shortly after the fire broke out described the aftermath as overwhelmingly distressing. “The situation is really intense. I was on the scene when it took place; it’s really terrible just to look at,” the witness said, noting the entire family is in dire need of financial and emotional support right now.

Officials from the Burn Foundation of Jamaica have stepped in to support the family, confirming they are already working to arrange the specialized overseas medical care Dailey needs. Stephen Josephs, a representative from the foundation, stressed that even with the severity of Dailey’s injuries, survival is possible if he can access the right treatment quickly.

“We have received information from a hospital overseas, and we are hopeful that this young man can pull through,” Josephs said. “But based on the extent of his burns, it’s going to take specialized treatment to save his life, so I am calling on all Jamaicans to rally around this grieving family.”

Members of the public who want to support the Campbell family can donate through the Wings of Hope Fund at the official crisis support charity website, or contribute directly to the public GoFundMe campaign set up in Courtney Dailey’s name.

During a Thursday parliamentary sitting of the joint select committee tasked with reviewing Jamaica’s landmark Child Diversion Act, the island’s top children’s rights watchdog has issued a stark warning: the nation’s flagship juvenile justice intervention is being pushed far beyond its original mandate, crippled by long-standing gaps in the country’s child care support infrastructure.

Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison told committee members that a growing misalignment has distorted the core purpose of the child diversion programme, which was specifically designed to steer children who have committed minor criminal offenses away from the formal justice system. Through targeted counseling, skill-building and rehabilitation services, the initiative is intended to give young offenders a second chance, preventing the lifelong harm that can come from entering the adult correctional system and keeping youth on positive developmental paths.

But Gordon Harrison said that in practice, the programme is now being flooded with referrals for children who have not broken any laws, instead presenting with complex behavioral challenges that require entirely different forms of support. Referrals for issues like chronic school absenteeism and running away from home are increasingly being routed through the diversion system, she explained, a practice that runs counter to both the Child Diversion Act’s formal objectives and globally accepted standards for child diversion practice.

To back up her assessment, Gordon Harrison presented parish-level data showing that a substantial share of all current referrals to the programme involve children categorized as having behavioral difficulties, not youth facing criminal accusations. This misallocation of resources, she argued, does not just weaken the programme for its intended population—it represents a fundamental distortion of the initiative’s original mission.

“Resources that should be reserved for children in conflict with the law, who are legally eligible for diversion and need these services to avoid formal justice processing, are being diverted to children who never should have entered the system in the first place,” Gordon Harrison told the committee. “This stretches the programme far beyond its capacity and undermines outcomes for every child involved.”

Gordon Harrison traced the root of the problem to the continued absence of fully operational therapeutic care centres, which were mandated under Jamaica’s separate Child Care and Protection Act to serve as the dedicated support system for children with unmet behavioral and mental health needs. Despite the passage of that legislation years ago, these specialized facilities have yet to become functional, leaving families, courts and social services with nowhere else to turn for children struggling with persistent behavioral challenges.

The failure to launch these critical facilities, she warned, opens Jamaica up to intensified negative international scrutiny over its juvenile justice and child welfare practices. It also forces the court system into impossible positions when ruling on cases involving children with behavioral needs: without access to residential therapeutic care, judges often have no choice but to place vulnerable children in correctional facilities even when diversion would be the more appropriate outcome for their specific situation. This practice not only violates core principles of equitable juvenile justice, she said, but also exposes at-risk children to harmful environments that can worsen their existing challenges rather than supporting healing.

Committee chairman and Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck opened further discussion on the gap by questioning how children with no criminal offenses ever end up before the courts in the first place. Gordon Harrison explained that the crisis is largely driven by overwhelmed parents who have nowhere else to turn for support with children whose behavioral needs they cannot manage at home. With no specialized therapeutic services available, these families turn to the court system for intervention, leaving judges with no viable alternatives to routing cases through the diversion system.

State Minister of Justice Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert echoed Gordon Harrison’s concerns, confirming that the gap in specialized therapeutic care for children with behavioral needs is a decades-long failure in Jamaica’s child care infrastructure. She noted that without these facilities, children are routinely sent back to home environments that lack the resources and expertise to address their needs, creating a repeating cycle of ineffective intervention that never delivers meaningful long-term improvement.

Dalrymple-Philibert emphasized that the problem is not new, drawing on personal experience working with child welfare systems across the country to confirm that specialized therapeutic centers have never been fully operational in Jamaica. For generations, she added, children with behavioral needs have been placed in general children’s homes that lack the training and resources to provide the specialized care they require. “This is a critical gap that has been left unaddressed for far too long, and it is past time that we prioritize building out these facilities to serve our most vulnerable children,” she told the committee.

The parliamentary review of the Child Diversion Act comes as Jamaica continues to work toward aligning its juvenile justice system with international human rights standards, and the emerging revelations about systemic misalignment and infrastructure gaps are expected to shape upcoming amendments to the legislation and future budget allocations for child welfare services.

Five months after Hurricane Melissa swept across Jamaica, leaving widespread destruction in its wake, hundreds of agricultural producers across the island are set to receive targeted, long-term support through the newly launched Isratech Resilience Farm Tour, a private-sector led initiative focused on rebuilding livelihoods and strengthening climate preparedness.

Organized by local firm Isratech Jamaica Limited, the program delivers hands-on support to farmers in targeted parishes, with no-cost access to critical resources ranging from technical farm assessments and irrigation infrastructure to seedling trays, enriched soil, and other core production inputs. Beyond immediate disaster relief, the initiative is rooted in advancing climate-smart agricultural practices that build long-term adaptive capacity for producers navigating increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

Speaking at the program’s official launch held at Isratech’s Kendal offices in Manchester on April 8, company Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Hodara explained that the effort was developed in direct response to unmet needs of producers who have continued to struggle long after the hurricane’s immediate aftermath passed. Agricultural recovery is not a quick process, Hodara emphasized: the damage inflicted by major storms extends far beyond destroyed standing crops, unraveling entire production cycles and shattering household livelihoods that depend on consistent harvest income.

“Farmers across the country took a serious hit, and while the hurricane happened over five months ago, recovery takes time,” Hodara said. “When disaster strikes, income stops, cycles are broken, and the road back is harder than many realise. What farmers need is not just relief, but confidence that they will be supported when they reinvest.”

The Resilience Farm Tour builds that confidence by bringing support directly to farming communities across the island, Hodara noted. Each participating farm will also operate as a local demonstration site, allowing neighboring producers to observe modern, climate-adapted agricultural solutions perform under real Jamaican growing conditions, creating a ripple effect of knowledge sharing across the sector. A key priority of the initiative is lifting up women in agriculture, aligned with the national observation of 2026 as the Year of the Female Farmer.

Georgette Henry-Morgan, a young farmer based in Manchester, where much of the hurricane’s damage was concentrated, praised the program, noting that local producers still grapple with severe long-term impacts including destroyed greenhouses and damaged critical infrastructure that has cut production capacity for many operations. The comprehensive package of resources and guidance provided through the tour, she said, will meaningfully boost producers’ ability to rebuild and boost output.

“We don’t just want to recover; we want to recover stronger. With the right support, we can build a more resilient agricultural community better equipped to face future challenges,” Henry-Morgan said.

Garnet Edmondson, Chief Executive Officer of the public sector Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), has formally endorsed the initiative, highlighting the critical role of public-private partnerships in advancing a more sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural sector across Jamaica. He noted that the Isratech-led program aligns perfectly with RADA’s long-term strategic goals to improve on-farm water management, empower underrepresented groups including young and women producers, and advance the country’s broader targets for agricultural innovation and national food security.